Seeing Life as It Is

"Bless the Lord, O my soul, and forget not all his benefits...who redeemeth thy life from destruction and crowneth thee with loving kindness and tender mercies."

Yesterday we went early to the internot. As usual the kids were ready for us, flashing dimples and eyes twinkling. I still haven't figured out how they magically appear like that, but it is so adorable. Ahhh, sigh..I am so glad they are to be our sons! My arms have waited many months for this. God is indeed good.

Our three boys set up the wastebasket to shoot the ball into it across the empty playroom. The competition was fun, but the rough housing became too much, because Sasha bumped his forehead on the radiator, and started to develop a small goose egg. We put cold water on it from the white kettle, and when their supervisor arrived, she scolded him and sent him to the 'medical cabinet' to get ice and iodine.

Meanwhile, the other children were returning from school and, in front of us, the girls being discrete, the kids casually peeled off uniforms and donned play clothes. I loved the way the boys laid their slacks on the carpet and, making sure the creases were absolutely matched, slid a coat hanger up the legs and hung them in the closet. I had seen a boy ealier in another room carefully ironing his pants. We were treated to Artyom's long johns which was really cute, but Bob, uncomfortable with it all, got up and went into the hall. It would be nice if they had separate dressing areas for boys and girls at this age.

The kids then headed for lunch and while Bob and Rob returned to our apartment, Ira and I went down to the hallway where the big kids hang out. Ira's movie camera was like a magnet, and several smiled confidently into the camera, and greeted pen pals in Anerica. Masha did hers quickly, and then hid behind the other girls, giggling. Funny, she has been chosen among ten kids who are being sponsored by Russian to visit Moscow this Christmas in gratitude for Ukraine's having taken in a number of children to one of their spas in the Crimea, following the terroritst attack on the school earlier this year.

No only is Masha a bubbly, beautiful girl and good student, but she also knits! Since the day before , when I had given her a huge ball of yarn, she had perfectly knitted and pearled her way down a yard of scarf. I somewhat uncomfortably showed her my crochetting attempt. The girls all said it was beautiful and that she could do that too. When asked why they didn't sell their knitting, they replied, "Ohhh", looking at each other seriously, "We don't have yarn."

Ira and I will take the offering money given me by four home schoolers who earned it cleaning an office, and go shop for yarn and cross stitch materials for them and the boys who do that also. When I asked Andrei about cross stitching, his only embarassment was that he had no supplies. I am glad for him to have something to do with his hands.

Sometimes the older kids get so bored that they dream up stuff about their lives. Like, that they have a big brother or mama. Some of them really do have people, like one of ours who actually knows where his babushka and his mama live, but they have not come to see him in 4 years, and he knows they don't want him. When they had ordered him to steal, he would not do it, and sold papers on the street, eating yogurt and sausage, until social workers picked him up.

Some of the teens followed Ira and me upstairs to the office where we had the fun of delivering pen pal letters and a couple gifts. When shy Andrei saw his sparkly wrapped, polar fleece shirt, he smiled broadly, and laughed as the kids forced him to try it on. Of course, being Andrei, he took it right off again and, folding it neatly, ran off to put it in his room.

Lela's, big handsome driver Viktor and her interpreter surprised us by showing up. So we made plans to tour Odessa today. When Zhenya and Sasha discovered I had not left the orphanage yet, I told them we would have a tour tomorrow, and that Zhenya would be our guide because he rescued Papa on Sunday and knew his way around. He shook his head in adult digust at the memory of their drunk taxi man and said in Russian, "That stupid driver!" He and Sasha followed me to the door, where we could see Bob and Rob coming through the dusk to meet me. We hugged yet again, and said we would be back in the morning.