Day 10

Well, everyone has had the pleasure of reading Kelley’s posts the last few days, so today you will get me. Nice and boring, matter of fact, and from what I am told, generally cold and not entertaining. It’s a good thing that I have a big enough ego to overcome all of that!
Yesterday afternoon it began to mist and it continued into the evening. By the time we woke up this morning it was a nice gentle rain and about 45-degrees. We didn’t have to worry about playing outside this morning. After some coffee and devotions, we went downstairs to meet our driver. Rashid was busy this morning, so his nephew came to pick us up. He had a very nice, clean car and was playing American 50’s music on the radio. Nothing like waking up to Little Richard and Chubby Checker!
We arrived at the orphanage and had to look around a bit for one of the workers that we know. Within a couple of minutes Oksana came down the hallway and greeted us. She went to get Chas and brought him to us. The Music Room was having a class (they sounded very cute), so she shuffled us off to another part of the orphanage to another play room. This room had a bunch of foam-padded toys, and we thought it may be an occupational therapy room. Of course, I am used to padded rooms and felt right at home. Even the white jacketed ladies didn’t bother me today.
We had a good hour of playing with Chas. Yesterday on our walk around town we found a little store that had children’s backpacks/book bags. We purchased one for Chas, as well as some crayons and paper, and a little bag for his toy cars. At first he was a little intimidated by the bag, but once we showed him what was in the pack he was very excited. Since we could find no coloring books, Kelley and I had to resort to drawing pictures in the notebook. Chas helped us a little, but quickly became bored with that and just wanted to carry his crayons around, dump them out and put them back in the bag.
They had a slide in the room too, so we grabbed a couple of cars and began to play with them on the slide. Hmmm, let’s see – crashing cars and lots of noise. Yep, he enjoyed playing on the slide with those. He laughed and laughed as the cars went down the slide. There was also a lot of tickling today, which is irresistible with any child.
Unfortunately, our hour went very quick this morning. We will be heading back this afternoon for another hour, so we are looking forward to that. Now we are back in the apartment for some lunch… We mixed it up today by adding a fried egg to our ham and cheese. Good stuff!! After completing this post, we’ll probably wander down to the internet café to check e-mail and news. Then meet up with a driver at ~3:30 to head back to see Chas.
You can see that our days are beginning to get very routine and without the ability to play DVDs on this thing – pretty long evenings. Although, I think we may head out to a restaurant after this afternoon’s meeting to have an early dinner. It’s either that or finally cook the noodles that have been sitting here for almost a week now. If we have the same driver as this morning, we may ask him to take us by the Evangelical Church. We would like to see when their worship services are for this Sunday, since we didn’t go yesterday.
Perhaps, more later tonight. If not, then we’ll post more tomorrow.
Oh, one last thing. Svitlana is in Kiev today trying to get our court date set for this Friday. We are anxiously awaiting word from her, and hopefully it will be in our favor. We truly appreciate all of the prayers that are being lifted for us. Thank you.
His blessings,
Jay and Kelley
P.S. It was not me that said he was boring and cold, he must just recognize that in himself! :)
p.s.s. Jennie, I don't have your e-mail address and couldn't find one on your blog. Would you please send it, so we can send pictures? Thanks. And yes, it was non-alcoholic...