Alla's Big Day

The morning was spent getting Alla ready for her party. She had notes to write and gifts to wrap. She had picked out gifts all on her own (maybe a very bad idea!) We had Sergei break the news to her that we expected her to wear a dress today. She was only upset at the idea of taking off her new tennis shoes. So, we agreed to let her wear those. (whatever!) I’m glad this wasn’t my first experience with clothing and teenage girls. I probably would have been so surprised by the attitude. Party= dress up, right? She wanted to wear her torn jeans (you know the kind you pay extra for...with extra holes?) But I could not face Bahbushka Lela with such teenager clothing. I thought she might stop the adoption. (I’m 1/2 kidding, but only 1/2) OK, she wouldn't’ have stopped the adoption, she would have gotten out a lecture for us all. Well, that happened anyway. Maybe Alla’s sun dress was too skimpy. (When you live in Odessa for however long we have been here, you get to the point where if you can’t see through the clothes, and a majority of your body is covered it seems extremely conservative.) I’ve heard people dress crazy revealing here because it’s a resort city and they are celebrating. A swimming suit is actually pretty conservative around here...and not at all unusual. (do I sound defensive of Alla? Yes, she picked out her dress too.)

We had a wonderful time at the lunch. I was so happy to get to meet all of Alla’s supervisors. I never would have except for Lela. The supervisors are not at the camp in the summer. Sounded like one of them had spent time camping with some internot students, but that is not the norm. These women are really in charge of being “mom” to these kids. They arrive at the internot about a month before the children return back from camp and they clean, paint and wallpaper the internot getting all the rooms ready for the children’s return. Once the school year starts the students are with their teachers from 9-2:30 at the latest. Then the supervisors take over until bed time (10). It is a very low paying job and a very difficult one. I believe it’s true that Lela helps to supplement their salary, but a typical supervisor is known to earn 600-800 G a month (exchange 5-1). This isn’t anything we should talk about, but our gifts of $20 to each of these women was a lot of money to them. That is almost a week’s salary- 100G. I brought them gifts from someone else today and so they were given nearly 2 week’s salary today. I’m so impressed with these women. They love Alla so much and she loves them. And she has had them for many years. Isn’t that amazing? Lena is in the same situation! (We will celebrate with her supervisors on Monday-Tania is hosting that one)

We are hosting a party at the camp on Sunday. I’m not exactly sure how that will go...they are not in their usual groups...so, we will see. The girls want us to bring fruit, something sweet and water.

Sergei spent the day at the Vital Records office. He had quite a tale to tell us today. I was so glad we weren’t waiting with him. That privilege was handled by his wife Vika. Poor woman!

I have been pretending that we will hit no snags on our way to court, but that is really not a given. It is not a given that court will go easily either. So, we continue to ask for your prayers. Sergei asked us today if we could fly from Odessa to Kiev as the trains are so busy this time of year. (whatever! I guess) I know some people refuse to fly that route, but is this plane going to crash the one time we fly? (keep praying!) I just feel like if we have survived the driving around here we are disaster proofed for flying.

It’s getting harder and harder to drop these girls off at camp. Tonight I just wanted to hang on to them. Well, I did, but they just laughed at me. Have I told you that these two fight with each other? No? Well, I’d never have known it, but “sisters” have trouble getting along 100% of the time. It’s fun to referee in English not having one single clue about what is going on...but you don’t need the language to understand this stuff.

Speaking of English. The girls have been working a bit on English each day. This was the first day the Lena actually got in there and repeated words,etc. She has been very shy about trying and I haven’t bugged her...so it was nice to hear her start.

Hey, have I told you that tomorrow we go to the beach? I wonder if it will happen. Sergei has to go back to Vital Records tomorrow...such a long complicated story that I know some of you would be interested in, but I’m not. Ask Jeff. He’s asleep so you’ll have to ask him later. We are with the girls about 12 hours a day now. Sergei says we can’t have them overnight. So, we just keep with the visitation. By strict letter of the law we shouldn’t even be taking them out of the camp, so we are happy for the leniency. Today we even got them without a paper! Definite progress from a couple weeks ago.

I’m so sad to be missing VBS preparation this weekend! I can’t believe I’m really going to miss VBS, but the court date I dreamed of coming through today didn’t happen and now with Tuesday at the earliest, add a few days and I miss it.

Please pray too for all the people working on VBS. What a huge gift they are!! Pray that God will be glorified the whole week.

Here are some things that aren’t givens:
Pray the paper work will get signed on Monday in Kiev
Pray that it arrives on the train Tues a.m.
Pray that vital records people behave themselves
Pray that the judge doesn’t do something wacky
Pray for the process after court....we’ll cover that later.
Pray for our bonding, that we really make great use of the remaining time.
Praise God our minor illnesses seem to be passing (haven’t really mentioned those!)

Thanks for continually keeping us encouraged with your comments and e-mails!