Camp visit

Joe, Tammy, and I went out to the camp to visit Vacya this afternoon.  He seemed to be doing ok.  He had a few more bumps and bruises, but they were probably self-inflicted... he is ALL boy.  He has been moved to a different building at the camp, away from the boys from another orphanage that were picking on him.  He said that nobody has been hurting him anymore.  We are going out again next Wednesday with a group of American teenagers and their youth minister.  They are going to do some activities with the kids at the camp.  Hopefully we'll be able to bring Vacya back to town with us that day for the court hearing the next morning.

New Pic

This picture is from our previous court date.  Vacya looked so nice in his new shirt from Uncle Josh and Aunt Kaley.  He seems to have gotten taller since we were here before and the pants we brought for him were a little too short, but still big around the waist.  At least it's summer so he can just wear shorts for now :)

Anniversary

Joe and I went down to Yalta yesterday to celebrate our 3rd wedding anniversary.  We had a relaxing time walking along the boardwalk and getting some sun by the pool at our hotel.  We heard from Andrei yesterday that our new court date is scheduled for July 3rd at 9:00am.  We're hoping to get back out to the camp tomorrow to see Vacya and let him know we have a new date.  The camp is about a 70 minute drive from Simferopol and it costs about $80 to take a taxi, so we can't afford to go out there very often.  Unfortunately there are no bus stops near the camp, so we can't take a bus, which would be much cheaper.  We found out that the kids will be at the camp until late August, so we won't have the option of visiting him more often at the orphanage.  We are trying to get permission to pick Vacya up from the camp the day before our new hearing since our appointment is so early in the morning.  It will be hard to get out to the camp and back to Simferopol in time.

No date

We didn't get our new date today, which wasn't too much of a surprise at this point.  The judge wants to talk to the prosecutor again first.  He is supposed to do that tomorrow morning, so maybe we'll hear something sometime tomorrow.  

We haven't been out to the camp to see Vacya since we took him back on Friday.  If we don't get a court date sometime this week, we will try to get out there to see him again.  This is their third week at camp, so they may be returning to the orphanage soon, but we don't know.  They are doing some remodeling there, so they might have the kids gone longer than they usually do.

Arg!

Joe and I left at about 7am this morning to take a taxi to the camp where Vacya has been staying for the last few weeks. It's about an hour drive from Simferopol. We had to go pick him up and bring him back into town for the court hearing. Unfortunately, the hearing never really happened. We were all there at the court building waiting for about an hour after our appointment time. Apparently the prosecutor (the same one from last time) said that her boss wanted her to look through all of the documents in our dossier, including the 2 new documents (updated home study and proof that we own our home). She didn't get there until 30 minutes after our scheduled appointment and the judge didn't have time to wait for her to look through the documents, so he said that we would need to reschedule. We don't know when the next appointment will be, hopefully next week. Andrei said that our documents are all correct and there should not be any problems with them. Everyone, including the judge, was surprised by what happened today.

We don't have to have Vacya back at the camp until 8:00 tonight, so he's spending the afternoon with us. We took him to McDonald's for a Happy Meal and hot fudge sundae after we left the court. Then he came back to the church with us where we've been staying. We were going to ask the orphanage director for permission to keep him with us during the 10-day waiting period, but since we still have not been approved by the court yet, he won't be able to stay with us. We're really worried about sending him back to the camp. There are some kids from another orphanage there that have been beating some of other kids. Someone, we're not sure if he is from Vacya's orphanage or the other one, burned him on the back of his neck with a cigarette lighter. He also has a bruise at the top of his nose from where somebody punched him. We're concerned about his safety there because there is very little supervision. We think some of the kids will be even worse with him now that everybody knows he left with us because he is going to be adopted. Please pray for his safety while he's back there. We told the representative from the orphanage what had happened and showed her the burn on Vacya's neck when we saw her at court today. She was going to let the director know about it, but I don't know if anything will be done.

Back in Simferopol

We had good flights over with no delays, but had to wait about an hour to get through passport control once we got into Kiev just before 11am. We expected to have a long day waiting for our train ride to Simferopol. In the past, I've only taken the train that leaves later in the evening. When our facilitator Sasha picked us up, he told us that our train would be leaving at 4pm. Then he checked the tickets again and the train was leaving at 12:52, which gave us only about 30 minutes to get to the train station and get our luggage onto the train. Luckily it was a holiday, so there was little traffic. Sasha got us to the train station with about 10 minutes to spare. Unfortunately, we didn't have time to buy any food for the 15 hour train ride. I did manage to pick up a few bottles of water, though. The train was very nice, the best I've been on here, and it even had air conditioning. It was actually really good to get on the train so quickly because we were able to lay down and get some sleep. We got into Simferopol just after 4am. Matt Grinn picked us up and drove us to the church, where we'll be staying with Vadim and Lena for awhile while Tammy's sister and nephew are visiting her and Matt. Tammy was planning on taking her family out to the camp where Vacya is staying on Wednesday to meet the kids, so we'll be going out there with them. We can't wait to let him know we're back and will hopefully be bringing him home very soon.

New Court Date

Yeah!!! We finally got our new court date. It's next Friday, June 20th. Our flight back to Ukraine was scheduled for June 14, so we're just going to keep that ticket and fly back this Saturday. We will fly into Kiev on Sunday, then take the train down to Simferepol and arrive there Monday. That will give us a few days to go visit Vacya and recover from jet-lag before our appointment. We're super excited.

Still waiting

I talked to Andrei again today and he said that we should be able to find out our new court date tomorrow. Of course, this will be about the fifth time that we should be able to find out, so we probably shouldn't hold our breath. We did get some good news though. The judge talked to the prosecutor today after she looked through our documents and she does not seem to have any problems with our new application. Hopefully this time through will go much more smoothly.

Home

We've been home for about a week and a half now. It's been nice to get back into a regular routine after being out of the country for 8 weeks. We're still waiting to find out when our next court date will be. Andrei is trying to get it scheduled for sometime in the last 2 weeks of June. Hopefully we will get a date tomorrow so that we can make plans for going back.

Tammy saw Vacya this past weekend and it sounds like he's doing pretty well. He asked where Joe and I were and said that he missed us. Tammy reminded him that we went back to America to work, but reassured him that we will be coming back to get him and bring him home.

Here are a few pictures...

Vacya and Byelka (one of 3 dogs at the orphanage)

Vacya with Jack and Linda, the other 2 dogs. It's a good thing he likes animals since we have a zoo at our house :)

Water-balloon fight (that's Vacya in the pink pants)