Ministry of Education and Our First Visit

Today we got a late start of things because there was some paperwork that had to be notarized before we could go to visit the Ministry of Education. The Ministry is in charge of all the orphans and we had to get a referral of children to visit and then permission to visit their orphanage. They ladies were all very nice but serious about their job. They asked us a few basic questions before giving us the opportunity to visit the orphanage.

Due to Russian rules and regulations, the children's privacy is considered very important – as it should be. For that reason, I can not refer to them by name. I know that may sound silly to some, but it is their rule and we are visitors in THEIR country. For that reason, I will refer to them as Baby Sister, Brother and, Big Sister.

We arrived at the orphanage about 3PM in the afternoon an were escorted inside the building to the director's office. She seemed to be a very kind lady and very concerned about the welfare of all the children. After about 15 minutes of formalities and some questions, Baby Sister was escorted in the office. She was dressed in a pretty Christmas season dress and stockings and had the biggest grin on her face you have ever seen. She plopped down on a seat between Dawn and I and we handed her a gift bag with a doll and some candy. She grabbed the doll and even though I would have sworn there was no way that child could grin more – she did. She hugged the doll and immediately named it Masha and told us it was four years old! Dawn asked the director permission to give her candy and then handed a piece to Baby Sister. She opened it and put the whole caramel in her mouth. We chatted briefly and suddenly the door opened and Brother walked into the room. He too was grinning and sat down next to his sister. Dawn handed him his gift bag which contained a teddy bear puppet. He held onto the bear and then we offered him a piece of candy also. While he was opening his candy, I opened up a bottle of bubbles. They went nuts! Squealing and jumping trying to catch/pop the bubbles. After about ten minutes of bubbles, I pulled out a foam ball and we started tossing it back and forth. They loved the ball and I learned Brother has one heck of an arm on him! We played for about thirty minutes with the ball and we were afraid we were getting a little too loud with the kids squealing and all. Midst all of this, the orphanage director had more questions for us which we answered to the best of our ability. Then after what seemed ages, Big Sister was escorted in the room. She smiled but was very reserved. Dawn handed her the gift bag we had prepared for her. Brother and Little Sister were very eager to help her open up her Barbie. This Barbie was dressed in jeans and a plaid shirt and wore a cowboy hat. Withing minutes, Big Sister had named her Barbie “Isla”. We handed Big Sister a piece of the candy we had. She was not aware her siblings had already had some of the candy. Before she took a bite, she gave each of them a bite of her candy. That did it for me, I was ready to pack them up and head home. We played some more with all three and took some pictures and were told it was time to go. It was about 5:30 and we did not want to interrupt their schedule.

Before leaving, the orphanage director called the children over to her desk and asked them if it would be okay if we came back tomorrow to visit them. The children grinned and replied, “da”. They gave us a hug and we said “dasvedanya”.

I could write a book about the feelings and emotions we both felt, but I must stop here – I forget how many are reading this update. I liken today to the day I had when each of our children were born – irreplaceable.

Anyway, we are doing great. The agency staff here are so wonderful and have gone out of their way to make sure we were prepared and had all our questions answered.