Julia & more detail 9-24-08

Hi everybody,
Sorry we have not updated the blog in a few days but our life has been a bit upside down and full of wait...wait...wait :) But Finally, we have something to talk about!

On our second meeting at the SDA we received a referral in Melitopal... a small town (village) in southern Ukraine. We left our utopia in Kiev and ...

We arrived after a 15 hr train ride at 7am. A quick drive through town and a visit to the local diner was a little frightening. We saw no coffee shops and very few restaurants. Actually, there are very few apartments as well, so we landed in a small hotel (5 rooms). Turns out to be very nice and includes breakfast every morning (same egg and sautéed cabbage), a great supermarket close by and Internet at the local pizza shop about 15 minutes away.



Our referral is for an 11 year old girl named Julia that is in an orphanage in the middle of nowhere, Ukraine. We went to meet her and everything went well...came to find out later that she spent summer vacation with her mother. Paula and I spent a long time talking about this and decided that we could not take her from her mother under any condition....


Today we spent the day with Julia and her best girlfriend, eating playing , shopping, and strategically asking questions to get some answers to the relationship issue that was troubling us. It turns out that Julia was picked up by her uncle for summer break and spent a few days at her mothers...she said there were complications...it was unpleasant and she wished that she had gone on vacation with the other children in the orphanage. We got no other details. Julia then told the translator that she wanted to go home with us today...immediately. She is ready to leave it all behind. What a relief to know that she is not wanting to stay with family, but what is it that went on that she wants desperately to leave behind.She seems so sad and we are concerned there is much more to the story... We will find out more tomorrow.

She is a sweet and shy girl. We are hopeful to take her away from this misery and make her part of our family....More to come...

Oh - one last thing - Julia's best friend, Albena, is a beaming little girl who is full of energy. If we can figure out how to do it, we'd love to take her home with us too.

Thanks for reading...Michael