More Big Steps Toward America!

Finally! Katya was released yesterday from the hospital. I can't imagine how great that must feel for her after 10 days of sitting in the same stuffy room. N came into town yesterday to do a gazillion paperwork things. Mid-morning we went to the orphanage and took care of some things there. We gave our orphanage donation and were once again struck by the humility and kindness of the director and the other staff members. He did everything completely by the book - recording the donation with several other members present to count the money and gave reciepts. The orphanage is clearly in need of more money than they recieve from the government and all the people who run it work for such small pay. We were happy to be able to help in at least a small way. They have had two fires in the past two days, started by a group of boys either smoking or just playing with fire. One was inside the school building on the second floor and the other was an outside storage building. Thankfully no one was hurt but there are now many damages for the orphanage to deal with...


So back to yesterday - we were given permission to go to the hospital to pick up Katya. And even better - Nastya was allowed to go with us all day! I had no idea we were going to get to spend the day with the girls out of the orphanage! So we picked Katya up and she was ecstatic - talking a million miles a minute to N, who loosely translated some of what she was saying. Zach, Katya, Nastya, and I cozied up in the back seat of N's car (her husband was driving and she was in the front). We had Nastya on my lap and Katya next to the window since the fresh air seems to help them not get carsick. Zach squeezed into the middle :) We literally drove in circles from one office to the next and back again. We had to apply for new birth certificates, have the new birth certificates legalized, and apply for new tax id numbers for the girls. Sounds simple enough except that we kept running into small problems that sent us in circles around the city. A typo here, someone having a late lunch there, a stop to get something notarized, oops another typo on one birth certificate - must retrace steps and get that fixed. But do it fast because if we aren't back in 30 minutes the person to legalize it will be gone until Monday! Unfortunately the tax id office would not issue the new number until Monday which means that we can't apply for the passports until Monday. We are still told that we can get the old, blank type (they recently changed the process) which will mean that we can apply Monday and pick it up Tuesday. If that is not the case, then it will take SEVEN days from Monday until we get the passports. Meaning that we cannot do the next steps in Kiev to get us home until then. Praying for the 'old' ones to truly be available.