Meeting Ivan & Snezhanna

We made it to the orphanage around eleven am before Ivan and Snezhanna arrived.

We took a few photo's...

James, Alex, Wendy & Hanna

Us with our Alex!

Overall our meeting went great! You can tell that Ivan & Snezhanna love and care about Alex. We’ve been quarantined to our room but we were told we could walk around upstairs if we wanted. The orphanage served us a nice lunch (again!) and then we played the longest UNO game ever-as we were playing by Lex’s rules and finally we switched to a Russian card game that James and I still have not figured out.

We talked and visited and saw pictures of Ivan & Snezhanan’s house they’re building. We talked about Alex’s life as a child but learned nothing more than his mother drank a lot and that he was picked up on the street and then put in the orphanage. Alex’s mother was married to Ivan’s Dad but never married Alex’s dad but lived with him for a few years. Poor Hannah had to translate and translate until she got a headache.
We talked about possibly visiting Ivan & Snezhanna next Sunday in Dnipropetrovsk. Alex told me with a big grin that I need to learn how to make Borscht from Snezhanna. If the weather is good we will try to go. I’m not sure how we’ll get there. I believe it’s about 40 minutes away by car and we’ll not have a translator by then but Snezhana’s English is pretty good. It certainly is better than my Russian. Even Ivan can speak a little English.
We haven’t seen any other children. The building we’re in has offices and class rooms but there isn’t any school on the weekends or for the whole next week as the orphanage has a holiday. We’re hoping we can see other children and deliver gifts this upcoming week. I know that some of the underwear we brought was delivered to Alex’s class as a gift from us. (Wow! I bet they were impressed with that!) The rest is being put away for other children. I told Naydia that more was coming with the Benson’s.
The apartment is starting to grow on me. It’s warm, it’s clean and for now, it’s home.
Alex spent time with our laptop and the Rosetta Stone CD. He mostly guessed but at least he tried. He also listened to my Ipod, ate the banana’s we brought and played cards with us. He has worn the same clothes each day. I just can’t wait to take him, get him showered and dressed in his new clothes. He is in good spirits, you can tell he’s uncomfortable being in the spotlight so much, but ever so often he’ll come lay his head on my shoulder, or give me a quick hug. I just want to pull him on to my lap and hold him but with so many people around I’m sure he would be very uncomfortable so I’m exercising my self control and just winking at him now and again.
We went back to the apartment and had a light dinner and ate cookies…again! So far we’ve done that each night, the milk here is very sweet and thick-of course I’m use to skim milk but this is supposedly 2.5% and James LOVES it! I love the yogurt, it’s very creamy and I’m sure full of fat but since I can’t read it, I don’t feel guilty.
We gave Hannah the Ukraine book of Mormon we brought but learned we should have brought a Russian one as everyone is speaking and reading and talking Russian. At her request, we talked for a few hours about the Church and James gave her the 1st discussion. She was very receptive and we told her we’d arrange for the missionary’s to visit her. She was so surprised that Mormon missionaries are here, in Ukraine. It was a sweet evening. Our Hanna is a very special girl.
We had made the couch into a bed for Oxana (our facilitator) who is arriving late tonight on the train and tomorrow we head to the city inspectors and then back to the “boarding” school (apparently it’s not called an orphanage?) where Alex will need to write down his desire to be adopted. I’m hoping for Internet access sometime tomorrow. Cross your fingers. I hope all is going well at home, I miAless my home grown children, my house, and my clothes dryer!

Alex wanted to take a picture of us....