Waiting...

We didn’t see the girls today. We were too busy waiting. “Waiting for what?” You might ask. I’m not quite sure. What I do know is Ocsana and Co were trying to solidify our court date. Holy moly! What a complicated process. For the life of me I cannot figure it out. Thank heaven for our miracle workers, both seen and unseen.

Ocsana was supposed to pick us up at two to go the Courthouse but first she was going to call us. We waited and waited and she didn’t call. What do we do when we wait? We sleep until we cannot possibly sleep any longer. For me it is one or two hours less to feel yucky. Dave works until one or two in the morning and we like him to get plenty of sleep so he’s not too grouchy. We read. We check our emails and comments on our blog. We eat.

Finally Natashia called her and she said to come to the Orphanage, she was waiting for some document to be signed. At the Orphanage Natasha translated some our application to the court asking. It includes things like the girl’s birth dates, their home life, why they are in the Orphanage, why they haven’t been adopted by someone here, their health, permission granted by those needing to grant permission, Dave’s employment, what I do, about our home, about our children, why we want to adopt, our insurance and income, etc. After we verified and signed those papers, we waited. Apparently we were waiting for a phone call. Thankfully we had our books.

The Straders showed up after awhile offering a nice diversion from our waiting. They had just returned from Sumy where they are adopting two fourteen year-olds. They have five of their own children, making eight. Their ten days are up with Julia, now they have to get her passport, do a medical check and go to the embassy. Once that is done they will pick up their other two girls from Sumy and do the same for them. They will have been here seven weeks.

The Straders filled us in on the Evenson’s. Their court date was successful but they cannot take their son home. They have to wait on something from Russia, I think a birth certificate. That could take up to six months. So they will have to return a third time. Oh my goodness! These families are amazing.

Anyway, we waited and waited. At 4:45, Ocsana suddenly jumped up and said, “We have to go, now!!” We followed her too slowly. She turned and said, “You guys, hurry!” So we ran. George, our driver, made a mad dash to the courthouse. We have previously dashed, just not madly. I guess I’m becoming a little more accustomed to these drives because the near misses don’t alarm me quite so much. Put some Indiana Jones music(for you Diane) in the background and its almost exciting; dodging potholes, cars, dogs and people all at the same time while evading oncoming cars at the last second by an inch. It’s really quite exhilarating. Oh, and here’s another rule for driving: when making a turn, don’t slow down.

At the courthouse George screeched to a stop, we jumped out and ran in where Ocsana told us to wait. So we waited… Have I mentioned that all women wear boots with about 4” heels? I was waiting on the edge of my chair lest Ocsana should appear and reprimand us for not being ready, I’m not sure for what. Every time I heard the clicking of heels I jumped. But it was never her. Finally, I determined to try to distinguish the sound of her heels. At first they all sounded the same. But then I remembered her heels were a little thick, not stiletto. The clicking of that heel is a little denser. And Ocsana is quite short and walks quickly with a short stride. After an hour I distinguished her heels coming and she appeared with an older lady. Ocsana no longer had the anxious look of earlier. This time she had an accommodating and gracious smile and it was obvious she wanted us to do the same.

The lady was very kind. She said she would meet with us on Monday. Then Ocsana said, “I should tell you this is the chief judge.” Oh, This explains Ocsana’s behavior. The judge talked to us for awhile. Unfortunately most of it was lost in translation. It’s funny how a whole paragraph can be translated in one sentence. Hmmm. I’m not so sure about that. When she was done we thanked her and she said, “God bless you.”

Later Ocsana told us it was a miracle this happened. I said we had been praying for miracles.She walked into the office right as they were closing but the judge invited her in and even offered to give us Monday as our court date. We were told the earliest would be Tuesday so we are very pleased. Then Ocsana said it isn’t for sure. Apparently they need some signature from the SDA in Kiev. But the SDA was closed for today and we need it by tomorrow. Usually they send documents like this on the overnight train but now someone will have to drive to Kiev tomorrow, which, as Ocsana said, "But guys, this will be expensive." But it is either that or a few more days here. I think we’ll pay. The other problem is it has to be dated today. Ocsana says we have a good contact there, but this isn’t exactly legal. So we had one small miracle today but we need several more. We’ll see what happens.

Sorry, no pictures today. It’s really late and it takes forever to load pictures. Until tomorrow…