Court Week

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