Touring Odessa

"The Lord is righteous and he loves righteousness: his countenance beholds the upright." Ps 11:7

Good Morning Everyone. Our day yesterday ended with Ira and me sipping tea in our kitchen and weeping with joy over the way God has intersected our lives over the past year. No matter what is happening this moment, God is there because He loves the righteous.

To answer questions first, yes, Joy, I cannot send mail to the Adoption forum for some reason, so thank you for contacting me. If you can say hello I would like that. Everone is so sweet. And yes there are several sibling groups here, but the kids start at first grade. I think I have mentioned some, but I will ask about little ones. It must be hard to choose a child from a picture alone, especially when that picture is years old.

And, Rebecca, how could I have missed telling about Yana! She is so precious. I see her every day with the 6A class. She looks so cute wearing her glasses, busily knitting on the playroom couch with several girls in a row. She loved the pink jacket and yesterday she and Galia had it pulled over them on the couch napping. They giggled when I grabbed their toes. I have the picture of them in my mind, and, next to them, sitting on a stool, smiling Artyom, the artist, knitting "baybe shoos".

Maggie I loved your call last night. Yes tell someone at the school. I don't know if they are getting the blog. Please tell Robin E. and she can tell the others. Her number is in my phone book. And please tell the Nightingales and Grandpa.

Yesterday when we asked permission to take the boys on a tour, the social worker smiled and said what a lovely Christmas gift we were taking back to our fameeleeya. The boys tried on Rob's outgrown size 10 pants and they looked so cute in cords and plaid shirts. I thought they looked perfect, but their supervisor ordered them to iron them before court day Thursday morning. I nudged Rob to watch as they neatly folded them and put them in their cupboards.

Then we and Ira all bundled into Viktor's new van, and with laughing Alyona as interpreter, off we drove to see the wonderful sights of downtown Odessa. The three boys sat together joking and playing hand games in the back seat, and teaching each other English and Russian phrases.

We stopped at the statue of the poet Pushkin outside the magestic mayor's office, ran up and down the over one hundred steps, and then walked in the cold and blustery winter sunshine by the ships at the docks. The boys climbed on the huge sculture of a muscular baby, symbol of Odessa emerging from her difficult and sad past.

Throughout our tour, our wonderful driver, Viktor, filmed us, making a movie for us to carry back to America. What a dear friend he is!

We stopped to chat with a young man at a booth who arranged a long orange scarf around my neck and placed an orange flag of 'the revolution' in Rob's hand. With the boys holding up a lovely family photograph of Yushchenko, we smiled, and Alyona took a picture. When I told the guy we were praying for Mr Yushenko his face turned very serious and replied, "Spaceeba".

We then took pictures of all three boys posing in front of the beautiful opera house, (Zhenya, or Sasha, in his husky, laughing voice would always call Rob to be in the pictures.) Zhenya told us, "we used to go in here, when I lived around here." I looked at him puzzled, imagining him at the opera, and he pointed to the top of the old ornate building next to it. He had lived up there in an attic room, and did we notice how "they have been renovating the opera house, as you can see." My guess is that the reason he had been inside "his" opera house was to keep warm, not to see the opera.

This was his turf, and last year, not knowing how his life would soon be changed, he had left the orphanage and come here. Yesterday, as he grabbed my hand tightly and smiled up at me, it was hard to imagine him the same boy. God has done a wonderful thing in and for this 12 year old, who has a strong sense of justice and loves righteousness.

We next stopped at the huge new Hotel Odessa overlooking the Black Sea. I took a mental picture of Bob walking ahead of me, Sasha holding tightly to his arm and looking up at him. We had a scare when Zhenya told Alyona he had to use the washroom and dashed inside a building next to it. We meandered in after him chatting, and then could not find him. I had visions of him having a change of mind, and going back to the streets.

I prayed fervently, knowing God did not bring us this far to lose him, and soon we spotted him outside running around calling our names. He and I ran to each other, me scolding, and him chattering in Russian, explaining that he had tried not to disturb everyone's tour and gone in and out so fast we had not seen him.

Before climbing back in to the van, we had a talk about family, in which the words "droog droogga" (each other) came up frequently. We all understand about droog droogga, and as a family, we will always look out for each other.

Drifting off to sleep last night I heard Rob's groggy voice asking from his living room couch bed, "Mom, can you tell me how to say that rhyme Zhenya is trying to teach me?

Oolitsa Pushina,
Dom kalatooshkina,
Kvarteera Padnomay..." How does it go?

We will ask the boys this morning when we go shopping for jackets and shoes. After that Our Family will host a farewell party for their class.