TRAINS,BOYS,TAXIS-OH MY

Well we made it to Zaporizzhya rested and cool. Yes I said cool. We took the overnight train for 10hrs. and slept almost the whole way because we had an air conditioned car. Thanks to the Henry's for letting us know they existed. By the way, we hope they made it home safely. Igor picked us up at the train station and has had us moving ever since. He has done well to find the best accomodation for us, and even the best cabs with the best rates. We are currently in a one room apartment with air conditioning that is very clean. We are trying to get another apartment in the downtown area that is more centrally located and a little nicer with a washing machine. We met the oldest boy and youngest boys yesterday. The youngest is very bright, and has been very well taken care of. they really seem to take care of the children there. We got to play cars with him and do small things to check his intelligence, for 3 he is doing well. We met the oldest boy second. He like the youngest looks like he needs some more time outside, but seems very healthy. He talked and played with us and seems very bright. I let him play the jawbreaker game on my IPAQ and he caught on to it very quickly and soon wanted to know how high his score was. We also got to play cars together in a larger room, he really enjoyed that. I don't think the workers liked it when we started having 2 car pile-ups, but what do you expect when you have 1 big boy (Rob) and 1 small boy, something is going to get wrecked. He listened very well, but was a little taken back when they asked if he would like to come live with us. We wish they hadn't done that, he still remembers his mom and his 1 brother, and still has hopes of living with her. That's a little too much to put on a 7 year old all at once.

Today, Thursday we went to Molochansk to visit the middle child. We were most concerned with the youngest and the middle child from the initial reports. We now know that the oldest and youngest were fine, and we both had a sense that the middle child would be fine, but we weren't positive. Well Molochansk is 1 1/2hrs. from the city, in the middle of what seemed to be no where. This orphanage didn't seem to be as structured, many older children wandering around. You could see it in their eyes that maybe it would be their turn, we even had several children following us around the grounds, in the building, and up the stairs. It's kind of hard to know how to act or react to that kind of situation. Well we finally got to meet the middle child, and even though he was shy at first, he warmed up very quickly. Laura offered him a banana and he devoured it in about 4 bites, then she offered him her water, with immune booster, and he proceeded to chug down about 1/2 litre. After playing cars and ball for a while Laura did some flash cards with him and he knew all the fruits, animals, clothes, and parts of the body. He has a great smile, and kindly excused himself to use the toilet before coming back and claiming my water. He said he would like me to come back and visit again, and asked us both for a kiss good-bye. Needless to say we were sold, so now Igor gets to get busy and file a lot of paperwork. This will take a lot of coordination since we are dealing with 3 different orphanages and 2 different cities. Yea, if your thinking what we're thinking it might be expensive. It does make us feel better that every orphanage we have visited has been very kind, very accomodating, and feels like they would be a good fit for our family. They have all said that they would do the paperwork for us right away, which would be great.

We think the 2 youngest ones will melt everyone's hearts, and the oldest will probably get me back in shape and keep Travis in shape. (Travis, you are running, right?)

Please pray for the Harrison's we talked with them today and they are having trouble adopting their 2 girls. They are not being given the same favor that we have with the facility they are visiting. Please remember them, we can only imagine how disheartening that would be.

Rob and Laura