Another Day in Kherson and a Trip to the Circus

From left to right, Vova II, Sasha, Our Vova, Herman' and Andre Today we actually switched apartments. We are no longer in the "love palace" nor next to the "elevator from hell". We are in a nice apartment above an Irish pub which has great food, great beer and is directly across from the market. Much better location. Well, we continue to run into some roadblocks. Today, we arrived at the orphange late, around 2:30 p.m. The director had instructed the staff that we were no longer allowed to go into the childrens rooms and see other children. So, Vova and Anya (the daughter our friends are adopting) were brought down to a room to visit with us. We showed Vova the video Corey put together for the fundraiser and he reallly liked that. Afterwards, however, we accompanyed Vova, his best buds and some other kids from the orphanage to see the Circus which was in town. We walked about three miles to get to the Circus.

Okay, so it is not Barnum & Bailey, but it was actually reallly good and the kids loved it.

Afterwards, we all walked back to the orphanage. I took a few photos of Vova and his buds along the way.

Andre', Vova, Herman' and Vova II

Andre' and Herman' Tomorrow we are going to a church which was started by Christian missionaries from Michigan and who support the orphanage. Looking forward to it. Should be interesting. Monday, the clock continues to run on the 10 day window the director has to sign the adoption papers. Started Wednesday. It appears his signature is more important that I had originally thought. Please keep our family and Vova in your prayers, and specifically pray that the Director approves our adoption. Thanks Jake and Judi

Love at the Orphanage

Today was an awesome day spent at the orphanage. The kids are just aching for some parental companionship. When you arrive, they all flock to the doors, yelling your name. You feel like a rock star. They all want to be with you. You get to know them all, "Sasha", "Dima", "Nickoli", "Sergia". It goes on and on. They are such beautiful children and want just one thing: love. It is so humbling. You play with them all and wish you could bring every one of them home with you, but you know that you can't. You see so much promise in their eyes and yet you have to face the reality that many will never reach that promise due to no fault of their own. It is heartbreaking. Below are some photos we took of Vova and some of his pals:

Judi, Vova and Jake

Vova's friends

Vova's room

Judi with Vova and friends After a long day today, we went to an Irish pub for dinner which had American food. We were joined with our traveling couple, Lori and Todd Constanza and their awesome 5 month old son Leo, (they are adopting a 14 year old girl Ana) along with Jason, a police officer from Alabama, who is here to adopt his daughter, Gennia.

They all have been such great friends on this journey and a source of great strength and intelligence. It appears that due to translator error, Vova's championship boxing bout was not scheduled today but sometime in the near future. Today, was merely a sparring match with another finalist. We also learned that Vova has a problem with vision in his right eye. This should not be a problem down the road. As I said before, I cannot attach videos to this blog. I will attach Vova's sparing match, along with videos of the orphanage and interaction with the orphans on my facebook page. God Bless and thank you for all you prayers and support. We need them! Pray for the Director to warm his heart!

Elevator From Hell

This is somewhat of a lighter post. First, Judi and I are housed on the seventh floor of a very old, dilapated apartment complex. It looks like it was built during the soviet union years and has suffered the same fate as the political system which built it. Below is a photo of the entrance to our apartment.

Below is a photo of our stairwell leading to our apartment.

As you can tell, not in such great shape. Since our apartment is on the 7th floor, our facilitator showed us how to use the "elevator" to get up to our apartment. In broken english he explained: "Just let door close, place key card in slot in upright position and........" I didn't hear the rest. I mean how hard can it be to operate an elevator? After our facilitator took us up the elevator to our apartment, he handed me the key card and said: "You remember instruction, no?" I said: "Yes, yes I remember instruction. Whatever." The elevator is literally 3 x 3 feet. Below is a photo:

After awhile, Judi and I decided to go out for some coffee. As we got into the elevator, I fumbled for my key card and panicked. The doors closed and the lights went black. I tried to feel for the key card slot in the side of the elevator, but to no avail. We were in pitch black, in a broken Ukrainian elevator, and no one knew where we were. After several minutes, and some serious wimpering from Judi BTW, I got the key card into the slot, pressed the button and we both tumbled out the door onto the 7th floor from where we started. We decided then and there that we would never take that elevator again. Of course, that didn't happen. The next day we decided to give the elevator one more try. We both walked in, I had my card in hand and we were ready to go. As the door closed, I dropped my card and all that could be heard in the extreme darkness as the doors were closing was Judi saying: "Oh Sh_t!" For 5 minutes, we tried everything to get out of the elevator. Finally, Judi grabbed her cellphone and gave me some light, so I could find the card and insert it into the proper slot. When I did so, the elevator doors opened up and we stumbled out where we had started. This time, there would be no third try. I mean what? You think we are stupid or something?

Contact!

We arrived at the Kherson orphanage around 11:00 a.m. It is actually a fairly nice facility. It is more of a compound, which contains within a walled exterior, a main bulding for classrooms, 3 buildings which are similar to dorms,a chow hall and a large soccer field and other play area. Once we got to the orphange, we waited for our appointment to see the Director of the orphanage and hopefully have him sign off on our adoption of Vova. The Director's approval is not required, but it can make things go a whole lot easier. We met with the Director for about 30 minutes and he expressed some concerns which I cannot address here. However, we are hopeful that the Directors concerns will be addressed. He is a very nice man and only has the best interests of the children in mind. The Director has up to 10 days to sign off on the adoption. Hopefully, he will sign off earlier for us. The clock had started today. After our meeting with the Director, we were taken to a back room and told to wait. About 5 minutes later, Vova comes strolling in, wearing his school uniform. Judi and Vova have a very emotional embrace. It was awesome. Vova tried to hold the tears in, but he was clearly happy to see us and that we had not forgotten him.

Dad then gave Vova a big bear hug. For the next 20 minutes, that kid never stopped smiling. He was so excited. It was awesome to see. Afterwards, Vova took us around the entire orphanage and introduced us to his rooomates, Dima and Sasha. We played with all of the kids, and to say that was an experience of a lifetime would be an understatement. I will post some Videos we shot at the orpanage on facebook. Vova sent out a special hello to Kellee, Erik, Corey and Drew. Miss all you kids. For the past few days, Judi and I have been thinking about Vova's name and whether we would change it. The logical argument for changing the name is that "Vova" is very similar to the name of a female body part. We were concerned about the teasing which would accompany the name "Vova". Then, our adoption facilitor told us that Vova had recently won the Golden Gloves (boxing) semi final championship for boys 12 and under for the entire city of Kherson. And he is only 11. I looked at Judi and said: "He may get teased for the name, but I garauntee it will be but just once!" Vova fights for the championship tomorrow night and we are attending. The next week we expect to hang on with Vova and all the other orphans. These kids are abolutely adorable.

Please pray for our family, Vova and the Director's heart. More tomorrow...

The Train of Pain

Ok, the only people who can really relate to this tale is Dave and Darcy Funk, since they rode "the train of pain" last September when they adopted Stass. In order to get to Kherson, you have to take an 11 hour train ride travelling approximately 38 miles per hour, stopping every 40 minutes or so. The train station is incredible and I will post the videos on facebook. The Blog won't let me post any videos. We left the train station at 9:40 p.m. with the hopes of partying a little with our traveling mates, Todd and Lori Castanza, and their adorable 5 month old baby Leo. Then sleeping for most of the trip and arriving into Kherson after a good nights sleep on the train. Well, let's just say that didn't happen. As you can see in the photo of our sleeping quarters, Judi is less than thrilled with the accomadations and bathroom facilities. After the first 4 hours, the conditions in the compartment were unbearable. There was absolutely no ventalation and once you locked your door, the tempature soared inside. The lack of cool air was so bad that I stayed up most of the trip in the section between two cars where you could get soome freash air. When we arrived into Kherson today at 10:07 a.m., we were a pretty motely looking crew. Our adoption facilitators met us at the train station, but instead of taking us to the apartment for a shower and shave, we headed straight to the Kherson Orphanage. It was time to see Vova.

We Are Officially Approved To Adopt Vova!

Well it took a little more than 20 minutes for Judi and I to be approved to adopt Vova. It was a much more informal process than we imagined, and most of the time our interpreter spoke with the Ukranian officials. We also did not find out as much information about Vova that we had hoped for. We do know that his father was born in 1958 and mother in 1969. He has a sister who was born in 1993 and had been in the orphange with him until she "aged out" at age 16. Vova is very healthy and there were some awesome photos of him in the file at ages 6 and 8. All dressed up in a suit! They said they would give us the photos once we adopted Vova, if we gave them replacement photos. Tomorrow we board the train at 5:00 p.m. for an 11 hour train ride to Kherson. We hope to see Vova on Thursday. If you want to comment on the photos, try signing up as members. If that still doesn't work, shoot us some comments on facebook. Some of you have asked me to write more, post more photos. Some of you have even demanded more humor from me (D. Funk). Well, as you will see below, I deliver on all requests. First some photos of our apartment.

First photo is of our living area. Second photo is our kitchen and the third photo is our bedroom. All in all, the apartment is very nice.

St. Andrews church built in the 1700's right across from our appointment with the SDA.

Ukranian War Memorial

Statue of My Norwegian Viking Warrior Relatives. Okay, not really sure about that, but they sure look like Vikings, don't they? Didn't the Norwegians conquer a bunch of eastern european countries before the dark ages? Need to do some research on that one. Ok, now a funny story. You know that everytime you go to Disneyworld or any other theme park, the cartoon characters, whether they be Mickey Mouse, Donald Duck, Goofy or whomever, are always in character. That means around the children or anyone, they never take their heads off. The reason being, of course, is they do not want to traumatize the children. Well, aparrently that custom is not practiced in the Ukraine.

The guy decided to take a smoke break right there on the job site. It was just too funny a shot to pass up. You can see Judi, partially in the photo, egging me on. So we were laughing at the guy, and he noticed us snickering. He then walked up and started talking to us in english, making small talk, etc. He then started describing the different statues around us and their specific meaning. Then he grabs my camera, and says: "Here, me take some great photos of you and your wife in front of these incredible sites." I say: "Hey, that's very nice of you. Thanks." He then takes the following photos:

After all is done, the guy hands me my camera back and says: "That will be 10 gryvaias" (ukraine dollars). I said: "Uh.....yeah...right, of course." As I walked away, I turned and looked at that headless monkey man, and thought of only one word: "Respect!" Thanks for all the love and prayers coming our way. Keherson here we come! Next post may be a little late due to the 11 hour red eye train ride. Jake and Judi

Well we made it to Kiev....Finally

After some thirty hours on the plane and waiting for numerous layovers, we finally rolled into Kiev at around 11:30 p.m Monday night. We are in our apartment (which is not too bad) and are both exhausted. But we made it! After we got re-routed to Chicago, the airlines told us there were only two seats together avialable on the flight to Munich. The ticket agent cautioned that they were next to a couple with a baby. Well we had been e-mailing a couple from Michigan who was going over to Kherson at the same time we were, to adopt a 14 year old girl. Turns out it was them. On the flight from Munich to Kiev, our seats were right next to theirs again. It is nice to travel with another couple who speaks english. Tommorow we have our SDA appointment with the Ukranian government officials at 11:00 a.m. We expect to be approved and should find out a little more info on Vova. Pray for smooth sailing.