Vespers Saturday night was long yet lovely. Like the school, and many other places, it was still decorated for Christmas and the Christmas tree, lights and greenery were pretty in the dark candlelit service.

At the end of the service, I noticed Edjick, the boy with the sad face who said "I want mother " to me last year. He was looking at me with his sweet, sad yearning eyes and I considered putting him in my suitcase and smuggling him home on the spot.

After church, we returned to the hotel for a good night's sleep and in the morning, Mark had the helpful idea of prepping for our next visit by planning get to know you questions. We thought them up at the hotel over lunch which was a platter of delicious Ukrainian specialties: sausage, grilled pork, fried potato pancakes, varanickes, pickles and pickled tomatoes. Yum! (except the pickled tomatoes were not so yum to me)

We were greeted at the school by two happy and more confident looking kids and were joined for most of the visit by Edjick who just appeared and stayed. He is one of Ruslan's roommates and probably would like to be a brother.



We asked some silly questions and some serious ones. One was "who is your hero?" Ruslan surprised us by eventually coming up with Arnold Schwarzenegger. He explained that he saw a movie where Arnold saved his daughter and he liked that. When it was Andrew's turn, Edjick piped in that Andrew's heroes are the Power Rangers. We laughed because it's true. Nadia got very quiet and reserved and couldn't come up with anyone. I said that Mary Evelyn is my hero because she was so brave and joyful in her sufferings. They all remembered about Mary Evelyn, even Edjick mentioned that she didn't have hair. I showed them a photo I carry of her in my wallet and they looked closely at her beautiful face. Nadia said she could see the joy in her smile and it occurred to me that Mary Evelyn had something these children didn't have, a mommy, daddy and family who encircled her with great love her whole life so that even thought she had a great battle to fight, she did it surrounded by love. These kids have their own challenges and although they are cared for, they've had to endure deep rejection from their family. Tears started in my eyes and Nadia moved close to me.
Mark said his mother is his hero because she never says an unkind word about or to anyone. It's true- I wickedly tried to get her to say something not nice about Osama bin Laden and she found a way not to.

Later we went outside and the three boys had a snowball fight with Mark.



Edjick didn't have gloves so part of the time he wore Mark's and part of the time he wore mine. Nadia and I had a chance to talk a little with Luda translating. Nadia seems like a sensible girl. She said that everything will go well as long as they obey us. I agreed and wanted her to know that we are strict, but also loving. Nadia is worried because she is so far behind in school.

It was a good visit. With each day we've come to know and love our new children more and have been so happy to see how they are already remarkably open to receive our love. Andrew is Mr. Bundle-o-love nowadays, and even he was more reserved in his expressions to us at first than these two have been. Of course he didn't know us at all, and the two got to know us some before, but it is clear that happy times and lots of love are ahead for all.

Of course, they picked us out.




- Posted using BlogPress from my iPad