Yesterday after we had eaten at the TLC (finally) we went to the Social Worker's office. Tanya has a car, so she drove us there and she asked us to stay in the car while she went inside to talk to him about what needed to be done. We were in the car for more than an hour. Finally, Tanya and the social worker (his name is Arkadi)came out to the car and we drove to the orphanage. We went in and were shown to the director's reception room. The door was open to the hallway and we could watch the children passing. We saw many kids we met at the camp last year and they looked surprised to see us, but then waved happily. Then, lo and behold, Zhanna and Ella passed by, looked in and saw us, and both ran to give us big hugs! It was an amazing experience! Mark and I were both in tears and couldn't stop hugging and holding them. We all sat down on the sofa and waited for the director to come.
As it turned out, the director never showed up yesterday afternoon, as she had scheduled. Finally Tanya called her and she told us she could meet us at 8:15 in the morning. But Mark and I and the girls didn't mind. It gave us a good hour together to visit and catch up. Tanya helped with translation when necessary, but the rest of the time we just "winged it." We'll be okay as we begin the communication process. It will just take time for Zhanna and Ella to learn English and for us to learn more Russian. We reluctantly said our good-byes, with the assurance that we would meet again in the morning.
We spent the evening at the TLC with the older kids there. The TLC is a great Christian facility for kids who choose to be there and apply and are accepted. They have regular home duties and responsibilities as they live here and continue to go to school or get job training. They must attend church (it is connected to the TLC building) and maintain good grades and/or good behavior. The kids were all very polite to us and they prepared a great dinner of shredded cabbage and cooked barley and sausage. It was very good.
Well I must go for now. We had a wonderful day today, but it is almost 6:00pm and Wednesday night, so they have church service. Mark and I will go and then I'll write more later.
Blessings,
Dawn
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1 comment:
The first time seeing the children at the orphanage is very memorable.
You will all get along fine. Somehow our daughter just understood us with our limited Russian, her non existent English and sign language. lol
It is very good that you have a Christian organization there where you are. We never found a church or any other Christians in our daughter's town, which is where we are going back again. We leave on June 7, with an SDA appointment of June 10:)
June
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