And Here She Is!!!

Let us introduce you our new daughter Julia Sophia Brooker!!! She is ours now!!! We had our court today and our facilitator, Oles Sukhetskyy, arranged the immediate execution (NO 10 days waiting period!) which the judge gracously granted us. So, we got our court decree AND the new birth certificat TODAY! We are SO happy and we thank our God for this miracle.



Ok, I will tell you from the beginning. On Monday we got our last paper from SDA but we didn't know if we would have the court on Tuesday because we heard that the judge buried his mother on Monday and nobody knew if he would work. We found out about our court this morning about 1.5 hours before the actual court. The courtroom is on our street so we took a 5 minutes walk. It was kind of funny: Julia called me on the phone and without any beginning she said, "Are you comming?" I said, "Where?" I guess she thought she dialed a wrong number and said, "Oh, I'm sorry" and hung up. We had to wait for a little bit then were asked into the room. There was the judge, the prosecutor, two jurists, the lawyer, and the person from adoption authorities. The judge started reading our papers. I don't understand Ukranian language much so I tried to listen to Oles translating everything for Bob into English. We were asked some questions about us like our names, birthdates and places of work. Then the judge continued reading and started asking me all kinds of questions about us, our extended family, about Anastasia, the school, the reason for adoption and others. I started getting nervous and my mouth was getting dry. He asked Bob maybe a couple of questions, then he asked Julia some questions. She was answering all his questions with strength in her voice and without any doubt. I was so proud of her! Then the director of the orphanage said his part, followed by the lawyer and the person from adoption authorities. The prosecutor didn't have any questions. We were asked to leave the room. We didn't have to wait too long: we were asked back in the room in 1 minute! The judge read their decision and I had tears in my eyes. This girl is our daughter! After he was done he told us "congratulations". Then I saw Julia come up to his desk and said, "Thank you, your honor!" It brought tears to judge's eyes and he hugged her. I think all the women in the room had "wet" eyes that moment.

The rest of the day we spent doing some paperwork and walking around down town. When we were in the taxi Julia told me, "I feel like a new person and it feels good!" Oh yes, you are a new person - a new daughter, sister, grandaughter, neice, a girl with a new life starting from today. She has a new family and is an orphan no more.

Patience - One of the Fruits of the Spirit

We didn't do much and nothing important happened this week. We would get up late, eat brunch, take a nap and go to Flower's school to pick her up from the afterschoolcare. The teacher got used to see us and she even doesn't let Flower go earlier waiting for us (the kids can leave early if they are done with their homework).

On Tuesday about 3PM, the city's main water line broke which cut off water to 3 cities for and estimated 3 - 4 days. We were at the orphanage when we heard about it. On the way home we stoped at a couple of grocery stores and they already didn't have running water. We tried to imagine how people would make it without water for 3-4 days. What about schools, kindergardens, hospitals, the orphanage? When we got home we still had running water. Thank You, God! The water stoped only in the morning. I think it was the most laughing day in the whole adoption trip! It looked just redicilous to us: with all the problems we have had and are having we have to get in the survival mode now. But we have each other, we have our God and we are staying in a house (instead of appartment) with a small yard(we might need it just in case.....)! It was qite a surprise when the water came back that night. I guess the break wasn't as bad as they expected.

This weekend we had Flower with us again. We spent some time in down town and bought some books in Russian for the girls. We walked around and took pictures. Flower is happy to spend time with us and hopes IT will happen this week. She still calls me "Sveta" but she is so ready to call me "mama". We found out she saved my phone number on her cell phone from the time when I called her from the USA and she entered me as "mama". That is so sweet! We pray that this comming week we will have our court and we can take Flower home. We hope it will be this week. We hope this week this girl will be an orphan no more.

Finally Some Good News!

We had a good weekend with Flower. The director let her stay with us even over night! One of the reasons why he did it was that half of the kids at the orphanage are sick. So we picked her up on Saturday morning and did some shopping. She was so sweet that she said "thank you" and gave us hugs and kisses after every thing we bought for her! I wonder how long this will last... The rest of the day we spent at home. We brought her a coloring book with some mazes and challenging games in it. I noticed she doesn't give up right away and doesn't ask for help. She tries to figure things out on her own. Also we noticed she is a picky eater. Well, this will change: I use a system that worked fast with Anastasia. Right now we are on "our honeymoon", all the rules are out of the window. We stayed up late watching movies and tickling.

On Sunday we let Flower sleep until she wanted to. She has been teling us that she doesn't sleep in on the weekend and gets up at 8 or 9 AM. Well, she slept until 10:30 AM. I guess at the orphanage it gets too loud in the morning. We went slipper -shopping (we foud out she didn't have any slippers to walk around the house). Then I see Bob quickly trying to stop some people. Usualy my husband doesn't do this for no reason! And he doesn't know anybody here. At first I thought that maybe they tried to steal his wallet. But then I saw they were smiling. It was Flower's brother and his wife! What a surprise! We decided to go to a cafe and have some tea and talk. We had a good time! They asked me a lot of questions about life in America and I think they feel even more comfortable trusting Flower to us now.

Later that afternoon we went to the water circus. We were sitting in the 2nd row watching the show. Then a clown comes out and walks arownd looking for volunteers from the audience and comes straight to Bob ... OMG!!! Bob can't understand anything in Russian! This could be bad... He picks Bob and 3 more then the show starts. I was SO nervous! The clown gives Bob 2 crumpled beer cans with pebbles in them and wants him to do the "La-coo-ca-ra-cha" to the music followed by a swivel of the hips. The crowd liked that! Hey, that's MY HUSBAND! Then the other 3 do their part with other things. Then all of them do it with music playing. The clown comes back to Bob and asks him to do it again. He obviously didn't like what he saw, so he grabs a weapon (filled with air) and takes my hasband to the back, off stage behind the curtains. Then we hear a scream ... and the clown comes back alone ... without Bob ...! He had 4 candles burning, he comes to them and blows out the first one and finished with the sign of the cross (he killed Bob!!!). The people were laughing. It wasn't funny to me. I screamed in Russian, "Where is my husband?" It was too loud...nobody heard me. Flower said, "I'm afraid, I don't like it". I told her it'll be OK. In my brain I was thinking all kinds of stuff: they found out that he is an American and kidnapped him for ransom and we won't have money to finish the adopton or maybe they took all the money he has and killed him!!! I started to pray, "God, you didn't bring us so far to finish everything so bad. Please, plaese, please protect my husband. I need him and we need to adopt Flower". Then one by one the clown does the same with the other 3 people. I got it then: they couldn't kill all 4 people! Finally, they all hold hands coming out and take a bow. I don't remember the last time when I was SO HAPPY to see my husband alive!!! Thank you, God!!!





OK, now about the good news. I called the Russin Interpol on Monday. They said they mailed my clearance! So, it is on the way or maybe it is already in Kiev! It means we are not coming home without Flower! She was happy to hear that, too. She trys to guess when our court hearing will happen and counts the days. Yesterday we visited her for a little bit. When it was time to go we hugged her and told her "bye-bye". She said, "One day we won't say "bye-bye" to each other any more" and smiled. One day it will change. One day this girl will be an orphan no more.

Another Bump in the Road

This whole week we didn't do much: we were getting up late, ate brunch, did some grocery shopping and went to the orphanage or to school to pick up Flower. We were spending our evenings with her at the orphanage or at the park. One evening we were at the orphanage and Flower's mother came. She didn't see us. Flower went to talk to her but she realy didn't want to. It looked like mother started accepting the fact that Flower will be adopted and will leave Ukraine. Next evening she brought Flower her book. We haven't heard from her again.

Another evening we met Flower's older brother and his wife. He is the only descent person in the family who works hard and doesn't drink. He understands that it is better for Flower to be in our family. We talked for about an hour and exchanged our addresses and phone numbers.



We even got to go to a parents-teacher conference. In Ukraine a teacher meets with all the parents at the same time. We stayed a little late and asked her some questions about Flower. The teacher told us only good things and nothing bad. It sounds too good to be true!



This weekend local people celebrate the city's birthday. There are all kinds of stuff going on everywhere. On Friday in the park we were watching the national children's concert-competition. The children were dancing, singing and playing on musical instruments. The youngest were probably 5-6yoyoung adults. up to Some groups were very good. We enjoied watching them very much.





Ok, now about the "BUMP". We thought we would have our court on this comming Monday. No, it's not going to happen. We are missing my Interpol clearance. Without it we can't have the court. We were realy bummed out when we first heard about it. Now we are better: it will happen some day anyway. We love Flower very much and she loves us too. I think we will know some details on Monday. We believe nothing is too big for God. He can move people in Interpol, too. We pray that He will work things out. We can't wait to call Flower "our daughter" (& tell you her real name) and she can't wait to have a forever family. It will happen. It is getting closer to the day when this girl will be an orphan no more.

On Saturday we waited and waited and waited some more for the repair guy to come and fix our fridge and the leaking pipe in the bathroom. We waited for the fridge guy on Monday, Tuesday, Wednesday - he didn't come. The home owner said, this is the only fridge guy she knows. The pipe started leaking on Wednesday. Finaly, by 3 PM on Saturday everything was fixed and we went to the orphanage. Flower told me she didn't think we would come. We brought with us bags of "Silly Bandz" and Flower gave them to all the kids in the orphanage. We played ping-pong for some time, then we had some tea with a Ukrainian apple pie in the kitchen.

On Sunday we left for the orphanage about 10 AM. We took our video camera and told Flower to be a tour guide. Bob was taking movies. The caretakers let us take Flower with us for the whole day. About 10 minutes after we left we got a call from the orphanage: Flower's mother came to visit her. Coincidence? We've had all kinds of problems, but because of God we're still here progressing along. We give God all our praises, all our thanks, and all the credit for everything that has happened and everything that will happen. She was told that Flower left with friends. She got mad and went to the park near the orphanage to look for us. We were at the Farmer's Market that time. The rest of the day we spent in the house. When we told Flower about her mother she said she didn't want to see her mother, she didn't want go back and asked if she could stay with us one night. We HAD to take her back to the orphanage - we can't break the rules - she's nor ours yet.



Flower surprises us sometimes with her thinking and understanding of the world around her. She doesn't know hardly any table manners, but she understands the situation with her parents and doesn't paint it in pink colors like a lot of kids do. She likes to play with toys just like any child, but she told us that we are gettiing closer every day we spend together. In some ways she is very mature for her 10 yo. She doesn't live only in the moment, she askes about life in the USA and about Anastasia's experience. She is ready to start a new life. It is getting closer to the day when this girl will be an orphan no more.

One More Big Step-Success! Thank You, God!

On Wednesday we decided to go to downtown to look around. We stopped at the restaurant for lunch. For about $13 we got two very unusual but good salads, two very good fish entrees with very good fried potatoes. Then we got a call from Oles: we had to go to Odessa to fix our problem with some more paperwork. We went to the train station and got tickets for that night. Then we went home, packed our bag and went to the orphanage.



We were asked to help one girl with her English homework. That was tough even for me and Bob! Another girl (she is new at the orphanage) kept staring at me. When I looked at her, she smiled. Then she asked me to help with her English homework too. Poor girl! She is 14 yo and she doesn't know one word in English! I encouraged her and tried to help. I saw hunger in her eyes for normal attention. She listened to me very carefuly. Her lips quivered. When the homework was done she said "thank you" and with a big smile gave me a kiss on the cheek. I didn't expect that, it touched my heart. I hugged her back. During that time Bob was helping Flower with her homework. Then several little kids started jumping all over us. It was fun, but one little girl sat on my lap and asked me if I could become her Mommy. I had to swallow my tears. How can I tell a 6 yo angel that I can't be her Mommy right in her face? I started asking her questions leading our conversation in a different direction. After having dinner with all the kids, we went to the train station.

We got to Odessa about 6:30AM on Thursday. Oles met us there and said that there is one couple from the USA and they got lost. We thought he was joking about us. But no, he wasn't joking. We met the couple from Florida who were adopting a 2 yo girl with down sindrome. Their facillitator was late. All 5 of us went to McDonald's for breakfast. Guess what? We had to pay for ketchup! This couple's facilitator showed up and they left. We had a couple of hours before the office opened and we went for a morning walk. It was chilly and windy. Oles showed us downtown and we saw the Black Sea. When we were done with all the paperwork we went back to the train station and got tickets to go back.



On Friday we had our important meeting with the adoption authorities. When we were on the way to the administration building, we saw how the local police tried to stop and arrest some criminals right in front of us. It was wild! When we got to the adminisration, Flower wrote the petition that she wanted to be adopted by us. Then we sat down in front of the whole group of people. They asked me and Flower some questions. It took no more than 10 minutes. They all said "Yes"! We had to stay around because we had to sign some more papers later. So, we walked around downtown and took some pictures. Then we went to a restaurant and got 3 very good business lunches (soup, entree with a salad, bread and a fruit drink) and two desserts for $13. The paperwork was taking longer then expected then we finally went back to the orphanage. We got on Skype and talked with our Anastasia for the first time since we left. It was so nice to see and talk to her! We miss her SO much! After that we had to go back to the administration building. Then we had to walk around downtown some more. Later we took Flower to the orphanage and had dinner with everybody.

I have to say we've had a great initial contact with Flower. She loves to hug and loves to be touched. She still calls me "Sveta", but she calls Bob "Daddy" (maybe because "Bob" sounds more strange for her). Flower loves to laugh and she has a beautiful smile. I don't think she's able to have a bad picture taken of her. She seems to understand what is going on around her and she is looking forward to the day when we leave Ukraine. It is getting closer to the day when this girl will be an orphan no more.

Nothing exciting going on

On Monday I didn't feel any better and decided to go find a doctor. We found a big clinic about 5 minutes away from us. I got a FREE doctor's visit! The doctor even offered to look at Bob but he said he felt fine. I have a virus infection that can lead to pneumonia. The doctor gave me a list with 4 different medicines and it took us 4 drugstores to buy all of them. The rest of the day we spent at home. Well, not exactly: we had to go to buy food at the store that is 30 seconds away from our house. We didn't go to see Flower because I didn't want to make anybody sick. I called her and we talked for a few minutes.

Tuesday was like Monday. The only exciting thing was using the Ukranian washing machine. I feel almost normal today. Bob is going crazy sitting around the house with me all day long. Our facilitator was busy working on our problems. We hope we will hear some good news tomorrow and can continue the process. It is getting closer to the day when this girl will be an orphan no more.

PS - Here's a pic of me in the first apt I wrote about yesterday and us in the orphanage cafeteria that Flower took.

They Say, "Nothing Good Ever Came Easy"

We got to Kirovograd at midnight and went to the apartment. It was the worst apartment I've ever seen: it had two very small rooms, kitchen was about 4 square yards, little shower and little bathroom. Everything was dirty- big boxes were covering the windows (there wasn't any daylight inside) - To get water we had to plug in the motor that was very noisy. We decided to look for another place the next day. So we went to the administration building where we met our Flower in person. She is a beautiful girl inside and out. She is smart, caring, nice, polite, thoughtful, loves to smile and laugh. At the orphanage she showed us every room. Then we went to the park near the orphanage. It is a nice park with flowers, walkways, places to eat and a lot of different rides. We had a good time! It was lunch time and we decided to get something to eat. The waitress looked very mad especially when we took our time to order our food. When we finally made our order, our facilitator called us and said that we need to go look at another place to stay right NOW. I thought the waitress would kill us with her eyes she was SO mad. The other place was a house, nice house but it didn't have power (the city is changing the lightpoles). We didn't have any other options. That night we spent with candles.

On Friday morning we got a call from the orphanage: Flower's father wanted to meet us right away. He is a 47 y.o. smelly man in the old worn out suit. He was drinking some herbal medicine that had alcohol in it. He said it was for his heart. He showed us some pictures and told us a lot of stories from his past. Flower was sitting between me and Bob. When he started getting drunk he started saying some curse words. I hugged Flower closer and, I guess, my face changed. Someone said, "It's OK. She heard it a lot of times". Tears came to my eyes. I wanted to cover her ears so she would never hear it again. A child shouldn't hear these words especially from her parent. Later we met some other children who live in the orphanage. They were very polite. The little ones were saying "hello" over and over again to hear "hello" from us. We still didn't have power at the house and spent another evening with candles.

On Saturday morning we decided to take a cold shower. Bob was the first. When he was done with his shower the light came on! Hurray! I had a nice hot shower and it felt great! We went to the orphanage. It takes us about 25 minutes to walk there. Since we came to Ukraine we walk a lot. I have lost a couple inches on my waist and I'm glad I have a belt. When we got to the orphanage we met all the kids. We took some pictures and ate lunch with everybody. Then we went to the park. It was a nice warm day. We had some ice cream and Flower rode several rides. Later at the orphanage we talked with our friends from the States on Skype. It was great to see and talk to somebody from home. However, that evening I started feeling sick: my throat was scratchy and my nose was getting runny. By nighttime I was a comlete mess. I had a cup of hot tea and went to bed. Today I woke up at 1 PM feeling a little better. We didn't go to the orphanage however because I didn't want to get anybody sick. We went to get some medicine and some food. We have power at the house but our fridge doesn't work so we can buy food only for one day at a time. The rest of the day we were at the house.

We heard that the Ukranian goverment encourages it's citizens to adopt. This is a good thing, but there are still so many people that don't understand adoption. The owner of the house we stay in asked me what we were doing here. I told her. She asked me what age the child is. I told her 10 yo. She said, "Oh, it is difficult to take and raise such an OLD child. Think about it". I told her that children of any age want to be loved and we alredy adopted a 10 yo and don't regret it a bit. She didn't understand me at all. We were asked by our friend in Kiev to give a testimony about our adoptions at their church. I hope we will be able to do it on the way back and I hope it will change some local people's view on adoption.

We hope next week will bring some good news. The best news will be agreement from the Ukrainian authorities on Friday in granting us a court date for the following week. It is getting closer to the day when this girl will be an orphan no more.

It is Happening!

We had our appointment today at 9AM. It was great. The lady at SDA showd us Flower's pictures and told us some facts about her. Everything took no more than 10 minutes. Our facilitator told us before the appointment that we will be able to get the permission (to go to see Flower) only tomorrow. Guess what? The lady told us we can get it today!!! It means we will see our Flower tomorrow, we will do our paperwork tomorrow and the local adoption department will look at our case on Friday (they meet only on Fridays!). The fact that we got our permission today is a miracle and the answer to our prayers. We know that our friends in the US got up at night and prayed for us. We love you, guys!

So, we are packing and leaving in an hour to go to the train station. It is getting closer to the day when this girl will be an orphan no more!