Vala's birthday continued

John and I were so glad we were able to spend some time seeing how they celebrate Vala's birthday in the orphanage! What a hoot! The "teachers" are very creative in how they come up with games for the kids to play for the celebration!

When we arrived, they had moved all the furniture to create a horseshoe-type formation and put a large arm chair at the opening of the shoe. This was Vala’s seat of honor. The first game entailed two teams - guys against girls - of 3 each. This was the “Compliment Contest”. The object was to think of a proper compliment to tell Vala, pass it on to all your teammates, the last person told would rush down to Vala and pay her the compliment. If the compliment was accepted (she will say Spasiba –thank you) then they rush back and think of another one. The team with the most accepted compliments wins. The boys one this game! Looks like Ukrainians prepare their boys well for charming the women, I guess! ;o)

The second game was “Peel the Potato”. Vala was pitted against her friend of equal age in seeing who could expertly peel a potato the fastest. They were given large, awkward knives, a bowl for the peelings that they held on their lap. Yeah, Vala won! And guess what was for supper that night??? Yep, potatoes!

The third game involved guessing how many small candies were in a dish. They included Papa (John) in this one – he guessed 62. After everyone had a turn guessing, they proceeded to count each one, one by one. They thought this was just as much fun as guessing! When a child knew their number had passed up, they cried out in anguish. Since I don’t know Russian, I have no idea how many there were. It was so much fun watching and listening to them. Eventually the winner was revealed, a young boy about 8 years old - the candy was his prize.

Two other games involved a ping pong ball. Chosen children had to race one at a time down to Vala with a ping pong ball balanced on a spoon. The following game was right after and picked up where the other left off… The children had to get on their hands while the next in line carried their feet in a wheelbarrow type hold. They had to wheelbarrow up to Vala, pick up one of the ping pong balls from the dish, put it in their mouth and go back. Usually if the person carrying the feet were big enough, they just drug them backwards as fast as they could. It was funny when one of the little kids was next in line to carry the feet! This happened with one teenaged gal and a young boy John has fallen in love with. He’s got to be around 7 or 8 years old. Because I was filming the whole thing I didn’t get to see everything, but John said he was just a riot and reminded him so much of our son Ryan at that age! The way he was carefully balancing the spoon and ping pong, holding his mouth open, smiling wide and keeping an eye out on his other opponent! And they way he tried to expertly pick up the bigger gal and wheelbarrel her up to Vala. John laughed and laughed as it brought back fond memories of when our children were younger.

They played another game of Vala against another gal, about 11 years old. They had a shallow bowl full of flour and some hidden dark purple grapes. Each gal had to sit in a chair, with their hands behind their backs, and fish out the grapes and eat them! It was quite fun! Vala won this one again. I got this one on video along with others. I was most impressed with how many grapes she can hold in her mouth without eating them! She's a true competitor at heart! We'll have to keep an eye on this cutie ;o)

We found in an indoor vendor's collection a copy of Disney's "Bolt" movie. We purchased it and brought it with us for all the kids to see. Since it is dubbed (very well I might add) in Russian, we are very happy to have found it and plan on leaving it there for the kids to wear out. They loved the movie and laughed and laughed. Most had never seen it before and all the ages were engrossed in the movie.

The story is about a young teenage girl and her superhero dog Bolt. Along the way they meet a hamster who thinks Bolt is the most awesome dog out there (he and his girl owner are movie stars, it's just the dog doesn't know it). The kids especially loved teasing teasing Vala during the movie. They all know she loves dogs - she's brought home many strays and sometimes the orphanage keeps them. She also has a pet hamster someone gifted to her. The kids would point at the movie and laughingly call out her hamster's name.

Vala would like to bring the hamster home with us - we're not sure how that would work or if it would survive. Would it be considered importing food??!!?? ;o)

Tomorrow we are excited to once again attend a local worship service. We will be so excited to someday take Vala with us too.

Thank you for all who ask about our Court Appointment - I know you all care very much for us and it means so much knowing we are not forgotten! We are still in a hold pattern and hope to know something more on Monday. If court is scheduled a long way off, we might be forced to head home and come back again. I am hoping this won't happen. The sooner we get our Court proceedures completed, the sooner we get the 10 day waiting period done after that. From there we will have to head back up to Kiev and complete things at the Embassies that will take an addional 2 days or so before we fly home. We are close to running into the holidays and that gives us some concern. Here, Embassies usually celebrate the holidays in their home country and Ukraine's holidays too. This will shut them down for Thanksgiving, then again in December through the middle to January. (Ukraine celebrates Christmas on Jan. 7th). We are praying it gets done and the 10 day waiting period is completed before then. If not, the adoption will scraggle into the new year.

John and I are taking every moment we have to make a difference here. God put us here and we fully intend on using, not wasting our time. We've had several opportunities to talk to others about our faith in Jesus. We also adore the time we spend with the kids at the orphanage. They are great kids and I'd love to see them all get homes. They are so well mannered and just funny, everyday kids. I wonder how many I can fit in my house.......

Well, until next time, thank you for spending some of your time with us.
Give your children a hug and tell those you love how much they mean to you!
Make sure and take time to make a difference in someone's life that's hurting, lonely or needy. We've all been there at one time or another.
Much love to you all, Jenn