Ka-chunk!

“Ka-chunk”, wait. “Ka-chunk”, wait. If you have ever adopted, you understand that sound of “Ka-chunk” is the familiar tune of the “stamp that makes everything official”. There are little ones, that sound more like ‘Ka-chink”, and then there’s the big mama that goes “Ka-chunk”. This pattern, to some degree, sums up a major portion of our day. We started out in the cold rain this morning headed across chilly, muddy Kiev to pick up a representative from the inspector’s office in the boys orphanage region. We had to take her with us to the orphanage to meet with the boys and the director of the orphanage. It is always an interesting dynamic to sit in an office and watch 3 hours of Ukrainian language interaction between 2 government workers and a facilitator who is just trying to get the paperwork we need to continue. Despite my best efforts to pick out some words, the pace accelerates until it sounds like “hooked on phonics” meets MC Hammer, and it glazes me over. We sit, we listen, we smile, we pray (silently), we sit, repeat—you get it. Finally, the pitch of the foreign conversation changes, heads nod, and documents appear and go into the hands of an administrative assistant (let’s call her Miss Moneypenny, for those of you who know the James Bond movie-except she’s 30 years older now).

After an encore of this routine several times over, our 2 handsome boys awkwardly step in to the office, smiling and wearing their mismatched school jackets and trousers, in order to sign “consent forms” that allow them to be adopted. (I think it is an understated way to begin a changed life, but in some ways it is better this way…) They hugged us like they meant it, and then got to work. For some reason, this signing ordeal alone lasted for almost an hour, compared to mere minutes in our last 2 adoptions. The good news is that our lengthy visit almost completed the papers needed in the boys region, except we had to make a return trip to the inspector’s office to drop off inspector 13-A and pick up a paper that she forgot to bring on trip #1. So, we made another drive out to what I have nicknamed “the forbidden forest” orphanage to get this paper signed and (yes) stamped.

At this point, feeling exhausted for no good reason, we head cross-country to girl ‘k’ territory to help them get the paper work underway. We are hearing that her guardianship will need to be cancelled before we can have court, and this is a problem. It seems there is some confusion (go figure) on whether the cancellation can be done locally or if the region council has to decide it (sort of like city or county). If the city can do it, it can happen much more quickly, if the county does it, they will only meet on Feb.19th. Obviously we were praying for better news, and we got some idea at the private orphanage that the decision might be able to be made on the local level, since it was granted on the local level. A person from the SDA will make a call tomorrow, so please be praying. We got to see our lovely daughter to be for a few minutes, while Yuriy and Luda hammered through paperwork. Tomorrow, we visit the inspector’s office for girl ‘k’s region to get permission slips signed similar to paragraph #2 above.

Thanks for praying,
Blessings!