Galya's Tale

The Plan

2011-12-16T21:52:00.000-08:00

Today was "gotcha day" for Galyna. Three years ago today she legally became part of our family.

What an adventure it's been. I posted some updates of late you can find on the blog, but in summary the last three years have been an adventure for the five of us. Steps forward, steps backwards, steps sideways: always movement somewhere. In three years I think Galya has gone through about 18 phases, and I've gone through about 29.

***

I see our lives, sometimes, as being like climbing a mountain. There is a peak (often too short, but that's for another blog) toward which we climb. We encounter switchbacks and boulders - but see astounding views, and looking backward we often are surprised at how far we've come (or changed) through the hard work of the ascent.

It's not a perfect metaphor, but then I'm not a perfect guy.

***

The climb with Galyna is more challenging than with our other two daughters. Yet looking back I see how far we've come. Or, how far God has brought us. I am learning to be a better father, Shannon a better mother (as if that's possible!) I have seen my daughters struggle to adapt, yet shine brightly in those moments where they "get it." There is sometimes now unguarded joy in Galyna's countenance as she's starting to relax. She has stopped hinting at wanting to know how long she could stay. We have encountered situations where it feels like she's been in our family all along.

Which, although it's for another post, she has been in a way.

This is what the LORD says: “When seventy years are completed for Babylon, I will come to you and fulfill my good promise to bring you back to this place. For I know the plans I have for you,” declares the LORD, “plans to prosper you and not to harm you, plans to give you hope and a future. Then you will call on me and come and pray to me, and I will listen to you.

This is the word of God to exiled Israel, through Jeremiah. It was not spoken specifically to Galyna, but it still brings hope.

God has known her since before she was born. He had placed her with us before I was born. Jesus died for her before Ukraine was a nation. God planned redemption for her before Europe existed.

He had a plan for Galyna.

We don't understand it. Why did Galyna suffer abuse and abandonment? We don't know. But we have hope because God had a plan. Through it we grow, and through it perhaps Galyna too comes to the saving grace of Christ. This is our prayer. We trust God's love.

We have this hope - and can trust God's love - because when we look down the mountain, we see how far He's brought us. It is certainly not in our strength or any special parenting skills we have that brings us this far. Ask anyone in our family and we can regale you with tales of parenting mistakes, sibling errors, childhood failures. Nor can we say it's purely because we happend to adopt a Wobegon child. Although between you and me, she is a special girl.

It's God. He has taken a family which was unknowingly incomplete and brought to us our missing daughter and transformed all of us in the process, sometimes painfully, sometimes joyously, always faithfully.

He is good. Always.

So as we congratulate Galyna on her third "other birthday" we really thank God most of all.

We also thank you for your prayers, your support, your interest and your concern. You are all most appreciated!

God bless,

Ron

It's not bragging if you can back it up

2011-12-02T19:35:00.001-08:00

Just wanted to brag on Galyna. She came home today with a certificate for being a model citizen in her class. Apparently she was one of the top three in terms of the number of "you were caught doing something good!" "gold slips" in her class for the first trimester, so won the certificate.

Just a small slice of teh awsums, as the lolcatz would say.

[Adding this note on Dec. 14: Galyna also received her first report card which did not have any grade lower than an "S" - she is finally and fully caught up, school-wise, with her peers. This is a momentous occasion, and one of which she was deservedly proud.]
Blessings -
Ron

Picking up from where I left off

2011-11-27T21:08:00.000-08:00

Yesterday I started talking about what's been going on lo these past many moons. I'll pick up from there today.

Life in general:
Galyna got to experience a new side of life, too, this year attending her first two funerals. The first was a memorial service for Joe Szymanski, a family friend of Shan's family. Galyna had met him once or twice, but the somber nature of the service did get to her. Joe is one of a kind and is missed. The second hit harder - my grandfather passed away just shy of his 91st birthday this past August. Great Grandpa Joe was someone she knew a bit more, talked about quite a bit, and saw more often. This was also a full funeral, including visitation, mass and graveyard ceremony (including burial). (I'll blog more about that in a bit, when I'm ready...Grandpa Joe taught me a lot and is also very much missed).

These events were, while bittersweet (we know both are in peace) were also interesting to me as I watched Galyna - really all three girls - with their first taste of grief. We tried to explain what was happening, talk through the reality of life & death, and answer their questions. In some ways, though, it was most interesting to see Galyna's response. It seemed the sadness & grief drew her out somewhat more than we'd seen in the past. We weren't looking for encouragement at such times, but it was provided. She is finding ways to be open at times.

***

Galyna has also been continuing in her dance classes. It's been good for her coordination and motor skills, as well as giving her an outlet outside the home for gaining confidence. She enjoys performing as well as just the fun of dancing. Her recital is in the Spring...if you're local, let me know and I'll get you the 411 on the date/time.

She has also been taking swim lessons, which is also helping in the confidence and physical development. It's amazing the way her strength and coordination have improved - ahead of her other development, actually, which I guess I would have expected. She also likes to play outside, and is physical in her play. It seems to be working for her as she's by far the healthiest of the girls in terms of general illness.

***

We have been attending Grace Church since before we brought her home as long time readers know. Galyna has been doing well at church, taking part in Sunday School and enjoying the times my parents attend with us. She is very popular and liked - nay, loved - which has been a source of support & strength for us all. As far as things of faith, she is asking questions. As with all things, she is still working on understanding, and we're not sure how her background will affect her spiritual self as she grows. Needless to say, we just continue to pray she learns truth:)

***

At school & church, she is making friends well. Our only concern in that department is that she choose her friends wisely rather than indiscriminately. This concern is shared, of course, for all three girls. This is not a surprise as she is an outgoing girl who dislikes being alone. She has taken especially to a couple of girls, closing in on "bff" territory. Yay Galyna!

Looking ahead:
This winter we'll be looking at a potential 3rd round of surgery, which would be in all likelihood her last. More to come on that. We're also coming up on her third Christmas in the family (already? Time = flying, no?) and this is a naturally exciting time for all the kids. This spring we're planning a family vaca of a Disney cruise, and this will definitely be a first for Galyna which I'll report on here. Otherwise, we continue to grow, to take steps forward (and sometimes sideways or backwards) toward what we'll eventually be. But this is the lot of families, and I wouldn't change a thing.

Thanks as always for your love & support. Until next time -
Ron

So the last year...

2011-11-26T21:30:00.000-08:00

I'd say it's hard to believe it's been nigh on a year since my last post here, but I know me too well.

Galyna's tale hasn't ended, though, so I'd best be about the business of providing some updates.

Health:
This is as good a starting point as any. Galyna's second round of tissue expansion went exceedingly well. Her discomfort with the procedure was lower than it had been the first time through. She enjoyed being spoiled by the good folks at Shriner's once again. (I think she daydreams about further surgery so she can have ice cream for breakfast, do sand art projects with the nurses, and watch whatever tv shows she wants). Her hair coverage in the back is now about 70% or so, depending on what you consider as the baseline. Per the surgeon, there may be one more round to address a couple of spots on the front of her head, but we may be at the end of what we can do with the back; her skin can only stretch so much. That said, the difference between when we brought her home and today is amazing. With more hair, too, comes more confidence - which was a primary goal. We'll see what the surgeon says at our next appointment, sometime in the next week.

(For those of you who are of the praying ilk, this is also a potential challenge. We're not sure what this would mean for us, and wherever God leads is obviously fine by us; He has already blessed us more than we in particular deserve considering how many others need a lot more than we do. But our parents' heart is that if we can remove any barriers to her happiness, even if not yet encountered as hardships, we want to do what we can.)

School:
Ah, la escuela. She continues to make progress, and while still slightly behind grade level she is still closing the gap. There have been a few hiccups as she's started pushing boundaries a little bit - while also dealing with some fallout from her background. Galyna has a tendency to "study for the test" in most subjects, learning enough to get through the test, and then forgetting the information, or (in reading) getting through the pronunciation without paying attention to vocabulary or comprehension. These things will come as we instill within her the value of education, although this is proving to be a mildly unexpected difficulty. Those struggles aside, she makes friends easily and follows her teachers.

Family:
This has been an interesting year in terms of our family. Galyna has begun bonding a little more with Tierney, but sibling issues remain. She sees her sisters as competition quite often - quite understandable, considering, but for her sisters it's not something they're fully prepared to handle yet. One of the very few concerns we had when adopting Galyna was that the process would be difficult for her sisters, who were (and are!) very close best friends. It's been difficult for Galya to break through, either annoying Amissa by (as Amissa sees it) "stalking" her due to Galyna's dislike of being alone, or by pushing Tierney's buttons. But I may be making it sound worse than it is. All three girls have grown this past year, and do get along better. Tierney & Amissa have even learned through this a bit more about how to be open with us about what's going on, and about showing grace to someone still learning what it means to be in a family. For her part, Galyna is learning what it means to have sisters instead of other orphans competing for parents.

As far as our relationship with Galyna is concerned, the therapy helped move that along a little bit. She still shows signs of not having full moved through the preschool phase of development, so the play therapy needs to continue. Her progress, though, is noticeable. We don't want to diminish that progress. However, some frustration still exists. She hasn't fully moved past her RAD, and it is especially noticeable with Shannon. She doesn't show affection to Shannon except when asked to, and her trust that she is in a permanent situation isn't there yet. It is...hard, especially since she is showing some signs of softening with me. I ache for Shannon, who still wants Galyna to just hug her, or climb into her lap to snuggle.

Adding to this is the fact that in public Galyna shows few signs of this beyond occasionally being (still) overly affectionate with others (which, also, is difficult for Shannon and me to see; we want to encourage healthy relationships outside the family, of course, but it's not easy seeing the hugs you want being given to others more freely). This "public face" of things is different from our in-home experience, making it hard for some of our friends to understand some of our challenges.

That said - again, she has still been making progress. She had a difficult life, and is still adjusting to a huge life change. We are adjusting to a life change nearly as large. Things are progressing, and there are many more silver linings than clouds. We are really blessed as many things could be oh so much harder or more painful. She's still a sweetheart, still trying - and still growing.

This is getting long - and there's more, but I'll save that for next time.

Thanks for listening:)

God bless,
Ron

2010 - A retrospective

2010-12-24T20:45:00.000-08:00

Seems like just yesterday I updated this blog, but it's been a year? Wowza. Time has really gotten away. But I suppose that means there's much about which to write. So here goes...

...when last we left the story, Galyna had her second surgery. After the gauze came off we saw, much to Galyna's delight, increased coverage of hair. It was so awesome to see her excitement when she saw how much more hair she had. She took her restrictions well, and it was good to see her schoolmates continue to treat her well.

February saw our first family vacation in a long time, where we took a week in Florida with Shannon's best friend (and her family) at the Magic Kingdom. We'd taken the other two to Disneyland a few years earlier, but this was the first time for all three at the big park in Orlando. We stayed in an awesome resort as guests of Tom & Becky (Tom's in the President's Own Marine Corps Band, so we were able to stay on site) and overall it was the most enjoyable weekend we'd had as a family aside from the trip to Ukraine to get Galyna:) Needless to say, the parks were all a big hit with the girls.

This spring saw Galyna finish first grade. Her English is still improving, although she needed a 2nd summer of summer school to continue her progress. If she came to the US the equivalent of 3 years behind, she's probably up to 1-1/2 years behind. It must help having chatty sisters.

This summer was an interesting experiment. I returned to Donetsk with my church's mission team. Galyna had some anxiety and openly wondered (and went on record against this) if I'd bring back another child. I think she was relieved when I came back with only stories, pictures and souveneirs.

During the summer we were able to take Galyna back to Chicago for my grandfather's 90th birthday. It was a great time - we saw all the family, including each of my brothers (with associated gals) and spent some time with one of the finest men I've ever met. I'm very glad all the girls have a chance to get to know their great-grandpa.

This fall started 2nd grade, as well as a new adventure. We started therapy with Galyna, and have an official diagnosis of Reactive Attachment Disorder. There is a secondary diagnosis we may have to deal with too, as she appears to be symptomatic for attention deficit too (although that may be due to the RAD, meaning we need to treat the RAD to find out if she also has attention deficit disorder.) This is not at all a surprise as one of the key components of RAD is indiscriminate sociability. She has always shown greater affection outside the family (e.g., hugging strangers and non-family members much more often than those of us in the family) and refused to even show any unrequested affection until just recently. Having the diagnosis is a big win, though, and we are starting treatment which should resolve the RAD pretty much completely.

Overall, she is doing okay in school. She is still behind grade level but progressing at pretty much the textbook rate. Her behavior has continued to improve, although it offers challenges. Beyond the language differences (she is still not able to explain quite everything she's thinking, which makes diagnosing problems tricky) she still shows signs of manipulation from the orphanage days. Not unexpected, but she's good at playing to an audience (i.e., her behavior at home does not match that in other forums at times.) Her honesty has improved, though, which is another big win. We take it as a sign that she's starting to trust more in the permanence, as well as starting to realize that deception leads to trouble in a way honesty doesn't. The incidences of jealousy of her sisters have also decreased, and her oil/water moments with Tierney are fewer and farther between. In all, the three girls get along better - in fact, much like sisters. Over time, I suspect we'll get the rest of the way through the trouble spots. And, truth be told we are a lot further along than we were two years ago. God has been incredibly gracious in helping us to form into a family. We have far more ups than downs, although the frustration can be deep on all sides. The day her English is fully caught up will be a great day indeed.

Recently, Galyna also started round two on her hair restoration surgeries. The expanders are in and we'll start filling them soon. We're not sure if this is the last round or not, nor exactly how much restoration this will give her, but it should be of good benefit. It's amazing work, though, and we can't say enough about Shriner's. To get all this for free, by staff who are incredibly caring and gifted - God is indeed good. Our only complaint is every time we take her in she comes home with more gifts/toys; we're running out of places for them! And, sad as her history is, it is also nice to see people make her feel special - even in undesireable circumstances.

As to her faith...we're still not sure where that is going. As with the other two, she will obviously be free to make up her own mind. But I can't yet tell how much she believes vs. how much she parrots what others say. This is true for all the girls, but I think Galya's English makes it harder to discern. We only hope to give her the foundation to make wise decisions in faith as in all things.

Until the next time (and I'm hoping it's not another year) - thanks for your prayers & support. They continue to be a blessing to us.

God bless, Merry Christmas and Happy New Year!

Ron

Christmas & Surgery

2009-12-29T20:24:00.000-08:00

Well Christmas with Galyna part deux was a bit different from last year. It's amazing how much has happened in only one year. For one thing, Galyna now speaks quite a bit of English. For another, she now is very well aware that Christmas includes gifts - which she absolutely loves. Apparently it crosses cultures that it's harder to get kids to understand that Christmas is about Jesus than that Christmas includes gift giving. Either that or Galyna has assimilated too well into American culture!

She enjoyed the time of visiting family and unwrapping gifts. She also took part in her very first kids Christmas program and appeared to remember all the words. Unfortunately, she ended up on the far side of the choir from where I was sitting so I ended up not being able to see her as much as I'd have liked. (Her sisters did a bang up job too, which I sha'nt forget.)

Now that Christmas has passed, though, we came upon Galyna's second surgery date - yesterday. For those of you new to the story, Galyna had four tissue expanders inserted into her scalp a few months back in order to help grow some new hair-follicle-containing skin which can replace some skin grafts on her head. Yesterday they removed the insert, and stretched the skin out to cover the graft area. The surgery went very well, and although we can't see her scalp for the turban of gauze covering her head, we trust the surgeon did quality work. There is still a chance the tissue won't have good blood flow, but for now things are pretty good. Her spirits are up, she has energy and the pain is non-existent.

She'll be on restricted activities for another six weeks to let her scalp heal, which should take her up to the mid-February trip to Florida. That didn't stop her from playing Candy Land and basketball with some teenage boys who came up with a group of Iowans bearing new toys/games for the hospital. She enjoyed showing them how to do sand art, and throwing an inflatable ball around. She pretty much has the run of the place (not many other kids on the floor) and the boys pretty much loved her to death. Typical for a Stewart gal, actually:)

It was interesting, and a bit creepy, to hear that some of her initial grafts were placed directly onto the skull, with none of the tissue between graft and bone which would normally be there. It was a reminder that there is still so much we don't know about her former trauma or treatments. It raises a few risks of the tissue not "taking" as well as it should, but we'll just let God take care of that.

As always, thanks for the thoughts, prayer and encouragement. The challenges remain (albeit in reduced or different forms) and the benefits are growing. Our next focus is going to be working on getting her to understand that this family thing is permanent. She still seems fearful of having to go back to Ukraine after some amount of time. It's not fun, but I can certainly understand how someone who's been abandoned multiple times might be waiting for the other shoe to drop. It's amazing how many challenges resolve to reveal another set, all of which are understandable based on what she's been through.

That's the latest; I hope your Christmas was merry, and your New Year is a blessed one.

Gotcha!

2009-12-17T20:19:00.000-08:00

Hard to believe it's been a year already. We celebrated Gaylna's "gotcha day" today, a day late due to the girls' need to be at rehearsal last night. The celebration was marred a bit by Amissa's illness, but it was good to remind Galyna of why we crossed an ocean to bring her into our family.

It's been a fascinating, wonderful, challenging and blessed year. Thanks to all of you for your care, prayers and encouragement. It means so much to our family that you are sharing this journey with us.

God bless -
Ron

The First Autumn

2009-11-17T17:25:00.000-08:00

All is well with the Stewart clan with fall well under way. I figure it's been long enough that I should let y'all in on the latest happenstances & goings on.

The family is continuing to bond, a process that will take the better part of many years. Amissa & Galyna get along pretty well most days, although there is some friction between (rules-oriented) Tierney and (still-learning-the-rules) Galyna. We look at it as a great opportunity to teach Tierney grace & compassion while continuing to help Galyna adapt to her new family/culture. It's been a wonderful thing to see how the bigger family has led to growth in all the kids, not just Galyna. Seeing Tierney & Amissa, for instance, get upset at the local water park when some boys were teasing Galyna showed a deep compassion and love for their sister. (And seeing Tierney NOT deck the boys showed a growing patience on her part; there was a time in daycare - years back - where she hit a boy who was teasing Amissa. She was promptly put into a timeout. Later that afternoon, the daycare provider came along to see Tierney once again in the timeout spot. When asked why she was sitting there, Tierney said something along the lines of, "I hit again for teasing Amissa and then put myself in a timeout." I probably shouldn't have been as proud of her as I was.)

School continues apace, and Galyna is starting to pick up some reading skills. Her verbal English has long been ahead of her written English, which is natural. It's fun to see her starting to catch up. She's also popular at school and we see her giving (and receiving) many hugs from classmates when we pick her up at day's end. The only downside is she's on phy-ed & recess restrictions while the implants are in. It's a blessing to have teachers willing to be creative in helping her remain engaged anyway. Her favorite subject is art, and she's said a few times now she wants to be an art teacher. (Heh - as I type this she's pulling out colored pencils and paper. Call me Nostradamus.) If patterns hold, we'll have Tierney as our dramatic/performing arts daughter, Amissa as our gymnastics/swimming daughter, and Galyna as our visual arts daughter. Which should make logistics fun when they're all involved in actvities.

Galyna's treatments continue to progress. Her last hospital appointment went well, and it looks like the surgery to remove her implants will be December 28. That lines up well as it allows her to get through Christmas, as well as to recover in time to not miss any school. Of the four implants, we've finished filling two, and the other two are 1/2 - 2/3 full. To my untrained eye, the net result of this should be an improvement of hair coverage of 50%+. She's tolerating the saline injections much better now that we're finished with the two ports on her neck, which were always the painful ones. What I find myself wondering about is whether she'll want to go back for a second set of procedures when she sees the results of this one.

This is not to say there aren't still challenges, although things are smoothing out. The experts tend to agree that after 6 months you start to see real breakthroughs in bonding and we certainly have. She is starting to feel more comfortable, although there are still times it seems she's not sure of what's going on (or what's expected of her.) We have managed to work through some of the ... "survival habits" she picked up in the orphanage. As we come up on the one-year anniversary of the trip to Ukraine to bring Galyna into our family we remain grateful for the opportunity God provided.

As always, we thank you too for your prayers and support.

God bless,
Ron

Summer Wanes, Procedures Continue

2009-09-22T12:27:00.000-07:00

The past few weeks have been full of more ups than downs, and I'm sure some of you are curious as to how Galyna is dealing with both first grade and post-operative procedures.

Since we last spoke (ha!) here we've had a few new experiences for Galyna. Aside from the needles and saline (more below) we introduced her to the following:

Camping: Okay, she's been camping before, but this was our annual family camping trip to the Wisconsin Dells' Jellystone Campground. Yeah, it's campy (pun intended) but it's fun. Also, when you go over a September weekend you pretty much have the joint to yourself. On a side note, Tierney appears to be getting too "old" for this campground. I've been doing a bit of photo labeling and sorting of late, and watching how much the girls have grown...better stop now before I get eye moisture on my keyboard.

First Grade: this is Galyna's first year in everyday school. Last year she was in a couple of school-based programs the days she wasn't in kindergarten, but this year she has all-day/everyday class with the same teacher and classmates. Conferences come up Thursday evening, so we'll see how she's doing. She was fairly nervous about homework, although why that would be we don't know; her sisters rave about homework and want to get lots. Maybe she's hearing things from other kids!

The Great Minnesota Get-Together: I'm not sure Galyna has yet recovered from the incessant over-stimulation that is our state fair. From games and rides to food and animals, she saw more of pretty much everything than she ever had before.

Church: Yeah, she's been going since we adopted her, but this summer she was in the service on Sunday mornings since children's programming was a "one hour or the other, but not both" option for us. It'll be interesting to hear, as she gets better at expressing herself, how she perceived this.

I'm sure there are other things I'm missing, but this is already looking to be one of my (in)famously verbose posts.

On to the medical portion of our show. We've had the opportunity (challenge? distress? stress?) of a lifetime, twice since our last hospital visit, to inflate Galyna's tissue expanders. It can't be a good sign when she starts crying hard and tightening up long before I even pull the needle out of the packaging. What is hardest for her is the inflation of two ports on her neck (which inflate expanders on the sides of her head) and the discomfort caused by her stretched skin over the two days or so subsequent to each expansion. All of which I completely get. The last time, she even said she wanted to have them removed and forego hair for the rest of her life. Fortunately, the two ports on the top of her head don't cause her as much trouble, so by the end of the procedure she's generally calmed down.

Aside from the obvious pain/discomfort, there are also starting to be some aesthetic concerns. The expanders lift the scalp tissue, which makes Galyna's head look very "lumpy" and not round. She sees this as "gross" and "ugly." Which, again, I understand. It has to be so very hard for her to see what we do, which is the end game. Her immediate pain is the hard part, and knowing she won't fully grasp the benefits of this until months (or years) from now is difficult on all of us. But. We persevere.

We do this because the procedure is a blessing from God; Shriner's care has been excellent, and the gift of free procedures is humbling. We're not "fixing" a broken doll, but Shriners is helping us heal a hurt child. We don't minimize the pain she feels now, but we know she'll at some point have part of her past healed from this. We also persevere because we want for her the best life possible, and although we'd like to think she'd always be treated normally despite having physical differences we're not so naive as to believe that's reality. She's always been beautiful to us; we want her to be beautiful to herself too.

So as you go through your Thursday evenings these next few weeks, please remember us in a prayer. I'm sure Galyna will appreciate it, even if she doesn't know it's happening.

God bless,
Ron

Post-Op Update

2009-09-03T20:50:00.000-07:00

Lots going on, so it's probably about time for an update. Medically, we took a big step today when both Shannon and I were taught how to inflate Galyna's expanders. That's interesting. I spent some time working at a plasma donation center when I was in college, and as part of that job stuck needles into many people. It's a different experience sticking a needle into your own daughter. But I marvel at the creativity of medical researchers who came up with this entire process for dealing with trauma-induced hair loss on children.

Galyna was not thrilled, to say the least, with the whole needle part of the experience. She hung in there, though, and the tears flowed more slowly (and quietly!) once she realized it wasn't as bad as she feared it might be.

The process is to add more saline to her implants each week, then revisit the hospital in a month to gauge progress. Then we'll discuss when to finish the procedure by taking the expanded tissue and using it to cover the areas of her scalp which are currently covered by (non-hirsute) skin grafts.

In the meantime, she's on full restriction of physical activity at school. Both gym and recess will have to be monitored for her as she can't do anything to risk head injury. The playground, anything involving objects flying through the air, running, jumping, etc. That could very well be the hardest part for her, and it will last 2-3 months. Fortunately, the teachers at the local school are great, and will be helping to give her options that keep her engaged with the rest of the class, yet protect her head from injury.

Speaking of school, last night was open house night. Galyna (and her sisters) met teachers, hugged people not seen in months and displayed a bit of apprehension at the thought of homework. Well, Tierney and Amissa weren't at all nervous about that, but Galyna is. Her speaking is coming along well. She's to the point we understand what she's trying to say, but are correcting grammar and vocabulary. Her reading is behind, and she still struggles with focus on certain words and letters. But even there she's further along than she was before the summer. (Honestly, with a pseudo-writer/avid reader/grammar geek for a father - not that you can tell from this blog - and avid reader mother and sisters, Galyna has zero chance of getting through life unable to read and write. Whether she likes it or not!) We're looking forward to seeing her blossom this year as she gets into the swing of things.

There are other concerns we're dealing with, naturally, due to the nature of adopting a previously abused, different cultured, institutionally raised child into a family like we've done. The good news is the issues are new, meaning many have been resolved. Life continues to be an adventure, and even in the tougher spots (squabbles with sisters, etc...) we wouldn't change a thing. The blessings outweigh the pain, and even the pain is a blessing at times.

I could go on about how pain can be used for evil, or it could be a necessary part of restoration, healing and redemption. But that's a bit deep for an 11:00 pm post. As always, thanks for prayers, support and love.

It's greatly appreciated. Always.

God bless,
Ron

Surgery Day

2009-08-24T19:11:00.000-07:00

So today was the big day! Well, one of many big days for our little Ukrainian dochki. I'll assume you have read (if not, please do!) the back story in prior posts, so let's sum up and zoom ahead.

A few months ago we found that Shriners accepted Galyna's case. The procedure they would perform is called tissue expansion, which is basically the placing of saline-filled "balloons" under the scalp in areas where she has hair coverage. The amount of saline is increased over time, which stretches the skin. After a while, there is sufficient extra skin, with hair follicles, to cover areas on her scalp where there is no hair currently.

It's genius, really, and especially effective for this type of situation.

We showed up at the hospital today ~ 8:00, and the two-hour pre-operative process was fairly straightforward. There was a quick shower (did not see that on the pre-op prep instructions, or we'd have done that at home last night), the taking of vital signs and the ceremonial (or not) shaving of her head. After that we went into pre-op, where she was allowed to select her own scent (strawberry-kiwi) for the happy-sleepy gas, as well as the color for her bandages (pink.) From there the surgical team took Galyna into surgery, Shannon took Tierney & Amissa to their cousin's for a few days and I headed to the waiting room. Just under three hours later, Shannon returned and Galyna came out of surgery. The timing was propitious; they waited until Shannon and I ran down to the cafeteria for a quick lunch to let us know we could go see her:)

They placed four tissue expanders in her scalp, and clipped off one smashed fingernail (another trauma from her prior life.) As I type this, roughly 4 hours after she came out of surgery, she is just now starting to awaken. She's nibbling on crackers, watching cartoons and coloring her very own floppy hat. She's also going to color a baseball cap for her bear, Ashley, who kept her company through surgery. Loyalty like that must be rewarded.

The rest of this evening will be some more clear foods, rest, cartoons, rest, visits from my folks and maybe another friend or two, followed by more rest. They have placed Galyna on a PCA drip, which allows for her to get a boost of pain killer if she needs it, but so far she's been showing no signs of pain. Post-op narcotics and residual anesthesia seem to be taking care of that. Her energy will return in fits and starts, and in about 48 hours she should be back to completely normal.

The next event in the process is a follow-up appointment in early September where we learn how to add saline to her expanders. That will be interesting. My prior experience at a plasma donation center will come in handy, although I never had to stick a relative before. I just hope to earn some good brownie points by not having my wife do it.

Thanks, as always, for the thoughts, prayers and support. They are definitely felt and appreciated. With the way we've seen God work through all this it's obvious they are effective too.

God bless,
Ron

Surgery Day

2009-08-23T23:00:00.000-07:00

Hello again -

Thought I'd catch you up, albeit briefly, on today's goings on. We take Galya down to Shriners hospital today ~8:00, and she goes in for surgery ~10:00. The procedure should take a couple of hours, and she'll be in the hospital for at least one, possibly two nights afterwards.

I'll be back again later to let y'all know how it goes:)

God bless -

Ron

The Latest From the Good Doc's

2009-07-02T14:47:00.000-07:00

Today was step two in the process over at Shriner's. Galyna had a physical and a surgery consult. The surgeon took some more pictures, measured her scalp and walked Shannon through the procedure. Looks like Galyna will have four tissue expanders inserted the first go around.

We're still fairly sure that Galyna doesn't understand what the procedure will be like. Primarily because we haven't given her much detail yet; we want her to enjoy as much of summer as she can without a fear of another surgery in her too-young-for-this life. (Actually, nobody's ever really "old enough" for what she's been through.) You can tell she's nervous, though, as she gets squirmier than usual, and giggly. I'm not sure what her memories of surgery in Ukraine were like. We trust her experience here will be better, but if she has no memories of the past operations, or if those memories are bad, she'll have added fears going into it.

She is, as we know, healthy. She survived a blood draw, although there was much crying before the needle was even brought out. Promises of ice cream and the ever present toys were enough to calm her down.

Tierney and Amissa joined us for the excursion, which likely won't happen again. Delays led to a four + hour visit. We wanted them to see, and be somewhat familiar with, the hospital environment. They enjoyed the toys and games in the lobby, as well as the not-so-horrible cafeteria food. But it ended up being a long day.

So surgery is scheduled for August 24 ~ 10:00 a.m. There's one more physical, but that's the big day. Between now and then we have to also come up with the optimal way to get her to a better understanding of the procedure and the short-term impact to her life from it. She'll have to deal with no hair for a while, some discomfort when the expanders are filled and some obvious bulges in her scalp as the expanders, well, expand. This is an awful lot for a pretty little girl to deal with, but if there's anything we've learned about her it's that she's a survivor.

Thanks as always for the prayers and support. It is so very good to know we're not in this alone.

God bless,
Ron

June-ish Update

2009-06-17T10:48:00.000-07:00

Greetings loyal reader, stopping by once/fortnight to see if I've gotten around to actually posting any updates hereabouts. We have some news related to Galyna, some of it more timely than others.

I'm currently in the midst of an experiment. Take Shannon out of the country (to India, to be precise) for 15 days. Add one mama's girl who has yet to spend a night away from both her adoptive parents. Stir in a daycamp for her sisters and a need to work from home for her father. Observe how she handles the relative alone-ness and quiet of the house.

So far? So good. She's handled it with aplomb, although there has been some help in the form of Grandma and Grandpa O'Malley visiting Sunday through Tuesday of each week so I can get some office time. I think she likes the time alone with us too.

She survived the school year well enough, although she will need summer school. Her focus is more sporadic than that of her sisters, so she still doesn't have her letters down. Her verbal English is far ahead of her written, which doesn't surprise. She also seemed to enjoy being at school - although her dinner conversation usually related about recess and lunch more than the three r's.

Her general behavior has improved as well. Galyna seems to be getting better about understanding "the rules" and is conforming to them better. There are still a few side-effects of her background and delayed development we need to work through, but progress is definitely being made. Early on (as I think I mentioned) it seemed she was working her way up the developmental ladder in two-week increments, pushing new boundaries pretty regularly every 14 days. In the past couple of months, that has leveled off quite a bit. One of the things we were told often was that there was usually a big step forward in stability ~ 6 months in. That seems to be right on track.

We also took her on the first road trip to Chicago so she could meet my Mom's side of the family. She very much enjoyed that, and even got along famously with Grandpa's dog. Galya's not been much of a fan of dogs at all, so that was good progress to see. Overall, her skittishness and propensity to flinch away from movement have decreased. I count this as a growing comfort level.

Oddly enough, another sign that tells me I think she's growing more comfortable with us is that she's started talking about her life in Ukraine more. She speaks of how she misses her friend Katya, how she wants to go back and visit, and how she wants to see pictures. This past weekend, she even started talking about her "mommy and daddy" (really, her guardians since she never knew her birth parents in Ukraine) and how her mommy mistreated her. Even this story had new elements as Galyna spoke of being put in very hot water, then being put with the pigs. I have no idea if this is memory or if this is just her repeating what she heard others say about her story. The hot water is a new element, but it would make sense to this medical layman; her scars never seemed quite consistent with just animal bites to me. But again, I'm no expert.

Either way...still ticks me off to know how she used to be treated. And, we'll likely start her into counseling sooner than originally thought so she can work through these in a more healthful way. I also see some new work in helping her understand the concept of family, and what it means to have a mother and father. She still seems to think that those are the people taking care of her. That too will come with time. Really, though, I look at this as a positive. She feels comfortable enough with us and her stability that she can talk about Ukraine again.

Progress is coming in unpredictable fits and starts, but it is coming. Next big milestone is the July 2nd visit to Shriner's. I'll update for sure then, if not sooner.

Thanks for your patience!

God bless -
Ron

Adopting a Sibling

2009-04-09T09:08:00.000-07:00

Our eldest daughter, Tierney, wrote an essay for school on adopting Galyna. She gave me permission, as proud papa, to show off her writing chops. So, without further ado...

Adopting A Sibling
by Tierney Stewart

Adopting a sibling can change your life. It can change your life because they don't know your family ways or how they act. It also changes your life because there's another family member to be with and love. It can also change your life because there's another voice laughing when there's a joke. That's how your life changes once you adopt a sibling.

She has to learn our family ways. One time she dug her chin into my arm, and lots of times when she's upset she makes mean glares and faces at Amissa and I. Sometimes she STOMPS to her bed when she's upset and just lays there while she cries. And whenever she has a straw, she slurps and makes bubbles in her drink. That's why she needs to learn our family ways.

There's an extra family to love. Because there's another person in the house, there's another person to live with, and one other family member to snuggle with. And another person to laugh and have fun with. Now there's another family member to love.

There's lots more laughter. She's funny and makes funny faces. There's another voice laughing when something funny is going on. And somtimes she says funny words or talks in a funny voice. That's how there's lots more laughter.

It's hard work adopting a sibling. There's another person to live with, another voice laughing when there's a joke. And there's another person to snuggle with and love. It's rough and lots of hard work, but I'm so GLAD she's in MY family!

***
I like this essay because it gives some insight into what Tierney felt about the adoption. I typed it as she wrote it; this is unvarnished eight year old. And like any good writer, she left the best for the very end.

The Consult

2009-04-03T15:00:00.000-07:00

As I noted earlier, we had our first consultation with the folks at Shriner's yesterday. This is a hospital which specializes in treating children who've suffered burns or physical trauma. The trick is that they do not charge for services rendered so they are not able to take on all cases.

We sent in our application and photos a couple of weeks ago, and the initial screening appointment was set for yesterday. The surgeon took a look at Galyna's scalp, and they took some pictures. We didn't talk much about her other scars, but the surgeon (and this is the good part) said he thinks they have a reasonable chance to help with her scalp. So, we're in - at least for another step. July 2nd we'll go back and Galyna will have a more thorough exam and physical before scheduling surgery.

It looks like the approach on Galyna's scalp will be to use a process known as tissue expansion. In a nutshell, small "balloons" are inserted under her skin, and over time are filled with salinated water to expand the skin. This "extra" skin is then used to replace what is now the grafted area.

Downsides: discomfort, length and number of treatments, shaved head required, appearance is altered as the balloon inflates.

Upside: long-term best way to get hair coverage as it uses scalp skin (with hair follicles) for the coverage.

So, while it doesn't appear to be easy or simple, it seems the most effective.

That said, it's easier for us to contemplate than for her, I'm sure. We haven't yet (but we will when surgery is scheduled) talk with her about the procedure. She was obviously very nervous to the point of giggling through everything just having a doctor there. It helped that there were no needles, but I'm sure she remembers some of her past surgeries. In Ukraine she had surgery on her scalp last spring, so hospitals in general can't be exciting for her.

So, as far as our concerns go, dealing with her post-surgery healing and with filling her expaners from time to time (yes, they will trust us to do this!) and her overall antipathy toward all things medical would top the list. The one we had been worrying about - whether Shriner's would take on her case - seems to be behind us now.

God is good:)

God bless,
Ron

Big News!

2009-03-28T21:39:00.000-07:00

We have an appointment at Shriner's next Thursday! Hopefully things will go well, which to our minds means (a) they can help Galyna, and (b) they will. Apparently Shriner's is picky about who they take on - and I can't blame them - so we will patiently await their opinion. I'll post another update after we visit the doctors there.

That's the big news. Other news...Galyna likes staying at Grandma and Grandpa O'Malley's house. First nights away since we brought her home went well - although technically she was not alone. All of us went on the getaway, which was nice. I hadn't been up to the in-laws' place in over a year and I enjoy the quiet of the lake place. (Okay, it's quieter when the girls are asleep, but still.) There are so many more stars visible, the company is fantastic...even the drive is nice. Shannon and I each believe we're blessed to have two sets of great in-laws. And the girls love having two sets of fantastic grandparents.

Well, Galyna has three sets as Gib and Tina are honorary grandparents, having been the ones who brought back her story and having been so loving, encouraging and helpful during this whole endeavor.

When Galyna was asked in Ukraine what she thought America would be like she said, "family." In that way, she's been blessed even more than she knew.

God bless -
Ron

The Latest...

2009-03-11T12:37:00.001-07:00

So, some new things for the Galyna-interested out there.

Galyna has started her first sports involvements, taking gymnastics and soccer (wait, since she's European, we'll call it football.) We're hoping these help her with her large motor skills and environmental awareness as these are not well-developed in her yet. For instance, she fell over once from waving at Shannon and saying, "hi mommy!" She's a strong child, and her fine-motor skills are good, so we think this is just a matter of exposing her to more opportunities to run, jump and play in places where there are things to climb on and things to avoid. On the other hand, this will probably lead us to a Thunder game this summer. No offense, but it can't be as fun as a Shakhtar game.

The first parent-teacher conference went well. Galyna is well liked, and learning much. Her English is improving to the point where we can understand her, even though her grammar is unpolished. If we've gotten to the point that we're making her rephrase requests in the proper grammatical form, we've moved past comprehension - which is a good thing. Her classmates are curious, naturally, about her scarring, but so far little to no outright cruelty. We're blessed in that.

Speaking of her scarring...we are working on the application to Shriner's to see if they'll be (a) able to take on her case, and (b) able to help remediate some (all?) of the scarring. We're particularly concerned with the graft on her scalp as it splits and bleeds very, very easily. We're not sure it's growing at the same rate as the rest of her scalp, or whether it's not thick enough. But we're also not medical doctors, so just want it checked out. If Shriner's is unable to take on her case, we'll start looking elsewhere - for both another hospital and funding.

Galyna is fully American. She is now often the first to ask to watch TV or play on the computer. I guess we can say she's acclimating to American culture quickly. You know it's bad when I, of all people, am the one telling her she wants to watch too much TV.

As always, thanks for your prayers and support.

God bless,
Ron

Updates R Us

2009-03-01T14:04:00.000-08:00

Did I mention Galyna is now a U.S. citizen? Well, she is and even has a signed letter from President Bush to prove it. Awesomeness.

I uploaded some more pictures to Facebook for your perusal.

This album shows pictures of the girls' dance recitals. Galyna was able to watch her sisters dance this past January, and I'm guessing at some point she'll want to take dance lessons too.

The second album shows Amissa in her traditional Ukrainian dress, which we picked up for her in Donetsk. I think I promised to share pictures of this outfit, so here they are!

The final album includes pictures of the girls at their "Jump Into Reading" awards ceremony at school. They all received medals for reaching reading (or, in Galyna's case, being read to) goals. Tierney and Amissa also entered thematic sculptures, and each won first prize for her age group. I was rather proud. Still am, actually.

Other updates on Galya: She's continuing to grasp English. She has reached the point where we can understand her fairly well, although obviously it's still a work in progress. She's settled into more of a routine, although she's still pushing a few boundaries.

She no longer wears her hat in public, by her own choice, so she's appearing even more comfortable in her own skin - literally. We will need to get her in to see a reconstructive specialist soon as the skin on her head is tending to split frequently. We think the graft there isn't growing as quickly as the skin on the rest of her head, which is causing more tears.

Galyna went to her first gymnastics class yesterday. She seemed to enjoy it, and is excited to go back. We think it will help her develop her muscle control and coordination, as well as provide an outlet for her energy. We have her signed up for soccer in the summer, too, so it's full steam ahead for the "typical American over-committed kid" immersion. (Kidding - the girls don't get too many things, even if they want them; we don't want them over-scheduled.)

Thanks for the continued prayer/support. She's growing and acclimating fast, and we see more of her personality bloom each day. To date, we're still very much ahead of the game with many more positives than challenges. God is indeed good.

God bless,
Ron

So where've we been?

2009-02-10T18:45:00.000-08:00

Life has been good of late, although challenges abound. This is not unexpected, and sometimes even not unwanted.

Galyna has seemed to adjust well to school. Her English is getting much better, and she is speaking very little Russian by now. We would say her English is at a toddler-esque level, with sentences structured like, "please Galyna has cereal?" She is learning well how to follow etiquette rules, like asking to be excused from the dinner table, saying, "excuse me," "please," and "thank you" appropriately. And best of all she likes school. She's even stopped wearing her hat in school, for the most part, meaning she's comfortable with who she is. There are a few kids who say things about her scars, but her sisters are quick to jump to her defense.

I think having her in school five days a week is helping her adaptation and her language skills. She's certainly getting more conversation practice than she would if she were at home. Play time at home is still more divided than not, as Tierney and Amissa play together using intricate and very verbal "scripts" they make up. Galyna isn't quite skilled enough in English to keep up, so she's often found coloring while the other two play. Tierney and Amissa do try to include her, but Galya self-selects coloring over play quite often.

She is popular at Sunday School, although we're fairly sure she's not grasping the concept of church quite yet. She enjoys going, and is happy to see her teachers.

The one surprising thing we've noticed is that she completely shuts down around Russian speakers, not even acknowledging them when they talk to her. Her translators at doctor's appointments, for instance, have not been able to get anything out of her; she ignores them completely. We're not sure, but we suspect there's a latent fear of going back to Ukraine. She's adamant about being an American, and her home is in America. She shows little interest in things Ukrainian, which I guess shouldn't surprise us. There are signs she's not quite sure this whole arrangement is permanent, and that would seem natural for those raised in an orphanage, especially those with an abusive/"neglective" background like hers.

Her emotions have stabilized somewhat, although she still flips switches faster than anyone I've ever seen in my life. It's fun to notice she is starting to feel more comfortable, although that comfort is leading to boundary testing. School and Sunday School teachers are seeing the brunt of it now, but we see some at home. She hates being told she's done something wrong, though (she shuts down or breaks down completely at any sign of discipline, even going so far as to try and ignore us and hope we go away - ha! not working with her Irish mother) so I expect this phase won't last too long.

Overall, more good than bad. There are frustrating moments, still, but she's understanding us pretty well. We're understanding her more each day, and as I said she's feeling more comfortable here. We hope that soon she starts to realize we're in this for the long haul, and some of her defenses will start to go down so we can teach her even more, and more effectively. Her smile and laugh are still contagious, and her sense of humor is starting to show. All in all, a good couple of months.

We hope all is well with you, and more will be updated as we continue on this little adventure of ours.

God bless,
Ron

Oh! One more thing. It's been fun too having people ask about our experiences. Sharing this story has been a blessing to us; if you have any questions at all, don't feel like you're intruding to ask.

2009: Year in Review (So Far)

2009-01-15T08:20:00.000-08:00

I can hear you asking. It's a bit early for a YIR post, isn't it? Only if it's the only one. So nag me if I don't get another one out in the near future.

When last we "spoke" it was Christmas Eve. Much has spoken since then, of course, but to avoid turning this post into the novella format for which I've become (in)famous among some of you I'll cover just the basics.

Christmas went well, overall. As expected Galya was overwhelmed by many gifts (well, for her many; for her sisters it was a smaller "haul" than usual considering our lack of Christmas shopping time.) The attention and meeting family members created some long, but very good days. She also really enjoyed the Christmas light displays we got to see.

During Christmas vacation from school, the girls did get some time at our daycare provider Joni's house. Joni's son happens, of all the coincidences, to be a fourth-year Russian language student at the U of Chicago. This was nice as we were able to have him explain school, and that we wouldn't just be dropping her at some faceless building ne'er to return. She also heard a translated lecture about the inappropriateness of hitting as a problem-solving technique. She is a high-energy and fairly aggressive child, we're finding. We've heard this is typical of Ukrainian children in general and orphanage-raised children in particular. This is understandable, but an area we're working to address with her.

After that most arbitrary of holidays, New Year's, we started Galyna in school. She was naturally apprehensive, but came back from the first day happy. Even better, she was glad to go the next morning again! We have her in all-day kindergarten two days each week, and then in two other programs designed to help struggling kindergartners catch up to the rest of the class. It's a blessing those two programs had space for her this late in the year, but we anticipate (and are seeing!) that she will learn English more rapidly than if she were just in school two days a week.

Since then things have been going fairly well. There are more ups than downs, though still a few challenges. This is not a complaint; far from it. We walked into this understanding there would be challenges, and nothing so far has really caught us off-guard. That said, a number of you are praying for us, and so I'll offer up some understanding of our challenges to date in the next post (he says, aiming to avoid novella-status for this one.) I'll also post some of the "wins" of the past few weeks, as well as an update from the physician. Oh, and if you ask nicely, I may get some more pictures up on Monday. The employer gave us MLK day off this year, so I'll have some time to catch up!

Thanks for your concern, prayers and support!

God bless,
Ron

Thanks Justin!

2008-12-24T10:13:00.000-08:00

Justin Piehowski at MinnPost posted a nice story about this blog today in his column today.

Please go read it - unless you came here from there, in which case, WELCOME!

And again, to all of you, Merry Christmas and Happy Hannukah!

Ron

Christmas Eve

2008-12-24T06:34:00.000-08:00

It's our first Christmas with Galyna, obviously. The highlight for her so far is the Christmas tree. We were able to find an acceptable one this past Sunday at Home Depot of all places. The selection was slim, but that's what you get when you spend the bulk of your time since late November in Ukraine. She and her sisters decorated the tree up nicely, and now the presents are starting to appear. With all the snow, it finally feels like Christmas too!

Frankly, with the focus in Ukraine being on the adoption, we missed all the ramp-up to Christmas. It's the strangest feeling Christmas I've been a part of in that until this week, I've barely given it a thought.

It should be fun to watch Galya open presents that are FOR HER! I can't imagine she's had many opportunities in the past. Everything is so very new, and adopting in the holiday season accentuates the newness of everything. It makes cramming in last-minute Christmas shopping worth it.

One of our challenges will be the time with family. This is not to say we don't want to introduce Galya to the broader family; on the contrary, we obviously do. But adoption advice we were given by multiple adoption "professionals" was to keep things low-key in the first few months so the child doesn't end up not knowing who he/she is bonding with, or so the child doesn't end up not bonding altogether. Low-key is impossible at this time of year. We'll be trying to manage it carefully. As we found on the way home from Kiev, Galya is willing to latch onto anyone being nice to her. That is fine to a point, but if it ends up causing problems with integrating our family...well, you can imagine we don't want to take that on. So balance in all things is key.

On the plus side, she ate all her veggies at dinner last night, even declaring them "num-num." I take that as a good sign having cooked said dinner. She's also picked up a couple of words in English. She can count to ten, say "hello" and "good morning" in the proper contexts. She still parrots more than actually uses words, but I can see signs she's working on it.

At daycare yesterday (which she handled with aplomb) the Russian-speaking son of the daycare provider did find out Galyna knows what school is, and so won't be surprised in January when we take her there. She also got to go sledding and ice skating. She'll be a natural-born Minnesotan in no time!

That's the update. Today is another chance to learn about this new family dynamic and our newest daughter, as well as for her to start meeting more family. We'll see how it goes, and as always pray it goes well.

For you and yours, I wish you a very Merry Christmas. As much as we are focusing on Galyna, Tierney and Amissa, this time of year is about remembering and celebrating another child and why he was born. Enjoy the season, the family and the traditions. But remember first the real reason of Christmas.

God bless,
Ron

Galya's Tale

2008-12-22T15:06:00.000-08:00

This is a story pieced together from informal sources. Much of what we know about Galya's background is hearsay at best, although from divergent sources so to some extent we feel like this story is fairly close to the truth. What we know for sure is stated, and what we do not know will be noted as such.

We do know, from her birth certificate, that Galyna Oleksiyivna Skora was born July 19, 2002 and abandoned at the hospital by her birth mother. From court documentation, we also know that her biological mother was a minor (we heard 17) at the time. According to verbal testimony, she is the daughter of a well-off family in the region, and did not want her family, especially her grandfather, to know about Galyna. Galyna was unplanned, unwanted and abandoned because her birth mother did not want to upset her family. A request was made to the court that everything be kept from Galyna's mother's family. Other than their names, we do not know any more than this about Galyna's birth parents.

***
Our church has been sending mission teams to Donetsk, Ukraine, for a number of years. We primarily go to serve at Donetsk Christian University (DCU) in teaching English, and at The Good Shepherd Shelter. In the summer of 2006, one of the children at the Good Shepherd shelter was a little girl named Galyna Skora. She had been brought to the shelter after being taken away from her guardian. That same summer, the team from Grace Church made the usual visits to the Shelter.

***
Galyna was placed with a guardian after her abandonment. The undocumented story is that Galyna was, at approximately three years of age, left for reasons of punishment, in a shed with a number of animals. She was too young to defend herself and she sustained bites from rats and possibly other animals. These bites left scars over much of her body, and required grafts on her head which now leave over half of her head uncovered by hair. She is missing a fingernail on one finger, which also has a mis-aligned knuckle so the finger tip is at an angle to the rest of her finger. Galyna spent, we were told, a year in the hospital receiving medical care for her injuries. Medical care in Ukraine is not up to the standards of that here in the States, and when we look at her we see little to indicate the cosmetic reconstruction attempted, if any, was done with the care that would have been provided here. We try to be fair to the physicians who treated her, but Galyna is a deeply scarred little girl.

***
While the team from Grace Church was at the shelter, they met Galya. She was smiling, happy and friendly. Among the many children, she especially touched their hearts. As children coming to the shelter have their heads shaved (to keep lice, etc...out of the shelter) she had even less hair than she does now. But she had her smile. Team member Tina Coleman, especially, fell in love with Galya on the spot.

***
Gib and Tina Coleman are friends from church. Their children, all grown, have families of their own. Tina would have adopted Galyna herself had she been able to. Tina brought the story back hoping that one of her children would want to adopt Galyna, but barring that, that a family from the church would be so touched as to pursue adoption of this little sweetheart. Fully loaded with pictures and Galya's story as Tina knew it to that time, she brought Galyna up to a number of people at the church asking them to pray that Galyna would find the family she needed.

***
There is a reason that when you search on "Ukraine" in Google that the sponsored links are for Ukrainian brides and the like. Ukrainian women tend toward the beautiful. Appearance is prized. In last summer's English Intensive, members of our team heard from a young woman who said they eat little to stay thin to "look good for their husbands." Dress is much less conservative than in the States. Clothing, while expensive, is carefully maintained and chosen to highlight sex appeal. In such a culture Galyna had no future. We heard from many there that she faced a future on the edges of society, a bad place to be and rife with poverty and abuse.

***
Shannon and I heard Galyna's story at different times, but both from Tina. We started thinking about it without first talking to each other. When I came to the conclusion that we should look into the possibility, I asked Shannon what she was thinking. Her response was that she was thinking as I was. So we started taking the steps of looking into what it would take to adopt a foreign orphan - and oh did we start to pray.

***
I first went to Ukraine in the summer of 2007. I had no plans to visit Galyna, who'd been moved to the public orphanage by then. Children could not be adopted from the Shelter, so her move to the orphanage was necessary if not necessarily to a better place. (This isn't saying anything about the orphanage, which we think has done well by Galyna; rather, it is a testimony to the love and grace exhibited at the Shelter.) Our team would be working with the kids at Good Shepherd. Of course, Tina wasn't going to let the opportunity pass, so she set up a side visit. I first met her that summer on one morning in the orphanage director's office. We went with Olga Z. to translate (yes, Olga appears in many places in the DCU/Galyna story!) and found out that the next week was her birthday. So of course we returned with a birthday gift the next week. We took pictures and video, did a craft together and talked. The picture she drew for me that day still hangs on our refrigerator, next to the pictures and story Tina first brought back in 2006.

***
At the English Intensive in 2007 was another American, a young lady named Shauna. Shauna was helping at the Intensive, and through casual conversation we found that her parents had recently completed an adoption. While staying at DCU. And using the services of Angelina as a facilitator. She gave us Angelina's phone number, and we were able to arrange a meeting where Angelina walked us through the process and documents we'd have to submit. I came to Ukraine with no plans to even meet Galya, and I both met her and learned a great deal about what we'd need to do to adopt her. See, this is why we pray! This past summer, I visited Galya in the orphanage again, this time with Angelina. She was much the same, a little taller and a little less shy, but still smiling.

***
According to Ukrainian law, a child must be adoptable within the country, to Ukrainians, for one year before being adoptable by foreigners. We thought the clock was ticking from the time she went to the orphanage. After a few months and a letter to the Ukrainian government, we found that our inquiry had revealed that Galya's mother had never formally been deprived of her parental rights. This was done in May, 2007, so Galyna was not adoptable to us until June 2008. Our initial hopes of adopting her in the spring of this year were put by the wayside. Numerous glitches (mostly by other parties, a few by us) in the paperwork led to a delay in getting the full dossier into the Ukrainian government until this fall. The day it was submitted, finally, we found we had three weeks to be in Ukraine for the initial hearing. A long time waiting for a very short time to get things done. God's timing is rarely clear, but as always it worked out for the best.

***
Last spring we heard from Angelina that an Italian charity had paid for additional surgeries for Galyna to restore some of her hair. She spent a month in the hospital after two surgeries. I notice no difference from when I saw her the year before the surgeries. Her surgeon said she'd need more to see results, maybe up to 6-7 surgeries in total. The next round was due to start this fall, about the time we brought her into the family. Perhaps the timing was to allow for the next surgeries to be done here? We also heard that two families were given the chance to adopt her this summer (while our paperwork was dragging) but both refused when they found out about her scarring. Much went on in the past two years, but all of it ended where we wanted: with Galyna in our family.

***
It is impossible not to be touched by Galya's story. One of the jurors in our adoption hearing showed a look of disgust and disbelief when told of Galyna's treatment that summed up my feelings perfectly. We don't understand how anyone could abandon a child, or how anyone could neglect or abuse a child. Galya's guardian, we were told, is criminally responsible for her actions in her treatment of Galyna but she is not in prison. It's not our place to judge another culture or system. Nor do we believe we'll know the "why" behind Galyna's treatment. But we know that for all the ill it brought her, it also brought her to us. While we do not know the "why" behind her coming into our family, we do believe that someday this is a "why" we will be able to answer.

***
Galya will need to have some additional surgeries to try and "fix" her scarring. I won't post pictures of her scars as we have no desire to (a) play the martyr/hero family, or (b) play off sympathy for Galyna. We adopted her because she needed a family and we want her in our family. We did not adopt her to play up her story or to make us look special; we aren't. We don't feel that way, and we know there are others who would have done the same thing. But we do love her, and to the extent medical treatment can help her live a better, fuller life, we'll do what we can to help. We are looking into what kind of surgery options are available, and how to best schedule and fund the needed treatment. We also know that she will need therapy of many sorts, as do many adopted children, to deal with the long-term, if not yet symptomatic, effects of abandonment, neglect and abuse. This blog and this adoption are not to garner sympathy, attention, publicity or money for any of those things. But many of you have asked for, and been interested in her story. This is all part and parcel of what brought this girl into our lives, so I share it for that reason. And feel free to pray for where God wants this to go next. Ask questions without guilt; we're okay with explaining the hold she has on us.

***
Grace Church started going to Ukraine in partnership with DCU. Without DCU, we would not have met Galya. Her story would never have made it back here; at the very least, it is likely we would not have heard of her. DCU, therefore, holds a dear place in our hearts, as does the Good Shepherd Shelter. Without DCU I would not have met Shauna, nor been introduced to Angelina. I'd not have met Galyna three times in two summers. Without Grace Church we'd not have met Tina and Gib, nor been to DCU. And without the many friends and family (i.e., YOU!) supporting us, none of this would have happened. I'm convinced everything happens for a reason. This episode confirms that again for me. Many bad things, many bureaucratic things, many coincidental things, many good things and many blessed things happened, in a certain way to lead to this moment. For that we give God the credit and the glory. Without Him, our family would still be four happy and content people who love each other very much. But it wouldn't be the same.

Thanks, and God bless!

Ron

Picking up where I left off...

2008-12-22T13:07:00.001-08:00

Thursday
Flight to America day! Otherwise known as the day that wouldn't end. Since a normal day last 24 hours, and we spent about 32 hours in Thursday's date, it felt long. Visa in hand (hooray!) we went to the airport. We think our driver was glad to get rid of us and our abundance of luggage, but he got us to the airport in plenty of time to make our first line of the day. We had to go through (a) passport check/security, (b) ticket agent for boarding pass, (c) immigration/passport control and (d) passport check with boarding passes to board. That was just to get out of Kiev! And it took us nigh on two hours, but we made the flight.

This was, again, a day of firsts for Galyna. She enjoyed the first airline trip, laughing and cheering when we took off. She also liked the headphones and iPods, spending most of the flight listening to music, coloring and playing with the Russian-speaking boy in the seat behind us. We think at one point she wanted to join his family as we caught her hugging the boy's mom quite a bit. Not sure if it was attachment disorder, the fact that the family spoke her language, or the fact that we were telling her no desert until she ate more of her meals. That last one may have been a bit unfair considering the quality of the airline's food offerings. Which, while tolerable for the most part, did cause problems for Amissa when the only only dinner option was pizza and cake, neither of which she can eat with her wheat/yeast intolerances. (Nothing against Delta's service; for the most part it was very good. The food and a lack of communication about the delay at JFK being the two exceptions.) Fortunately, well-stocked with granola bars and "relatively" healthy snacks we made it to JFK in New York with few incidents.

(Except for the immigration officer having us step aside for a bit while he consulted someone on Galyna's passport in Kiev, but he allowed us through after a short delay, no further questions asked.)

JFK was an interesting experience. We had a small dinner at the airport at a restaurant I won't name for their too-high cost for what you got. Then we waited. And waited. Our plane didn't arrive at the gate until well after it was supposed to have lifted off for Minneapolis. Amissa ended up falling asleep, and Galya played with the little boy from the first flight and his family (who were sharing our gate area for their flight.) We finally got on the plane, and made it to Minnesota around 1:00 Friday morning. There was one short time where Galya was crying in her sleep on the plane, but I put the iPod on "children's music" and put that in her ears, and she was fine the rest of the flight. The other two girls slept, as did Shannon and I for a very short time. All in all we landed after 24-26 hours of nothing more than a couple of cat naps. But we were home! The Coleman and Glirbas families met us at the airport with signs and balloons, then helped us home with the luggage. Our cars and expanded family mean we'll be packing much more lightly for trips. This isn't a bad thing, and considering Shan's aversion to minivans, we'll likely be in these cars for a while.

Off to sleep, and then...

Friday
We awoke, pretty much later than usual but earlier than we needed to. Galyna spent the day exploring the house and running back to us for hugs every little while. It was a good day. The girls went to school in the afternoon to see their classmates before Christmas break. Amissa's class screamed in joy when she showed up. Tierney's class was in art, so she wasn't able to introduce Galyna, but it was good to see her friends. Galyna was apprehensive when her sisters were dropped off, but overall in good spirits. Nice to see her loving her sisters. When Shannon started getting ready to go to the school to get the girls, Galya saw her and started asking what was up. As soon as Shannon said the names Tierney and Amissa, Galyna jumped up to get her jacket and boots to get her sisters too! The rest of the evening was dinner and cuddles on the couch as nobody had much energy for anything else.

The Weekend
Saturday was errands and playing. Shannon and I did some unpacking and cleaning (full disclosure: Shan did more than I did). It snowed, which the girls liked. For the ... well for every meal to date, Galya indicated she wasn't going to eat everything on her plate, not liking vegetables. She's finding out she doesn't get to negotiate her dinner choices, or how many bites she has to eat to get a snack later. If anyone has tips on getting a youngster to eat vegetables, let us know. Since Tierney and Amissa love veggies, this is new territory for us. On the other hand, Galya at least doesn't argue. She just doesn't eat it knowing there's no candy later. She does like meat, cereal, potatos, bread/butter and bananas though. That much we do know!

Sunday we went to church, and she was again introduced by her proud sisters. Galyna made it through two hours of Sunday School without us there, so it seems that she's able to hang with her sisters for some amount of time without us. This is VERY good, although it doesn't yet get us to the point of her lasting a full school day yet. It was also good to see so many of YOU who read this blog and let you meet Galya in person. Not to mention the joy of hearing a service in English.

We're going to be working with the daycare provider tomorrow as her son (a 4th-year Russian student at the U of Chicago) will be there to help. We want to see if he can help explain the concept of school, and that just because we won't be there doesn't mean we won't be picking her up. It's got to be so very hard on Galyna not understanding everything yet; we can sympathize as we don't either. But she, like her sisters, has proven to be a trooper. We also picked up a Christmas tree, to her delight, which will be decorated today.

There have been a few mishaps, as we've had to work through the idea that makeup isn't for chewing on or dumping on the floor, and ownership of some toys is yet unclear. But overall her adapting to the family, and vice versa, is as good as we could have expeted in the first few days. Our prayer is it goes as well in the coming months.

***

As a heads-up, this will be the last of the "daily recap" types of posts. From here on out I'll be blogging here more about milestones. If you're on Facebook, or subscribe to updates from this blog (via RSS or something similar) you'll get notices. Otherwise, check back from time to time. I'll also update my other blog when I update things here. Posts will probably still be frequent through the holidays, but start to taper off as we get into more of a routine.

If you have any questions about how things are going, or what we're up to though, feel free to drop us a line. Or better yet, subscribe to one of the blogs or become my Facebook friend!

God bless,
Ron

So How've You Been?

2008-12-20T18:13:00.000-08:00

Long time no blog, though readers of my normal blog wouldn't be surprised if they've been paying attention over the last year. It's been an interesting and fun, albeit busy week. In review:

Tuesday
I think I left off with Tuesday (aside from the note that we arrived home.) If not, call me on it in the comments and I'll fix the problem. Tuesday did have a bit more detail than I posted then. The day started with doing some packing while waiting for Angelina to call. She did eventually, and picked me up to sign some papers. We went first to the courthouse, where she picked up the court decree. From there to the orphanage, where I had to sign two documents. For two signatures, I'd been gone nearly 90 minutes. Yep, this was going to be fun!

We left Makeevka, and on the way to Donetsk for some more paperwork I called Shannon to let her know that we'd be ready and back to the apartment by 3:00 to go pick up Galya. Angelina wouldn't be with us, but we told the orphanage folks while we were there what the plan was. In Donetsk, we went into a freezing building (side note: in Ukraine, apparently they will choose to do some heating water pipe repair when it's cold out) to get Galya's new birth certificate. This was another long wait, but I did get to do the signature thing so I felt like I was at least contributing. Then we headed off to one last errand - the passport. Unfortunately, the passport office was closed until 2:00 for the lunch break, so we stopped at McDonald's to kill some time and grab a bite to eat.

At two, we were able to get to the passport office, and by 2:30 we had everything the Ukrainian government owed us. Yippee! Angelina dropped me by the bus stop where the girls were going to meet me for the marshutka ride to the orphanage. She was going to go fax the passport page copy to the U.S. embassy so we'd be okay to get a visa interview on Wednesday.

Tuesday, Angelina proved her worth in all of these stops. Conversations in the past few days showed that many adoptive families can wait up to two weeks to get the passport. We got ours the day the court decree became official. It helps when the person you hired knows everyone and everything about the process. If you're ever considering adopting in Ukraine, let me know and I'll get you in touch with her.

So...as I said, it was cold. Even for us Minnesotans it was a bit chilly, and the marshutkas were running very full. There wasn't room for us on the first handful that went by while we waited, so we were all very glad when one came by with space.

And this brings us to the orphanage. I'll bet you're all expecting a big dramatic moment, tear-jerking narrative and emotional broadsides. We were too. It was nothing like that. In the dictionary next to anticlimactic you see a picture of Galya leaving the orphanage. After all these months (years, really) of time since we first heard of Galyna, the moment felt oddly normal. I'm guessing that seeing kids adopted out of the orphanage before made this something rather standard, but it was a surprisingly low-key event.

We went in and Julia, the social worker for whom I'd signed papers earlier in the day, was coincidentally by the door talking to someone else. She pointed up to where Galya was, and we walked up there to get her. She saw us, and apparently knew what we were there to do as she stopped her studies (yeah, we picked her up mid-school day) and grabbed the entirety of her earthly possesions: five little notebooks worth all of about $.30 that we'd picked up for her on the various Amstor stops. Not even a toothbrush. We brought some clothes with us, but she did walk out with a t-shirt and some tights that she was wearing that day.

I've never felt so unbelievably blessed and humbled to live in this country, by the way.

She said goodbye to her class, and a couple of the kids gave her hugs. Some of the teachers too, but it was "business as usual" for most of them. They all said goodbye and went back to their tasks. Two of the girls did seem excited that she was going to "America!" which I'd think is a big deal considering what we suspect they think about our country - that we're wealthy and far away from problems. One of two isn't bad. I for one will never complain about being poor compared to anyone here. Being firmly middle class in this country is being in the wealthiest population on the planet.

So we left, after a few hugs and two classrooms saying goodbyes, but it was the oddest departure I've known. There's been more emotion and hubub when someone leaves the place I work. But we walked back to the marshutka for the ride home. Galya was absolutely giddy, and happy. This was a good sign. We were able to get to the apartment in time for me to get the blog post out, and finish dinner before heading to the train station. We caught the train, Angelina and Shannon in one compartment, the girls and I in the other. The girls slept better on this train trip than on the first, but we still awoke in Kiev tired and unwashed. The train was about 80 degrees all night, which was okay, but a bit warmish for what we're used to. The highlight for the girls, I think, was eating some dried octopus snack thing that Angelina ordered from the attendant.

Wednesday
This post is overly long already, but I'll give Wednesday a go. Maybe I'll catch up the rest of the week tomorrow:)

We went from the train station to an international clinic which provides medical exams for children being adopted. Their report is part of the package of papers we needed to bring to the embassy in the hopes of getting the visa. We were there early, as the clinic didn't open until 9:00 and we'd come right from the train at 7:30. The girls hung out and colored in the hallway, and us adults tried to stay awake. The exam went well, and the doctor was about crying when she thanked Shannon for "adopting this little girl." Seems hard for many Ukrainians to understand the motive to help someone in this type of circumstance.

We went from the clinic to the embassy to drop off our last documents, and to confirm the visa appointment. As we'd sent ahead the documentation necessary to do the background check with Washington D.C., we were hoping that we could get the visa Wednesday. Even so, we weren't sure as nothing on the trip was really easy to predict. The visa interview was at 2:00, and we dropped off the paperwork by about 11:00, so we went to a little cafe to have lunch. It's interesting finding out about Galya's eating habits. She won't starve in our house, but she won't necessarily enjoy all our meals. We have yet to find a non-potato vegetable that she likes, and we eat lots of veggies. Let's hope she grows to love broccoli.

The visa interview was quick, and best of all they said they'd gotten the paperwork in time to do the background check - we got the visa the same day! This happens often, we gathered, but it isn't guaranteed. We were very glad to have our tax dollars going to something that the government does well!

This meant, too, that we were finally ready to hit the apartment. We were put up at the same building as the first visit in Kiev, and we went to the same restaurant for dinner as we'd done the first visit too. The girls all got the mashed taters/chicken dinner with the chicken dressed up with vegetables to look like a real chicken. Tierney took a picture, which I'll post in my next photo update. This went over well with Galya, except for (a) the vegetables, and (b) me not letting her drink all her pop until she'd finished her meal. Other than that, it was peachy. An early bedtime for the girls, and repacking for the plane for me, and it was off to the land of nod.

We awoke Thursday, but that's enough for this post.

TTFN,

Ron

We're Home!

2008-12-19T00:32:00.000-08:00

And yes, I'm posting this at 2:33 AM Minnesota time. I've pretty much been up ~25-26 hours with a couple of cat naps on planes to chase away the sleepiness. (Note: this did not work well.)

We were able to get the visa in time for everyone to come home together. More tomorrow (er, later today?)

Thanks!

Ron

She's Ours! We're Hers!

2008-12-16T07:07:00.000-08:00

Today, 12/16/2008 (or 16.12.2008 as the Ukrainians write it), Galyna Skora became Galyna Nicole Stewart.

We have her new birth certificate, her new passport, her new adoption decree - and her! I spent today with Angelina getting her new birth certificate and passport, which involved much waiting. If I haven't said it a million times yet, I haven't said it enough; we'd be nowhere near this point if we hadn't met Angelina. She's literally been her namesake: an angel. She knows everyone in the process, and has been able to move us through very quickly. Some of the other adoptive parents to be we've met haven't been this blessed.

The next steps are:

Overnight train to Kiev

Medical exam in Kiev

Drop off all paperwork at the embassy for Galya's visa

Visa interview

Visa for Galya!

Fly home

We're still not 100% sure we'll have the visa in time to fly out Thursday as a family, but Tierney, Amissa and I will be flying out then for sure. We faxed some paperwork to the embassy already so they could start the background checks, but we won't know how far they get until tomorrow. Pray they'll finish in time that we can get the visa by end of day Wednesday. Also, we want clean exit from Ukraine and clean entry into the U.S., but the immediate concern is the visa.

As an aside, yesterday was a light day of packing and preparing for the trip, followed by the Monday prayer group at the Gingery's (Olga is out of town.) And now I must go help do the last minute packing/cleaning/dinner before the train.

The lack of Internet yesterday means I didn't have the ability to tell her full story yet. And we're leaving in little more than an hour for the train station for the overnight to Kiev. We're staying at the same apartment building as we did last time, which as you may recall lacked Internet access. So in all likelihood, this is my last post here until perhaps Friday. But never fear, I'll not leave the tale unfinished, so do not lose this blog.

Until next time -

Ron - for the FIVE Stewarts!

The Organizations

2008-12-14T15:02:00.000-08:00

For those of you who aren't familiar with my history with Donetsk, I suppose I should talk about how we came to know about the city. This plays into Galya's story, so background may be helpful.

Shannon and I (with the girls) attend Grace Church in Roseville, Minnesota. Our church has, through the past decade or so (someone from GCR can correct me if I'm wrong) had a partnership with two ministries here in the area: Donetsk Christian University and The Good Shepherd Shelter.

Donetsk Christian University (DCU) is a university with a mission to train up Christian leaders, ministers and missionaries, with a mind especially to support the churches in the former Soviet Union. It was started in 1991, at the time Ukraine became independent of Russia. The history of the university is found here. Pictures are here. It's a good university, with (as far as I can tell) a good reputation. They are facing challenges, and I recommend that the interested keep tabs on their needs and perhaps contribute. No pressure, and they didn't ask me to say it. I'm just a believer in what they're doing here, and I think they do it well. (Better yet, come to teach one of these summers.)

One of the things we do on our trips here is to help DCU with their summer English Intensive program. DCU has a school-year Saturdays program for teaching English as both a marketing and a fundraising tool. It also helps with outreach and community involvement. Every summer they have a four-week "intensive" session where students sit for morning English classes, and then in the afternoons they are turned over to us for a number of activities designed to foster English conversation practice. This involves things like giving us tours (in English) of the city, playing games, one/one conversations, etc. It's a great experience, and if you can't tell by my writing, I enjoy communicating with lots of words. This is, as it turns out, a useful skill here at DCU. The English Intensives are built as two two-week sessions. Grace comes for one of those sessions each year to help with the afternoon and evening English programs.

A photo album from one of the 2007 English Intensive session is here. This would have been the first session, I believe, since we were not here for it. And here's a blog from the team from Asuza Pacific University who was with us here in 2008. Great fun, that was, working with them.

One of the highlights is that we can keep in touch with many of our students, as you may have noticed from this blog. I've had the pleasure of introducing a few of them to the family while we're here, and via email and Facebook (join now! I need more friends!) I'm keeping in touch with friends from both of the past two years, which are the two years I've been able to attend.

By the way, the Olga of whom we've been speaking so highly is highlighted in this story. Lawrence, Colleen, Olga and other teachers are shown here. Sergey is mentioned and shown here. Just thought you may want to put faces to the names we've been giving.

The other part of our work here is to visit the Good Shepherd Shelter in Makeevka. (While the rest of this post is for Rene', the rest of you can read this too.) And I'll get this out of the way up front: Pictures, donations, history. The Riccardellis were here working at Good Shepherd, and have some stories and pictures on their blog too.

I'm not posting that lump o'links to give the shelter short shrift. Actually, I wish I could do more. We haven't been able to visit Good Shepherd while here, although in hindsight we'd have liked to have planned something while the Riccardellis were there. It's one of the highlights of our teams' visits to spend time with the children and encourage the staff. We visit the shelter on some of the mornings and weekend time while here for the DCU English Intensives. We spend time doing crafts and playing games. I'll even bet you didn't know I was fast becoming a beadie-baby expert from these visits. And now I'm not sure that I should have told you...

Some of my favorite memories have been doing tie-dye t-shirts last year, with the accompanying water balloon fight; this year's making of winter hats (which they were wearing for the next few hours in the summer sun); and not being able to go without receiving multiple hugs.

Good Shepherd is not technically an orphanage. Kids staying there either have a parent/guardian who can't/doesn't care for them, or are on a stop on the way to an orphanage. As such, kids from the shelter can't be adopted from the shelter - at least as I understand it. This past summer, Rene' (a member of our team the past few years) was able to bring a number of the older kids to DCU for the English Intensive, so we got some extra social time with them even on campus. Having Dasha join the Grace teenagers in my room watching Pirates on my laptop was fun, for instance.

On a complete tangent, while Googling Good Shepherd Makeevka for potential links for this post, I noticed that this here blog appears on the first page. How's that for heady/prompt service?

I'm a big believer in groups like these; DCU and Good Shepherd do wonderful work, and I'm glad to have some small part in it. And when I'm back in the States I'll try to remember to post some pictures from the past two years so you can see some of what we've done. But beyond the work we've helped with here, these two organizations have a soft spot in my heart because without the two of them we'd never have met Galya.

To that tomorrow. (Or later today; just noticed that for the third night in a row I'm up past 2:00 AM.)

God bless,
Ron

Sunday, Sunday, Sunday!

2008-12-14T14:23:00.001-08:00

So we get to catch our breath before heading to the last stage of the adventure. Today started, as our Sundays here have, with church. Again we didn't do the so much "understanding what was going on" part, but we did sing along with one song we knew, and I think I finally figured out which scripture text they were using. I'm pretty sure it was Psalms something.

From there we hustled downtown to meet two more students from two summers ago. Alyona is a 20-year old blessed enough to be born on New Year's Day. Her mother is exactly my age, having been born the same day I was 38+ years ago. And yes, it still annoys me I'm old enough to be Alyona's father. When I first heard that two years ago, it about knocked me back for three weeks. I'm not ready to start feeling old yet. We had lunch at an Irish pub/restaurant off Lenin Square called Golden Lion. I had the shashlik which was very good. Shannon has promised to make me some shashlik at home; if you want an invite, let me know.

Alyona also gave us a gift, a "piggy" bank in the shape of a cow. Apparently I got to learn my "something new for the day" over lunch: in Ukraine, much like in China, they do "the year of the _____" here. And 2009 is the year of the cow/bull. Interesting. (Alyona's mother - whose name I'm regrettably forgetting; it's on the tip of my tongue if you can see it there) and I were born in the year of the dog. I'm not sure what that explains.)

We returned to the apartment via Amstor/Amctop, laden with some more chocolate (some of which we'll try to keep uneaten so we can give it away back home) and the Barbie-esque dolls the girls wanted. Oh, and some breakfast foods for the train ride to Kiev Tuesday night. Only thing we forgot was water, so we may be brushing our teeth tomorrow in the boiled stuff.

It's starting to feel real, that we'll be leaving soon. I already have the bittersweet feeling I get at the end of the trips I take here. I don't want to leave, but I do want to go home. I think we're all ready to return, but it's been a great time even with all the waiting the Ukrainian system has built into the process.

Shannon has been doing some packing, and I've been thinking about doing some packing. So we're about even on effort. The girls did some homework, and early bed. I've been spending the evening pulling stuff off to the side that I want to pack tomorrow, and trying to find streaming audio of the Vikings game (KFAN says they're not able, and NFL.com charges for it. Fortunately, I can "watch" via espn.com's GameCast feature.)

Tomorrow is up in the air as to what we'll be doing, but mostly we'll be preparing for Tuesday when the fun begins. Not only do we get Galya for good on Tuesday, but we start running yon and hither toward Galya's visa.

'Til next time -
Ron

Let it Snow!

2008-12-13T13:14:00.000-08:00

I hear there's a big storm back home in Minnesota this weekend. Just have the runways cleared by next Thursday please!

Also, if you could get through the below zero temps by the time we return, that'd be just peachy of you.

Speaking of cold, please pray for this situation. Especially since we're heading to Kiev Tuesday night.

Enough about the weather (though I do like the snow here; just a dusting so far, but nice.) You probably want to know the latest on our adventure. Yesterday was a day of ... I can't remember. The days are blurring together nicely by this point. Ah, yes. We hung out at the apartment because Angelina was going to come by to collect the forms we'd been able to fill out so far. Some forms require information from the court decree and/or birth certificates we won't have until Tuesday morning. But we're trying to get things into the embassy early to expedite the visa procurement activities on Wednesday. The embassy needs a hard copy photo of Galya, and a copy of her pre-adoption birth certificate and her passport so they can start the work. We'll bring the rest to them Wednesday morning, then hope for the visa interview and visa in the afternoon. That's the ideal, and we know it can be pulled off. We'll see if there's another purpose, though.

The only downside was Angelina didn't actually call or come by. So, it was a day of catching up on a few things in the apartment, and letting the girls play outside. They need the activity (plus the sleep) but they're still doing very well all things considering. They must get that from their ~~father~~ mother. In the evening, we visited Olga for tea, and had a nice visit. Jim and Margaret, two American missionaries who work at DCU were there. Tanya and Natasha Dyatlik were there too, so it was festive. It was fun to speak to English speakers, although I do like trying to pick up what Russian I can. Margaret heads up the English program we visit in the summers, and so we touched on that. Natasha brought a very delicious pizza, which almost cured my craving for 'za. Have I mentioned I've yet to meet a bad cook here? It's a surprise I always lose weight here - but I think that's due to the walking and exercise...

Olga also taught the girls a new card game, Dutch Blitz. We'll have to pick it up back in the States as they now really like it.

Today we were able to take Galya again, and as hoped for we went downtown Donetsk. We took the marshutka into Makeevka, and had to wait at the orphanage until Galya's hair dried. She'd taken a shower not long before we arrived, and her caregivers didn't want her going out in wet hair. We, of course, thought it was dry, but couldn't argue the point so we hung out for a short while. We eventually were given leave to take Galya, and we went via marshutka to Donetsk. This involved a trip through a neighborhood, off course, because of traffic. Basically, the driver asked everyone if it was okay, then left the normal route. Or else he just told them he was going to do it; I only assume because a bunch of people said "da" after he said what he said. If you come here, be prepared for mass transit that sometimes drops you off part way to your destination, or changes routes on the fly.

But we did get to Donetsk. The first stop was near the market, which we walked through rather quickly. We were hungry, and the girls needed to use the little girls' room. So we hopped a train which dropped us off right in front of Puzata Hata. Yeah us! The servers eventually got our orders, which was funny considering all we had to do was point at the food. Apparently that wasn't good enough to get the point across the first time. From the restaurant we went to Lenin Square so the girls could ride the pedal cars again. Tierney will miss those I think. Then off to Pushkin Boulevard so the girls could play on a playground. While they did that, I watched them and Shannon went to a souvenir shop two blocks over. We're bringing a few Ukrainian things back for her "gotcha day" (or whatever we end up calling it) celebrations in the future. We don't want her to lose her culture; partly because we think it's important for her to keep it, partly because it gives me reasons to come back.

After Shannon returned, we took the girls over to the same store where they each got to pick out a souvenir if they wanted one. Tierney wants a Ukrainian "Barbie" doll from Amstor (btw, that's spelled Amctop here in Ukraine; I'm just transliterating it for pronunciation purposes) so all she got was a small magnet frame. Galya wanted something she couldn't play with and is getting the "Barbie" doll from Amstor too. Amissa decided she wanted her Christmas gift here, and her souvenir would be - surprise - a "Barbie" from Amstor. Her Christmas gift is, as befits the little clothesphile, a traditional Ukrainian outfit. It will be uber cute and we'll post pictures in the next few days.

Then it was time to come home as it was getting a bit chilly. Galya liked the grilled sausage/cheese sandwiches and corn puffs. Then it was time to take her home. Here I'm glad Shannon didn't come with us. As we were walking to the marshutka stop she was unusually quiet, and I caught her crying softly. Shan probably would have just risked the kidnapping charge and turned right around to bring Galya to the apartment at that point. I think the coming/going is hard on her, and it's catching up. But Tuesday's on the way...we keep telling ourselves that. The coming/going isn't easy on us either.

I came home after dropping her off (by the time we got back to the shelter, she was back to her normal self, although holding my hand a bit more tightly.) It started to snow as I got to my stop. And the girls were watching Tinkerbell again when I got home. They'd done more homework in my absence. Then bedtime for all (except me, who's reverted to extreme night owl status.)

Tomorrow is church, again, and a visit with Alyona, a student from two summers back. That should be fun! And hopefully we'll have enough time tomorrow to get the posts in about DCU and Good Shepherd, leaving Monday for the final special post: Galya's tale itself. Well, that and packing for the Tuesday train ride.

I hope all is well!

God bless,
Ron

The Ukrainian Twin Cities

2008-12-11T14:46:00.001-08:00

We live in a suburb of Minneapolis, which is of course one half of the Twin Cities. In Ukraine we are in the middle of another set of Twin Cities: Donetsk and Makeevka. I'm not sure that they are seen that way, but it's a fair analogy. Knowing a little of these cities helps put the rest of the story in context, so as promised here's a post on our locale. Again, this is more about our impressions, with links for the more intellectually curious.

Donetsk is the big city, capital of the Donetsk region (or oblast.) This'd be similar to an American state or Canadian territory. It is on the eastern edge of Ukraine, not far from the Russian border. As such, and considering its history (see links below), it's not a suprise that it's a heavily Russian-influenced city. It was close to destroyed in WWII, and was rebuilt after the war. A rennaissance of sorts seems to be happening in recent years as Rinat Akhmetov - a rather wealthy and influenial person and Donetsk resident - has been trying to attract things like Euro 2012 to the city. (Mr. Akhmetov runs the local ~~soccer~~ football team, Shakhtar; I went to a game last year when they played Dynamo Kiev and I recommend that if you're going to watch soccer, you do so in Europe. It was fun, and the fans made Packer fans look disinterested. Akhmetov's also built quite the compound right next to DCU, but that's another matter.)

Anyway, Donetsk's urban center is a beautiful place. There is Pushkin Boulevard, a large pedestrian mall with cafes, playgrounds, sculptures, fountains and gardens. I would love such a mall in our city. There is a puplic square, Lenin Square, with an open plaza and more fountains. There are many restaraunts and high-end stores, and much traffic.

Some of the sights we've seen include the Figures Park, Tsar's Cannon and pretty much everything you see here. Chain restaraunts, including McDonald's and our Ukrainian favorite, Puzata Hata. We love downtown. Much to do, interesting architecture and good food.

Once you get out of downtown, though, the neighborhoods are a different story. Residences are primarily in apartment buildings rather than houses. Few people own homes, and most live in flats. The economic condition of this industrial area (Donetsk is a large coal/gas/industrial region) mean much upkeep of buildings is forgone in lieu of more basic needs. Western culture is coming, as demonstrated by the presence of supermarkets and "big box" stores, but there are also small neighborhood markets within walking distance for most people.

There are more cars than there used to be, but public transportation is both cheap and abundant. At least on the major roads. We can take a bus to downtown Donetsk for ~$.10 each person, each way (and kids ride free!) Marshutkas cost little more (~$.30) for a faster ride. Just be prepared to be close to other people as the buses and marshutkas will pack in as many riders as they can. Walking is much more a part of one's daily life here than back in the states.

Makeevka is a different story. Downtown is smaller here, and with far fewer clubs and restaraunts (at least that we saw.) It's a much less kempt city, and more run down in many aspects. While there are signs of new building, Makeevka appears further behind Donetsk. The park we walked a few days back is a good example. The memorial included cracked stonework, and aside from a very nice looking restaraunt, little in the park looked as if it'd been maintained.

Galya's orphanage is in Makeevka, and we don't guess she's been out of Makeevka much. One of the things we're wondering is how she'll react to America, which is much different from her native city. There isn't much for her to do there, at least to American eyes, other than walking about town. The orphanage is clean, comfortable, and relatively nice (not that we're experts on orphanages, but a Dickensian place this is not.) The staff is unfailingly nice and polite, if (as typical of this part of the world) direct. From that perspective, Galya's had it relatively good. But the pollution and unmaintained areas around the orphanage cannot be having a good impact on the health of her or the other children.

I am not trying to criticize either city. To an American, used to a commuting and mass media-consumerist culture, there is a great appeal in the slower pace, the more social pasttimes, and ease of getting around town without a car. I don't prefer everything about Ukraine over everything about America, but there are things here that I wish America'd pick up on. (Also, vice versa; I'm not a fan of the pollution here, or anything goes attitude toward traffic laws.)

Links:

Donetsk ala Wikipedia

Ukrainetrek.com's site on Donetsk - good pictures, and I've been fortunate enough to see most of the things shown there.

Donetsk described by the U.S. Census Bureau back in 1999.

Maps of Donetsk for the cartographically-interested.

Makeevka ala Wikipedia

Some pictures of Makeevka.

More pictures of Makeevka.

World Orphan Project and Quilts For Orphans items on Galya's orphanage. NOTE: I don't know anything about these charities; donate at your own risk, although if they're valid charities I'm all for advocating support. These kids do need the help.

The Final Thursday?

2008-12-11T14:31:00.000-08:00

Well, if all goes well, this is our final full Thursday in Ukraine as we'll be flying out one week from today. Or yesterday, as I'm typing this post-midnight Friday. Shannon talked to the folks at the embassy today, and we "should" be able to send up some of the paperwork early, fax the rest next Tuesday morning, then get the medical exam/visa interview/visa on Wednesday. That would enable us all to come home on the Thursday flight. Glitches push Shannon and Galya to later flights.

So, that was positive to hear. It's interesting to hear from a few folks here that the U.S. embassies really do well by American citizens compared to embassies for (some?) other countries. Not knowing that for sure, I have a hard time doubting it after what Shannon was told today.

The day was rather typical in that we hung out at the apartment and took a walk to Victory for provisions. I introduced Kate to the rest of the family, which was nice. Good for them to put faces to names. The two neighbor girls came over and played with the girls, too, which was boisterous and fun up until Amissa and one of the girls pulled down the curtain in the girls' room. Guess we need to pay for some new curtain wire (they don't use curtain rods in this apartment) before we leave! Oops. But she was sufficiently repentent and responsible that it all worked out for her.

Olga Z. came over for dinner, and we talked a while about a few things missions-related (Olga is a Russian citizen, here as a missionary.) It was an interesting conversation and good company. She'll be coming to the States shortly after we are, which was good news for the girls. They've come to really like Olga - which truth be told, is very easy to do!

A few things remain on our docket for the next few days, but we're starting to turn our minds toward preparing to leave. This is both sad and a relief as we'll be glad to see y'all again. But as always, I don't like leaving here. I've told Shannon I feel at home here too, and it's easy for me to be here. That might be different were I to live here permanently, of course, but for now there's a sense of peace about being here that I really like.

The next big day with Galya is this Saturday, we're hoping, and will be another trip downtown.

Until next time -

Ron

Pictures!

2008-12-11T06:21:00.000-08:00

Okay, the 'net is working much better today, so more pictures!

A day downtown: We took Galya downtown Donetsk, and these are some of the pictures. In my Donetsk post, I'll add pictures of some of the things we saw but neglected to photograph.

Court:Unfortunately, as everyone else went home before the judge gave her ruling, we don't have more pictures from this day.

Christmas: Or at least a few photos of a Christmas-esque nature.

Makeevka: We took Galya for a walk in Makeevka one morning. This is some of what we saw. The day was described here under "Monday."

More animals: Tierney's added to her collection of animal pictures. And we've created a LOL Cats monster.

Shannon has pictures from Donetsk, Makeevka, and Kiev on her Facebook account too. Some of these will overlap.

Enjoy!

Ron

Ai Tayks Pikshoors!!!!

2008-12-10T13:40:00.000-08:00

Okay, not sure if that's official "LOL Cats" speak, but I think you get the point.

Tierney has been taking pictures of animals wherever we go. She wants to start her own Web site about animals, and has even designed the various categories she wants to use. Some of the pictures have turned out so that she made a couple of LOL Cats out of them.

This is her first: I can haz joos boks. The timing was impeccable as she happened to snap the pic right when the cat was sniffing around the juice box straw.

This her second: Iz nawt impresd. The cats around here are serious.

For more on what LOL Cats are, see here and poke around icanhascheezburger.com.

With the web here being on the slow side tonight (pages are loading in about 5-7 minutes each, some are taking longer and multiple refreshes) I'm not uploading any pictures tonight. For those of you who are friends of Shannon on Facebook, she's posted some new pictures and you can enjoy those. I'll try in the morning.

'til then,

Ron

Around the Day in Eighty DaysMinutes

2008-12-10T12:50:00.000-08:00

Due to the girls (yes, I'm blaming them) playing on Barbie's site, and then waiting (patiently, no qualms or complaints!) while my beautiful bride took her turn with Facebook and emails, I'm getting to the blog later than hoped. But that's okay, as it gives me the challenge to see how quickly I can recap the day.

To start, we had a morning on the playground. Well, the girls did. I took Shan on a little walking tour of the "back 40" of the DCU grounds, showing her the greenhouse, volleyball court and soccer field. (Sorry, football field.) We were taking advantage of the cleaning lady's visit to spend time outside. Olga happened by, and introduced us to another Sergey, this one a student and tutor who has aspirations, perhaps, of going into counseling after he graduages next year. He had his charming 14-month old daughter Anna with him, and we took turns giving Sergey some English conversation practice and Anna smiles and waves.

After we were finished on the playground, we headed up to Lawrence and Colleen's where the girls had some hot chocolate. Did I mention the chocolate is good around here? We're bringing some home if customs lets us. And we don't eat it on the plane. I also got to see the wonderful tree trimming and bow-making job the girls did the other night while I was taking Galya back to the orphanage. It was nice to see signs of Christmas as that's really been at the back of our minds with the whirlwind adventure. Shannon said we can take advantage of the Christmas Eve sales when we get back and recovered; last-minute Christmas shopping sans the guilt of procrastination.

Lunch was short 'n sweet, and we adjourned to the laptop to await our ride to the orphanage. Angelina came by, mid-afternoon, and after a stop at Amstor (for cake and pop) we went to the orphanage for the "party." I put party in quotes because it wasn't really so much a party as we were expecting. Galya took us to the three different classrooms, where we left a cake for each group (note: as we'd bought three cakes, it worked out perfectly albeit completely accidentally!) The two older groups set the goodies aside until they finished their lessons and/or dinner depending on the dictates of their particular teacher(s). Galya's class did get to take a study break to eat cake, and they were very polite. They all waited in their desks until the treats were given, then ate only when told to start. I MUST learn their secret. They were enjoying a couple of magic tricks I was doing with a coin and some small pieces of candy, but the laughing got a bit loud and it was made clear we should maybe move to a different area. So we walked the orphanage, Galya giving out candy to everyone she met (after first taking it from me.) She enjoyed this until I told her that the leftovers weren't for her. She kept asking for "odin papa" ("one, daddy") over and over. I'm not sure how the grandpas are going to be able to resist, so it's likely Shannon and the grandmas are going to have to keep 'em in line with this little one.

We also got Ukrainian copies of the paperwork I need to submit for my FMLA, and hopefully we can get them to a translation service. Funny how American benefits management groups aren't often staffed with Ukrainian translators:) Then we came back home and had a light dinner, some of the leftover candy (don't tell Galya) and and bedtime for the girls.

Shannon and I also filled out some of the immigration/visa forms. We're still hoping that goes well and we can all leave next Thursday together, but some of what we see on the embassy site, as well as some of the logistical challenges we have in front of us next Tuesday getting EVERYTHING squared away in Makeevka, leave us uncertain we'll be successful. Shan's calling the embassy tomorrow, and we bought refundable tickets for next Saturday in case there's a brief delay. So Shannon and Galyna both have fully refundable tickets for next Thursday and next Saturday. We should be ready whichever way the good Lord works things out, although if He permits delays past next Saturday we'll have to go to plan C.

I'm still hoping to post some pictures on Facebook, but the dissertation, er post, on Donetsk and Makeevka may be delayed to tomorrow morning. We'll see how I feel after catching up on many things.

As always, thanks for the love/prayers/support/encouragement/etc.

Love ya all!

Ron

So You Want More?

2008-12-09T12:38:00.000-08:00

Okay! I'm back. I left off with Saturday, right? We'll see how good my memory is regarding the last couple of days. And this is going to be one of those long posts I'm known for. I won't say whether that reputation is good or bad.

Also - we've been getting, on average, 40-45 visits a day to the blog. When I saw that today I figured I'd best not go two days between blogging again! Thanks for your support, prayers and encouragement. I've been reading all the comments, and appreciate them even if I'm not responding to all of them. You all mean much to us!

Sunday
Sunday started with church, again in Russian, here at DCU. It was communion day, and the girls found it interesting to be in a church where communion was "real" bread and wine instead of "crackers" and grape juice. There was no Sunday School, so the girls did get a bit clingy after a while. Church here usually involves two or three sermons, some testimonies, prayer requests and singing between each thing. Services go 1.5-2.5 hours, depending on the church. So it gets a bit long for the girls but I'm sure it's good for them. They did brighten up with the cakes and sweets they had after the service.

With fatigue still an issue from Saturday's adventure, we took it easy with the girls after church. It really was a day of rest, and Shannon was even able to take her 2nd Ukraine nap. The girls and I did some movie watching and that was about it. It's amazing how quickly they're fluxuating between full sleepy-silly mode and worn down mode. But they're still doing very well, and we're proud of them.

Monday
Another busy day. We went to Makeevka by marshutka (first time for the girls!) and went to the orphanage. This is a much cheaper and convenient way to get there than arranging for taxis, so we of course wish we'd have figured this out sooner. When we arrived at the orphanage, Galya was helping sweep the dirt in front of a little pavilion area. We finagled an agreement to take Galya for a walk away from the orphanage (and her sweeping), and went to a little park nearby the orphanage. In this park were a statue dedicated to war heroes, and a fountain (turned off for the winter) as well as the latest in a long line of Ukrainian cats that Tierney has photographed. Tierney did tweak a muscle in her leg when slipping off a wall, but otherwise we returned Galya to the orphanage sans incident. The girls played in the playground area for a while, then Galya went in for lunch.

We figured we should get some food, plus there was an outdoor market in Makeevka I wanted to show the girls. Unfortunately, the market was closed (meaning we walked ~15 minutes each way for nothing other than exercise) and there are no easy-to-find restaurants in Makeevka. So, lunch was some cheese and juice bought in a little convenience store, and some candy. Needless to say, the girls liked it. We spent a bit of time walking around downtown Makeevka, which was interesting as I'd not been downtown Makeevka on my prior visits to Ukraine. It's not the same city as Donetsk, to say the least, but it has its charms. A lack of restaurants for hungry kids, though, meant we had to head back to DCU.

The marshutka ride home was uneventful, although we missed our stop and had an extra bit to walk from the next one (or two?) down. Tired and hungry, we got back to DCU in time for a late lunch/early dinner and more movies. This is the "mom, dad and the lady downstairs need a break from the running around the apartment" event of choice, though we've also played a few family games. The weather was warm, but wet and muddy, so the girls have had to stay in the apartment more than perhaps we'd like.

In the evening, I went to the prayer meeting at Olga's again. The girls stayed home to get rest and all that jazz. It was a good time, highlighted by singing more Christmas carols (one of 'em in four languages!) and eating the best chocolate cake I've had in years. Jim and Margaret, another two Americans who work here at DCU, had just returned from a visit to the States. Jim's a very good cook. Having the prayer meeting at their little home meant good treats, and they were kind enough to let me bring pieces home for the girls.

Tuesday
Today. Or, in a few minutes as I type this, yesterday. Another day of rest. We're in our routine of getting to see Galya every other day, which I think is hard on the girls. They want her to come stay with us, but until the court order becomes official next Tuesday that's not possible. The girls did get to play on the playground, but Tierney fell through a hole and got a bruise on her leg. The playground is nice, and was built by members of our church a number of years ago. It's since fallen into some amount of disrepair, though, and the spot she stepped was missing a couple of boards. It was a lesson in paying attention (for Tierney) and a chance to demonstrate love and compassion for a sister (for Amissa.) That ended the playtime, and they came in for lunch. I took off for Amstor to pick up a couple of groceries, and shortly after I returned we had a light dinner.

(Side note: the food here is very good, although we've surprisingly made it this far without having any cabbage other than what was in our one bowl of borsh in Kiev. The favorites are the sausage, yogurt, bread and chocolate, all of which are better than what we get in the States. The girls haven't been as crazy about the vegetables, and drinking bottled water gets a bit old (fortunately, there's lots of juice and Fanta around.) But the simple diet has been working for them. We've found plenty Amissa can eat, dietary restrictions and all, and God's blessed us all with good health. So far, even the cravings for food we'd normally eat are minimal!)

After dinner, we went downstairs to have tea with Sergey Rybikov and his wife Luba. Sergey is the president of DCU, and we'd had the privilege to host him for dinner at our house earlier this year while he was in America. He remembered Shannon's "tasty" dinner, especially the meat. That was nice to hear:) This was a good time of hearing how things are going at the university, and to share a bit with each other. Olga was there to translate, although Sergey's english is much better than my Russian. We've really enjoyed the hospitality and generosity of those here at DCU.

We came home to get the girls to bed, and then watched a couple episodes of Big Bang Theory on iTunes. Angelina called during this time, and we're working on a couple of things to try and expedite Shannon's trip home with Galya. First we'll try to send a picture of Galya to the embassy by mail so it gets there before Tuesday. That is needed so they can check records for her visa application. If the embassy will accept that to start her file, we can fax the rest of the documents Tuesday before leaving Donetsk and try for a visa interview on Wednesday. We're not sure this will fly with the embassy folks, but it's an idea. The other notion is that we're reserving two refundable tickets for a 12/20 flight for Galya and Shannon. If we can't make 12/18 for the visa, we'll hopefully be able to make 12/20. That's a much better, though still not ideal, option than waiting until 12/25 or later.

We're also going to go to the orphanage tomorrow, and I'll get scans of the documents I need for my FMLA application, as well as (more importantly!) have a party for Galya with the children there. Should be a fun day!

Randomness
That catches us up. I'll try to post three things tomorrow: a recap of the day, pictures, and a blurb on Donetsk and Makeevka. That would leave only a couple more non-recap topics I want to touch on: DCU, Good Shepherd and Galya's story. Which is good because I need to get it all in before we leave for Kiev. We're not sure we'll have Internet there, and I'm not sure we'd have time for that anyway if we're running hither and yon doing visa-related stuff.

The Riccardellis headed out today, and we're hoping we don't have the same problem they did getting out of the country. Basically, their passports were stolen a while back, and the new ones do not have the stamps from their entry into Ukraine. So excitement ensued. But God is good and they made it to Munich okay.

Doing laundry by hand. Brushing teeth with bottled water. Different beds, food, language and culture. No television (though DVDs and a laptop help.) Quieter, slower lifestyle. Strange looks when we get a bit too loud, as Americans sometimes do. I can't say enough about how well the girls have handled this trip. They're even keeping up on homework, and emailing their teachers/classes. There are moments of cabin fever and a bit of stir-crazy once in a while, but I need to brag on the girls. I couldn't be prouder.

Until tomorrow! (Er, later today local time!)

God bless,

Ron

Busy Day

2008-12-06T11:10:00.000-08:00

That was quite the whirlwind. Yesterday was pretty much a hang out and relax day. Today was much, much different.

We picked up Galya at the orphanage at 11:30 and brought her with us away from the orphanage for the day. Andre and Nina drove us to the orphanage, and when we picked up Galya we stopped at Amstor (as our dear driver and his wife needed to do some shopping.) Galya quickly picked up the "Mama" or "Papa" pleas for things, but took the word nyet much better than most American children do. We fear she's heard it before. (Lest you fear, we did get her some things; just not EVERY thing that she was asking for.)

We got back to DCU just in time to run the provisions up to the apartment and walk to the bus stop. As we had plans to be downtown today, I'd let some people know that we'd be there between 1-1:15 (in Lenin Square) and if they could make it, I'd love to see them and introduce the family. Well, since it took a decent amount of time (25 minutes!) for the folks at the orphanage to get Galya for us, and then another 30 minutes at Amstor, and then getting dropped off mid-bus trip because the bus driver decided the route ended halfway to downtown (third time that's happened to me this year here)...well, we got there a little late. Shannon took the girls to McDonald's, and I ran over to Lenin Square to see if anyone had shown up. Andrey Baranov was waiting for me, so he came back to McDonald's and had lunch with us. Galya doesn't seem to like ketchup, so she'll fit in with our family. She did like chicken nuggets and fries though, so we did get some food into her. I also called Neyla, another friend from the past two summers, and she joined us in Lenin Square after lunch.

In Lenin Square, the girls again rode these little pedal cars, and then we went to the playground on Pushkin Boulevard. Here the girls not only played on the playground together, but they also got pony rides on a real live, very old pony! I think we could have called it a day here and it would have been a success. All the while, we continued to chat with Andrey and Neyla. I think there are two things that make me love Donetsk and want to keep coming back: the city itself, with its European center and slower pace of life, and the people I meet at the English Intensives.

Anyhoo, from here Andrey took us to the "figures park" where the girls climbed on statues and we took a few photos. I love this park too, with the fun statues and sculptures for the kids, and benches for tired parents to sit and rest. (Not that we sat and rested; no, too much to do!) Neyla had to leave for a Skype call right before we got to this park, but she promised to meet us at DCU again before we leave. Yay!

From here we walked back toward the main route, and passed by the Tsar's Cannon, which was fun for the girls to play on while hiding from us. The cannon balls were larger than Amissa (though as she pointed out, she was taller than any of them.) Continuing on our ever-longer walk, we ended up at the White Swan mall, which had a Ukrainian equivalent of Chuck E. Cheese called Plastilin (I think.) The girls played a few games, rode some bumper cars and jumped on some trampolines. And we got too few tickets to do anything with, so we held onto them in case we go back.

It was late, and Andrey had to head back. We also had to get back home to eat supper, then return Galya to the orphanage. Did I mention the way back to the arcade was through a toy store? So, after saying nyet a few dozen more times, we were able to leave the White Swan and walk back to the bus stop. Again, the girls were troopers, albeit very tired ones. Along the way, we also passed this church which I've seen numerous times. This time it was dark out, so the church was lit up. It's still one of my favorite church buildings, although I haven't yet braved the Orthodox and stepped inside.

Once home, we had the grilled/open-faced/cheese/sausage sandwiches the girls (and I!) have come to love, corn and boiled potatoes. All but the corn was just wonderful for Galya, but we made her eat most of the corn anyway. Yes, I know, what kinds of parents are pushing veggies on the kid without a break-in "spoiling" period? Galya then said goodbye to the other three ladies of the Stewart clan, and I took her back to the orphanage. We went via marshutka, and since Olga had told me which marshutka to take, I figured I could handle the trip. Which I did, but crowded marshutkas are quite the adventure. But now we also know another way to get to the orphanage for those times Andre's not available to drive us.

I got back home at about the same time as the girls and Shannon, who'd been kindly invited up to Lawrence and Colleen's apartment (our Thanksgiving hosts) to help decorate for Christmas. The girls also got hot chocolate with marshmallows. So it was a good day all around.

For those wondering, we are not yet able to keep Galya overnight as the adoption isn't "official" until our waiting period is over. Tomorrow we will be talking with Angelina about our paperwork translation, and our options for appealing for a shortening of the waiting period. For those of the praying ilk, we'd appreciate that process to go well. Right now things don't look like it'd be feasible for Shannon and Galya to be home until right at Christmas time, or maybe later, but we'll see what miracles are left in this process.

We miss you all, and can't wait to see you. I still have people I'd like to see, so don't mind the extra length of stay, but it'd be nice to be able to get home too. Aside from a couple of cravings to address (pepperoni/green olive/mushroom pizza for me, tacos for Shannon), we'd love to be able to introduce y'all to Galya in person.

Until next time -

Ron

Court Part Deux

2008-12-04T12:35:00.000-08:00

So...I suppose you're all waiting here, wondering what happened today.

Aren't you?

C'mon, I know you are.

Guess I better dish then. Started off with breakfast, and a trip to Amstor. At least I went to the store; the girls stayed back here to play on the playground, which I think they needed more than another bus ride. Got home to lunch. The girls really like this sausage/cheese on toast thing we've been making. The bread here is very good, and Tierney can't get enough. Even Amissa is sneaking as much as she can, which hopefully isn't causing her wheat-related problems to crop up.

But I suppose those are the mundane details you're not looking for. So off to court. We arrived at 2:30, and as usual, waited. We eventually went into the courtroom, and I've got to say this was not how I think an American court would work. I'm not saying that's a bad thing, just a different thing. The judge and the two jurors sat together in the front. The judge's assistant sat off to the side. We sat, with Angelina, off to the left side of the "bench" and the prosecutor sat to the right. Yes, a prosecutor for an adoption case. We didn't see that coming. There was also a representative from the orphanage, and a representative from the Makeevka city council. And of course the three girls.

The court proceedings themselves did follow a predictable pattern. First the judge introduced the case and the stakeholders. We were all asked to provide our names, dates of birth, professions, etc. All fairly standard stuff. Then the questioning began, and anyone in the courtroom had the option to ask questions of whoever was the person in the spotlight. I was first, followed by Shannon, the prosecutor, the city councilwoman, and the orphanage rep. Each of us received questions from others. What was interesting to me was that the jurors were as involved as they were in asking questions. They also were the ones who went with the judge into chambers to deliberate on the decision.

The consensus from the prosecutor, the city council and the orphanage was that it would be in Galya's best interest to be adopted by us (well, in our minds too.) So it really wasn't a surprise when the judge came back with the order saying that they were approving us as adoptive parents. Kinda made the wait worth it:)

Here too I need to say the girls were tremendously patient, sitting for nigh on two hours in a warm courtroom before starting to get overly-antsy. I'm thinking we'll need to do something special for them this weekend. Our court appointment was set for 2:30, and by the time we left it was nearly 6:00. That's a long time to go on a little water and some fruit snacks. Especially when the last 20-30 minutes of the hearing was the judge reading the entire dossier we submitted into the record.

I also have to again say I'm glad Angelina's working for us on this. Usually there is a period of 10 days between the preliminary and final court hearings, so we did get that first 10-day period "waived" as Angelina knew the judge enough to schedule it this way. Unfortunately, we did not get the other 10-day waiting period waived. So at the moment, Galya is still at the orphanage (which disappointed our girls quite a bit) and we do not officially become her parents until 12/16. This is because the 10 days ends on a Sunday, so they have to give it to the next working day for the "10th" day to be available for any appeals. That would be 12/15, so our actual, official, date for taking Galya is 12/16.

This is not to say prayers and wishes went unanswered, merely that they were answered differently from how we'd have wanted. But there's a purpose to it all, and we will spend the next ten days (plus) in Donetsk, and visit Galya as much as we can. We'll be hosting a party at the orphanage sometime next week, and try to get Galya for Saturday's excursion into downtown.

We did find out today that there really is no way to know for sure how Galya's scars came to be, so we're left with the story we have. And we know a little more about the circumstances of her birth (mother was 17, born to a well-off family. She kept it secret from her family, especially her grandfather, who apparently wouldn't have approved. Galya was abandoned at the hospital, and her mother asked that nobody ever reveal she was the mother.) We also learned she was in the hospital for a year dealing with her injuries, which is something we hadn't known. Her guardian is criminally responsible for her condition, but not in prison. It's odd to think that, as much as we know about Tierney and Amissa, there will be so many things we will never know about the first six years of Galya's life.

There are some challenges left here. First, obviously, working with Galya to quickly learn English. She's smart, and this should be fairly quick. Second, I need to get copies of the paperwork, translated, submitted to my workplace for my FMLA application. That will be a challenge as I have to get that in soon, and getting things translated/sent from here will take some time. Finally, our plane tickets right now are for 12/18. It would take a miracle to get everything done in time for all five of us to take that flight now, with the official date of the adoption order being 12/16. It may be that I come back with the girls on 12/18, and Shannon comes with Galya a day or two later. It all depends on the bureacracy in Makeevka, and then at the American embassy in Kiev. Fortunately there are ways to deal with this, however it plays out, so we're not worried about anything in particular. But it would be nice to be able to all return at the same time. Holidays are not great times to try and reschedule a flight, although our travel agent is good. Shannon has already reached out to her, and tomorrow we'll be contacting the American embassy to see what we can do to ensure the quickest turnaround possible there. And we'll sic Angelina on the Makeevka paperwork. It'd be a whirlwind, but we'll see if we can't get it all pulled off.

In short: Galya's our daughter barring any protests or appeals, which aren't expected. But as Ukrainian law says we wait ten days to be sure, we wait ten days. That leaves some logistical challenges, but it will all work out somehow.

Thanks again for all your prayers, support, love and concern. It is greatly humbling to know we have so many people behind us on this!

God bless,
Ron

So I Suppose You're All Wondering...

2008-12-03T07:36:00.000-08:00

...what happened today, eh?

Well, we woke up and Amissa sat down with the iPod to play Zuma. She's getting pretty good at it. We had breakfast, and met Angelina just after 11:00 to go to our court date at 11:30.

And court was interesting. We waited nigh on an hour to get into the courtroom, and then the judge asked some questions about our readiness to take on Galya, and whether we were ready to adopt a girl with her physical scars. We also found that there is no documentation which speaks at all about the scars or their source. So, at this point, we are left to assume what we were told was true (more on that in a future post where I share the history of what got us to this point.)

After a little questioning, we were told that our final court date is tomorrow at 2:30. Turns out this was the preliminary hearing. Neither Shannon nor I could tell a thing from the judge's countenance, so we assume it went well only because Angelina seemed in good spirits, as if nothing was at all unusual. In short, we're in limbo for another day.

Galya was uncharacteristically shy, and at times looked sad when they were talking about her history. I'm sure this is exciting, intimidating, sad and interesting all at the same time. Plus probably a million other things I can't imagine. The girls were well behaved and quiet, and a bit more enthusiastic than Galya when asked whether they were ready to be her sisters. So all in all, not a bad day, but not a very enlightening one yet.

We came home, and as tired as the girls are, we just watched a movie and relaxed. The girls are now helping Shannon cook dinner. Tierney has been very helpful, even help wash laundry in the tub today. I think she's beginning to think she could even live on her own with all these new skills.

Not much else new to report, so this will be a relatively short blog post. For me anyway.

Hope all is well with you, and that there is good news tomorrow.

Ron

Ukraine

2008-12-02T03:18:00.000-08:00

As I promised I'm going to try and go all educational on y'all and share some knowledge about Ukraine. Not sure how much this helps/hurts, and frankly I'm not convinced I'll be 100% accurate, but it may provide some context for what we're encountering here. As I'm not a history teacher, nor a geography teacher, I'll just provide links to actual information. What is between here and the links are just my (our) observations of the country.

This is a changing country in the midst of post-independence transition. The government, first of all, faces challenges in forming long-lasting governing coalitions. You may remember the Orange Revolution here a few years back. That movement led to a fairly pro-Western government. That government is headed right now by President Viktor Yuschenko (you may remember him as the one that someone attempted to poison) and Prime Minister Yulia Tymoshenko. From what I can tell of late, these two don't get along well and they are soon to have another set of parliamentary elections to try and get the government moving again. For the most part, though, the governmental disputes and workings don't seem to be of primary concern to most of the Ukrainians I meet. Coming out of a U.S. election cycle, I'm steeped in politics, and being the curious guy I am I've asked a few folks how the Yushchenko/Tymoshenko saga affects them. It's been universally waved off as just "politician games."

Really, the bigger thing seems to be both the big picture and day-to-day picture topics. The big picture is whether one sides more with aligning with Russia, or whether one sides more with aligning with the "West" and NATO. It's probably too simplistic, but it seems you find more pro-Western sentiment in the, well duh, western side of the country. Here, in Donetsk, and other places close to Russia, there is more of an agreement with a Russian perspective. With Russians making up a fairly large minority of the populace, I don't expect that dispute to go away any time soon. The Georgian conflict of late didn't do anything to abate the argument.

The day-to-day picture is, as would be expected, the utilities, the groceries, the economy, the family and the job.

The people are generally polite, if a bit more wary than in America. The sense I get is that it takes much longer to develop deep friendships here, but once made those friendships are stronger than back home. People tend to smile more in dealings with those they know; with those they don't, there is a more serious and somber countenance. Children are seemingly loved quite a bit as ours are often doted upon. (Twice on the buses there have been women who have tried to get Amissa's legs covered where her pant legs rode up a little. There are still a few folks, especially in the older generations, who adhere to concepts such as children not being covered in the winter will make them sick.) Ukrainians tend to be more direct and less politically correct than Americans, and will usually assist if asked for help. The children have been friendly with our girls, and have played with them even when they don't speak the same language. There is much hustling about, and while us Americans are trying to make up our minds about what to do, or where to go, next, we'll find Ukrainians working their way past us in line. Personal space isn't as large here either, as the housing (primarily small flats in multi-story buildings) and transportation (primarily buses and marshutkas) do not lend themselves to a great deal of privacy. (I theorize the Soviet structure itself also tended to discourage privacy, as opposed to the American structure which prizes it.) Frankly, the cities in Ukraine do not serve the claustrophobic or agoraphobic many favors.

The girls' observations about Ukrainians: They wear the same clothes as us, they speak a different language from us, they are good, and the girls/women all like high-heeled boots. Figures they'd notice the fashions.

The economy is trying, and ahead of the American economy in the downward trend. There are limits to how much cash people can withdraw from ATMs, which causes problems in a cash-based society. The exchange rate has greatly improved for dollar-holders since this past summer, but that's not good for the Ukrainian currency (the hrivna.) In July I was getting fewer than 5 hrivna to the dollar. Today we're getting close to 7. Unemployment is up, and people are more fearful for their jobs. We hear people speak of the economic crisis, and I think this fear is more impactful than most other things.

The culture is not terribly different from what I've seen of other European people. Walking and hanging out at clubs or cafes is more popular (seemingly) than watching television or staying at home. This is especially true for the younger generations. Traditional Ukrainian arts and clothing are generally reserved for tourist area souvenir shops as clothing and decor generally mimic that found in other European or American places. The arts are important, as evidenced by the many kept up theaters and signs promoting shows. On the other hand, American products are also highly in evidence as the Donetsk movie theater is showing such fare as Madagascar 2. Alongside Ukrainian products and restaurants we often see Coke and McDonald's. As an American, there are differences to be noted, but there is also much here that can make one feel a bit more at home than I suspect one would have a decade or two ago.

Of course, these observations are our own, and may be tainted by sample errors of many types. But they are what we've noted, and therefore help color how we're experiencing Ukraine.

For those interested, some resources to learn more:

Wikipedia

CIA Factbook

The BBC

Ukrainian Culture

More Culture

Ukrainian Language

Infoplease

God bless,
Ron

Court Week

2008-12-02T02:51:00.000-08:00

Tomorrow is our court date, the big day. Or at least the next big day. There is the potential for another big day or two in the next few weeks depending on how the hearing goes tomorrow. So things get more interesting in the next 24 hours.

When last we spoke, we were at Sunday afternoon. Sunday evening was rather relaxing as we just chilled out at home. Yesterday we awoke to fog. Actually, we've had fog here the past few days. It's made for rather grey days, but the weather has been generally mild. We went to the orphanage in the morning, which was different, and caught Galya out on a walk with some other kids from the orphanage. The teacher (?) was nice enough to let us take her back to play and color some more. While I appreciated the trust, I admit I likely would not have let a child in my charge walk off with four strangers speaking a different language. While the girls colored some more pictures, and ate fruit snacks, we chatted with a couple from Idaho who are adopting two girls from the same orphanage. They're taking on two girls who'd visited their neighborhood for a few months last summer, and to whom they'd obviously taken a shine. It's fascinating hearing the different adoption stories from the (surprisingly many) adoptive families we've met here.

The fruit snacks were a big hit with Galya, as well as with her friend Natasha who sat with us and colored too. I think we best be prepared to bring lots of fruit snacks tomorrow, as well as more markers/crayons, as I think we're about to be known as the "family who gives stuff to kids who hang out with Galya."

We came home and did the proverbial chillin' thing for a bit. I ran into Kate, the daughter of one of the staff here at DCU. We'd first met two years ago when I was first here, and we spent the 30 seconds we had before she had to get back to what she was doing catching up. It's fun seeing people from the summers in this context.

Speaking of which, in the evening, Maxim came to visit. He was one of my students in the English Intensive this past summer. We've made tentative plans to go downtown with him, and whichever other students he can wrangle up, on Saturday. It was fun to hear Maxim's views on America, mostly formed from movies. (Next time you hear Hollywood say they really don't influence behavior or thought, but instead merely reflect reality, that's hogwash.) Then came a dinner of fried hot dogs/potatoes, and off to a prayer meeting at Olga's.

Olga's group of students and staff have been praying for us, and we enjoyed the chance to thank them. They're also planning their Christmas show, and so we got to sing some Christmas carols. Being here, away from most of the Christmas focus, it's easy to forget we're coming up on that time of year again. The girls got to play with a couple of children from Kyrgystan, whose parents study at DCU, and then with a couple of the college students. These college students graciously riled up the girls right before we tried to get them to bed, but eventually we got to the slumber portion of our day.

Today we're waiting to hear from Angelina, who told us she'd call when she got back to Donetsk from Kiev. Hopefully that will be soon, and maybe we'll even have time to get over to see Galya. Otherwise, court tomorrow! And at the very least, another walk to the local store this afternoon.

TTFN -
Ron

Pictures!

2008-11-30T05:55:00.000-08:00

Okay, I think I'm going to experiment here. Instead of putting a bunch of pictures here, inline, I'm going to link to photo albums I created in Facebook. For one thing, Facebook's interface is better.

So please let me know if you can't get to these photo albums and I'll try to post pictures here too.

Pictures of the girls with the Riccardelli girls

Pictures from the Kiev leg of the trip

Pictures from Donetsk

A couple of traveling pictures

Tierney has been taking animal pictures

Some cultural entertainment

And...the star of the show, Galya!

I will post more pictures to these photo albums as I can, but will post here when I add pictures.

Hope this works and you can share a bit of what we're seeing!

God bless,
Ron

Sunday at Last

2008-11-30T04:34:00.000-08:00

I have two objectives today in regards to the blog. First, I want to catch up the narrative to today. Second, I want to post some pictures (finally.) Shannon has some up on her Facebook page, and I'll post some there as well, but for those of you not on FB, I'd hate to leave you out. Then again, you could just join Facebook and become my friend...

Friday morning we awoke to no power still, and Colleen came down to tell us there was an accident at the power plant. It affected all of three locations, so it wasn't exactly a high priority fix. Fortunately, we'd enough cold cereal to get the girls through breakfast, and us 'Sotans are used to enough cold that Shannon and I were able to wash our hair in frigid water. The power came back around mid-morning, so we were able to get the girls a warm lunch (these little hot dog-esque sausages and fried potatoes. That's quickly becoming Tierney's favorite lunch, and she's now cooking it herself.) After lunch, we went to the orphanage to visit Galya again. This time we were completely on our own as Angelina is still in Kiev. Andrey from DCU drove us over, and unannounced we walked in and asked for Galya. There was another family there, but we did not get to talk with them. There are apparently a few families in the adoption game about now.

We colored and drew pictures with Galya and showed her some games we'd brought. She didn't have any overt interest in learning how to play the games, but enjoyed looking at the pieces. We also had two happy meal toys (or as they spell it here, xeппi miл) which she couldn't put down. Unfortunately, the toys made noise. That doesn't bode well for quiet, but then our girls aren't that quiet anyway. Galya will fit right in!

The visit wasn't terribly long, although long enough for Galyna to use up a bit of camera memory card again. It was a good thing I downloaded all the pictures and videos before we went over! This girl may have a future as a photographer.

We returned home via Amstor, and think we're finally caught up on groceries. They didn't have belts in Tierney's size (she didn't bring one; oops!) so we tried dog collars that (a) looked like belts and (b) were almost the right size. I think the dogs here get rather large. Shannon also found some broccoli - which was very welcome to my veggie-starved wife - and I picked up something I thought was popcorn, but turned out to be something like sugar-coated white-cheddar puffed Cheetos. I really need to pay more attention.

Saturday was a busy, busy day. We started by attending a little theater production on campus. There was a Polish group which presented some children's theater, which was good fun. We could follow the basic stories, which appear to be traditional folk tales, despite the language differences. There was also a professional poet laureate from a nearby town. He did some dramatic poetry readings, and in one of them gave gifts to various audience members. Our darling little Amissa got a mirror. Made her morning, that. Part of the program was also dedicated to a puppet show, and it was very well done. The puppet show was put on by members of a local church, many of whom are affiliated with the Shelter of the Good Shepherd in Makeevka. I will speak more of the shelter in a future post. It was a very clear presentation of the Easter story and forgiveness, which was cool to be able to pick out. Apparently dramas translate well even without words being understandable.

After the puppet show, which I neglected to mention we watched with the Riccardellis, we met up with Andrey (a boy I'd met the past two summers at the Good Shepherd Shelter, and who came to DCU with the Riccardellis) to head into downtown. We made it halfway via bus when the bus driver kicked us off to turn around and head the other direction. So we waited and caught another bus. Eventually, we made it downtown and walked to the artist's "colony." This is an area where local aritsans sell paintings, sculptures and various souvenirs. We picked a few up, but I won't say what they are in case the recipients are reading this blog. We then went to a restaurant called "big belly hut" or something like that. It was a buffet restaurant with Ukrainian food. It was tasty, especially the solyanka. Shannon has since looked up many recipes online, and will treat you to it someday if you'd like.

Oh - almost forgot. Between the artists and the dinner, we stopped at Lenin Square where the girls rode some pedal-powered cars. I'm surprised Amissa didn't run anyone over, but it was quite amusing to watch. It was less amusing to watch the guy running the amusements keep telling the girls to keep driving when we were paying by the time, but it all worked out. The Riccardelli girls and ours are getting along quite well. I'm rather proud of our daughters, who have proven adept at making friends with, and playing with, children over here - not least of all Galya - despite the language barrier. Two little girls from our apartment building just showed up at our door one day and the four of them played and had a great deal of fun.

We got home, then, and the girls watched Tinkerbell. They liked the movie so much they watched it this morning again before church. Fortunately, church started at 10:00, so we had plenty of time. We went to the church here on campus, which Sergei (the rector of DCU) leads. The girls went to Sunday School and were pleased to know one of the songs they sang. We also met a couple from Kyrgystan who are studying here at DCU and speak pretty good English. They "knew" us before we even arrived as they're part of a Monday night prayer group which Olga Z. hosts. Guess with all the prayer in two countries, we can't be surprised things are working as they are:)

So that catches us up to the moment. There are a few things I will talk about in future posts which put more color to the stories so far, as well as pictures. I'll post the pictures today, but along with narratives the following topics will (God willing) appear in the blog this week:

Donetsk and Ukraine

The girls and their adjustments and observations

The Shelter of the Good Shepherd

And last, but certainly not least, Galya's Tale itself

So stay tuned!

God bless,
Ron

Back to our Story, Already in Progress...

2008-11-29T00:23:00.000-08:00

We left off at Monday, so on to Tuesday. That was a rather quiet day as Galya had to take a few physical exams. We spent the day hanging around the apartment, and walked down to a local market across the highway from campus. The girls played outside a little bit, but the wind was a bit brisk so they didn't play long. In the evening, we went over to our friend Olga's apartment, and shared tea with some people I knew from the English Intensives in the summer (Andrew, Tanya and Nazar, along with Tanya and Nazar's mother Natasha.) Tierney and Amissa hit full sleepy-silly mode during the visit and provided no end of amusement.

Wednesday was a bit busier. We started with a walk down to another local store, called Victory, to pick up a few more items. Shopping is more piecemeal for us this week it seems. In the afternoon, we went down to see Galya again, this time bringing some coloring books and white boards. The visit was MUCH quieter as the girls spent time coloring together. Galya was much taken with the girls' digital camera, and about filled up the memory card taking pictures of people who didn't want their picture taken. Some things transcend cultures I guess. Coming home from this visit, Angelina informed us she was heading back to Kiev for a few days to file more paperwork with the Ukrainian government. If the Ukrainian railroad offers frequent rider miles, I'm sure she's in an elite class. So, in the next few days we'd have to arrange other transportation for visits to Galya. We came back to campus, and Lawrence came down to invite us up to their apartment for dinner Thursday night. It will be nice (he says using future tense to pretend he's not writing this long after Thursday night already happened) to spend Thanksgiving with a couple of other Americans. The evening was spent reading with the girls, and trying to keep up on their homework. The girls have been really good about that while we're here, and both were able to email their teachers on Tuesday. They're even doing well without any television to watch!

We also found out that our court date is set. We will be in court next Wednesday, December 3. That should be the time we are deemed to be Galya's family, and this is followed by a ten-day waiting period where anyone can appeal the adoption. This rarely happens, but the waiting period is also rarely waived. We're hoping it can be this time so we can return home ten days sooner, but it's up to the judge. So we pray and hope, and we'll see what happens.

Thursday, Thanksgiving day. This was the most unique Thanksgiving in my memory. We went downtown to do some sightseeing. We visited Lenin Square, Pushkin Boulevard and the downtown Donetsk McDonald's. Yes, we are experiencing culture everywhere!

We started our time downtown with the girls playing on a playground on Pushkin Boulevard. For those who haven't been there, Pushkin is a pedestrian boulevard with playgrounds, benches, walking paths, flowers, sculptures, cafes and fountains. If I were to live in Donetsk, this is where I would spend most of my free time. From there we went to Lenin Square to meet Deanna and Sean Riccardelli and their daughters, Elina and Liza. Elina and Liza were adopted from Russia, and so we had something in common right away - daughters adopted (or about to be) from behind the old Iron Curtain. We adults chatted while the girls all chased pigeons. The Riccardelli girls both caught pigeons, and Amissa was able to hold one. It was fun, albeit something we wouldn't encourage back home. I'm not sure the pigeons liked it either, but they were being fed so they didn't leave. We were introduced to the Riccardellis through Olga Zaitseva here at DCU.

After a time talking, we split to different restaurants for lunch. The girls had to have McDonald's, so we headed over for our chicken nuggets, chicken sandwiches and fries. Following a typical Ukrainian, er, American lunch, we walked over to a souvenir shop - and ran into the Riccardellis again. Small world, this place. Leaving the shop, we returned to the bus for the ride back to campus.

The buses here run on electrical wires hung above the street. Which the girls found interesting. We stopped at Amstor to pick up a desert to bring with to our Thanksgiving dinner. We got home shortly before 5 and headed up for dinner at 6. The Gingerys are wonderful folks, missionaries serving here at DCU for a number of years. Olga Z. joines us as well, and we sat down to a "traditional" Thanksgiving dinner of chicken, potatoes and all the trimmings. The cranberry sauce was superb, as was all the food really (we have been eating well; the bread, especially, over here is tremendous.) In the middle of dinner, though, the power went out. This doesn't happen here as much as it used to, but we ended up having dinner by candlelight. It was rather nice, and we had good conversation. And, we had dinner theater when Amissa and Tierney started doing shadow puppets with the flashlight. All in all, a great Thanksgiving.

We did miss family and friends, though, and cannot wait to see you all when we get back. We are truly thankful for all of you; for your support, your prayers and your love we are most certainly grateful too.

This catches us up to two days ago. I'll try to get caught all the way up tomorrow, assuming we have electricity. We are planning a quiet day around the apartment before another busy week. I think the girls need it.

Now off to watch Tinkerbell. Shannon surprised the girls today with news that she picked it up before the trip. They want me off the laptop so I can put the movie in. So...until tomorrow,

God bless!

Ron

Happy Day After Thanksgiving!

2008-11-28T12:16:00.000-08:00

Well, we had a nice Thanksgiving; chicken dinner over candlelight. Some ex-pat missionaries who live here (Lawrence and Colleen) invited us over for dinner, and since turkey's a bit sparse 'round here they had a lovely chicken. Tasted like turkey:) Just as dinner started, the power went out. Seems there was an accident at the local power plant affecting the campus and only one or two other places in the neighborhood. The girls enjoyed the lack of a night light (ha! or not) but otherwise we got through the adventure unscathed, and in very good spirits thanks to our wonderful hosts.

However, since we did not get power back until this morning, and since we spent most of the evening trying to get Skype to work (hint: if you're going to set up Skype, do it before leaving the States) there isn't much time to actually blog by now. Should be plenty o'time this weekend, though, so see you back here tomorrow! (Unless the power goes out again...)

Ron

So where was I?

2008-11-26T03:32:00.000-08:00

Ah, yes. Sunday. Sunday was a day of rest as we hung out around the apartment and packed up for our trip to Donetsk. We did take a little walk out through the nearby neighborhood. The girls each picked up a pair of slippers to keep their feet warm; one doesn't wear shoes inside the house here, and they wanted the slippers to keep their feet warm. Not that we've needed it; the weather's been pleasant (for Minnesota standards anyway.)

Sunday evening Nick picked us up and took us to the train station where we boarded the ol' iron horse for the overnight train ride to Donetsk. Shannon says the train was more comfortable and spacious than the one she rode in India last January. I'll take her word for that! The girls liked sleeping in the upper bunks, although the frequent stops in between did wake them through the night. They did very well, though, and so far are traveling like little troopers. It's a big adventure for them and they're taking quite a bit in. The only thing they're not getting much of is sleep, although they're soon headed for a day or two of crashing.

Monday: The big day! I suppose if I stopped this post here, Mom and Dad would reach through the network cable and wring my neck, so I'll continue. We arrived in Donetsk ~7:00 a.m., and were met by Olga and Andre from DCU. Andre brought the school's van, so we did have enough room for our overpacked family. It was nice to finally introduce friends from Ukraine to family as I've talked about each to the other many times. We arrived at the university by about 8:00, and were put up in an apartment in the staff housing building. It is spacious and the girls love the wallpaper in their room. Coming soon we'll post photos, and I'll make sure the girls include a picture of their room for y'all.

After a quick shower and putting away of suitcases, we were picked up by Angelina. She spent some time before we arrived doing paperwork, and getting ready to file things with the court. We were therefore able to get to the courthouse and register the adoption case, and we also were able to get to the city council offices and file the appropriate paperwork there. (Side note: I've made the comment frequently that there is more paperwork involved in adoption than in buying a house. This is probably for the best, of course, but I'm losing track of what we've filed, where.) Then to the orphanage where we met Galyna.

I've met her three times before, but this was a first for the rest of the family. She knows we're there to adopt her, and she ran into the room all a-smiley. She went to Shannon and gave her a big, long hug and called her "mama." This, needless to say, went over well. She then hugged the girls as they were introduced, and finally me. Consistent with the rest of this trip, we didn't have our camera available. Ooops. We went into a side room while more paperwork was completed, and the girls played with Galya. The language barrier seemed a bit less problematic in that first 90 minute visit, and we expect she'll pick up English quickly. She has not yet had any English lessons, so we'll be starting from scratch. I will just have to keep my Russian dictionary handy:) Fortunately, she's probably not old enough to yet critique my grammar too strongly.

Galya's a sweet girl, mildly stubborn and certainly eager for attention. She has a smile that lights up the room, and a bit of energy. Though the youngest of the girls, she's a good couple of inches taller than Amissa. So Amissa is still the older sister, but she's not going to be the big sister! So far that seems to be okay with her. We were very proud of the girls; they latched onto Galya immediately.

From that visit, we hit Amstor for groceries, then returned to the university for a couple of hours and some lunch. Late in the afternoon, Angelina returned and took us to Gorlovka to sign some more applications with the notary. While waiting for our driver afterwards, we hit a little cafe where we had the absolute best hot chocolate ever. No lie. Best ever. It was like drinking melted, high-quality, smooth chocolate bars. The girls also had rather large ice cream sundays. I think we're looked upon as oddities, eating ice cream in sub-freezing weather, but that is the way of us. After this, it was time to head back home for much needed sleep.

More later. We're on the way to the orphanage to see Galya again. This time, we'll be taking the camera:)

God bless,
Ron

"No, there is too much. Let me sum up."

2008-11-25T10:50:00.000-08:00

So, where to begin? The week (or nearly so) has gone by quickly. In the proverbial nutshell, the trip-to-date in review:

Wednesday: We got up very early, which is terribly annoying, but considering the cause we dealt with it with good humor. Gib Coleman (thanks again!) drove us to the airport and we boarded our plane sans incident. The girls enjoyed the flight to NYC's JFK airport, which provided highly overpriced food and underwhelming entertainment options. Again, good humor. The girls made a new friend in the lounge, coloring on the floor next to this little Ukrainian girl. Would have made for cute pictures if we hadn't been up so early so as to fry our "let's take a picture!" synapses. On to the plane for Kiev, again without incident. That flight introduced two minor problems: Amissa's food intolerances, and forbidden-for-the-girls movies on the "big screen." Our lovely flight attendant was kind enough to find some corn flakes for Amissa so she could have a wheat-free breakfast, thus resolving issue #1. We tried to get the girls to sleep, thus mitigating problem #2, but they were having none of it. So, sleepy and excited we landed in Kiev on...

...Thursday. We were early into Kiev, so we had a chance to change some currency before our driver arrived. Nick, our driver, then drove us to our apartment. Nick was great, and I never felt in danger. But I would have to call the traffic there...interesting. We stopped at a small market for a little food, and then hit the cozy apartment for some rest. After dinner (basically some sausage, cheese, juice and bread) we went for a walk. The girls liked the street vendor motif, and we picked up a few oranges on the way back to the apartment. It was off to an early bedtime, and after we all woke up ~3:00 a.m. (unable to fall asleep) we waited for...

...Friday. Nick and Angelina (our facilitator and all-around superstar) met us Friday morning to take us to a meeting at the Ukrainian governmental department whose name escapes me, but which handles adoption and child-welfare issues. There we met Irina, a case worker who heard our story and gave us the referral to adopt Galyna. She noted that it was unheard of for people to be invited to Ukraine so quickly after their application was submitted (we were rather surprised ourselves.) Angelina also was able to convince them to give us the referral that same day instead of having to wait for the next day - which would have been Monday. This was quite the benefit as this referral was required in order to set up a court date in Donetsk to formalize the adoption. Since the courts in Donetsk only take registrations for cases on Mondays and Fridays, losing that day would have meant another few days on the trip. So far, things are going more quickly than is typical, and everything has been going smoothly. Were I superstitious, I'd be knocking on every tree in my room! But I would be remiss were I not to thank all of ya that have been praying for exactly this type of smoothing of bureaucracy and expediting of time lines. And Angelina, with her connections and knowledge of how this all works, has been an absolute lifesaver.

After the meeting, we returned to our apartment (after one more stop at the grocery store; now that we knew the size of our refrigerator, we knew what we could buy to supplement the sausage/bread/cheese.) From here until Sunday night, we had no further obligations, so spent this Friday afternoon hanging out. We visited a wonderful little restaurant/pizzeria about two blocks from the apartment. The girls enjoyed a chicken and potato dish that was of the über-cute ilk. The dish had a chicken breast dressed up with various vegetables cut and pieced together to make the chicken look like an actual chicken, with wings, tail and head. Unfortunately, the girls were so into taking silly videos of themselves they forgot to take pictures of the food (noticing a theme yet?) The girls also enjoyed the underground shopping stalls by the subway station. Here in Ukraine there are many intersections where pedestrians cross the road underground, and they are often filled with little booths of products for sale. This day behind us we tried to sleep in preparation for...

...Saturday. Nick came and picked us up around 2:00 for a sight-seeing trip to downtown Kiev. Lots of fun here, even though cold and sleety (well, not "cold" for a bunch of Minnesotans, but cold for people from further south, like Iowa.) We saw many nice examples of Ukrainian architecture, including St. Michael's Monastery. To get there we rode the funicular which was nice because it got our little stompin'-in-mud-puddles-in-her-now-soaked-tennis-shoes youngest out of the damp for a few minutes, and because it was a rather unique experience. We also checked out the souvenirs and artwork on the streets, and had a nice Ukrainian buffet dinner. Busy, wet and fun. We then hit the apartment to watch movies on the laptop and blow the backup fuse in our transformer. Oops. So the question is, will we or will we not have power for the laptop the rest of the trip? Will we be able to charge our camera battery? (Well, since you're reading this, yes.)

This is getting to be a long post so I'll get the rest of the trip posted in a following item.

I hope all is well, and happy (belated) anniversary to Mom and Dad. We would have called or sent an email, but until today...no Internet! As soon as we refresh our Skype account we'll give you a call.

God bless -
Ron

We're here!

2008-11-25T04:33:00.001-08:00

We made it safe and sound, but haven't had Internet access until today. So...lots to catch up on.

Unfortunately, I don't have time for that at this moment, so I'll be updating more this evening.

At this point, suffice it to say the paperwork is going well, the folks here at DCU are wonderful (as always) and we got to meet Galya yesterday. She and the girls got along famously, although the language difference will take some time to work through.

Until this evening -
Ron

Tomorrow's the Day!

2008-11-18T11:18:00.000-08:00

Welcome to Galya's Tale, the blog where we're recording our story of adoption. Over the next few weeks, we will update as often as we can to keep y'all updated on our adventure in Ukraine. We'll also share with you the story of how we first heard about, and how I had the pleasure of meeting, a little girl named Galyna. Galya, as she's nicknamed, has stolen our hearts.

So feel free to come back as often as you'd like.

In the meantime, we're leaving tomorrow, flying from Minneapolis to New York to Kiev. There is much to do yet, as you can imagine, and so I'm off to continue preparations for the trip.

Until next time -

Ron