Nephew

I wanted to share a photo of my adoreable nephew Johnathan that was born yesterday. Another reason I can't wait to be home!!!!!!!!!!

Coming back to US

Unfortunately we to not have passports, visas and other documents ready for us to all to come home on the 3rd like planned. It's probably going to be another week or so before everything will be ready. Vanessa and I will come back on the 3rd since our tickets are non-refundable. These next couple day are going to be pretty busy for us, we just picked up paper from court that says we indeed are parents of Kaleb and Eddie and are going to head towards Kyrovskey to pick up the boy's birth certificates and other documents. Tomorrow with are going to start on the boy's passports.
Kaleb(Ruslan) is still at the hospital and will be released on Thursday. He is feeling well. As always please pray for us so that everything goes fast with all the paper work. As you have already noticed people don't mind taking there time here. Vanessa and I are really going to miss "Papa" and the boys.

Weekend in Mariupol

We had a great time in Mariupol with Sergei's Uncel Pasha and his wife Anya. This day we came they welcomed their first grandson, he was born several hours after we arrived. It probably was not the best time for us to come, but they spend plenty of time with us. Uncel Pasha treated Vanessa as if she was his own granddaughter.... he took her on horse rides, toy car rides and bought her lots of candy. She spend most of the time in his arms. We know he is going an awesome grandpa! For those of you that know Sergei's dad can probably see resemblance in these pictures.

Ruslan's Recovery

They were able to visit Ruslan in the hospital today and he is doing better. Please continue praying for him so he recovers quickly.

Also, they are going to another city (Mariupol , city where Sergei was born) for a few days and Tanya will not have her laptop with her. So if you're sending any emails you probably won't hear back for a few days.
Thank you !
Olga (Tanya's Sister)

We came to visit Ruslan this morning, but were told that we could not see until tomorrow. Of course totally disappointed I handed her the flowers Vanessa brought for him and the nurse said that flower are not allowed in his room. I asked her if she can at least tell him "hi from his parents" and she said she would. We asked if he need anything and she said "no". As we starting walking down the stairs the nurse came running after us minutes later (we were walking down 5 flights) and asked if we can buy Ruslan water and buttermilk, she also told us she told Ruslan "hi" from us and that to started bauling and asked her why we can't see him. That broke my heart! Our little boy is crying to see us! I starting crying also, along with the rest of the mothers in the hospital that weren't able to see their children. Interesting concept... your child is ill and needs you, we are worried and what to see your child, but the Doctor think it's best for children not to see their parents. I guess it's their hospital and we have to follow their rules.
A little later today we went to visit Valary. Valary is happy as ever and is counting down the days until he gets to come with us. As we were playing with the kids one boy came up to Sergei and said "Do you guys have any neighbors", Sergei said "yes" and he says "you think any of your neighbors might want to adopt a boy like me?" Wow, that left us completely speechless!!! What are we suppose to tell a boy like this???? Please pray for this little boy so a family comes to adopt him soon.

Ruslan (Kaleb)

We came to the orphanage to find out that Ruslan was rushed to the hospital in the morning. I went to talk to on-site doctor and she said that he had appendicitis and was taken to the hospital at 8am. Once he got to the hospital he was operated on right away. She told us the hospital he was in, thankfully NOT the same one Valary was in. She also said " It is ABSOLUTELY the best one in Simeropol." We quickly visited with Valary and went straight to the hospital. We came to the hospital and were directed to the area Ruslan was in, at the check-in area we asked the receptionist to visit with Ruslan Ivanshen and a lady standing behind the receptionist told us to come around the corner. .. She said " you guys must be Ruslan's soon to be parents, we said"yes". She then said "well I am the surgeon that operated on Ruslan, the surgery went very well, I only had to make a little cut".. and explained in detail how the surgery went. She also said that he is recovering well. She apologized and said we could not see him today because he was still in the surgery department. She told us to come tomorrow in morning at 10. So that's what we be doing tomorrow morning. She told us that she will let him know that we stopped by. She was extremely nice, just like an American... lol
This hospital really was a lot nicer than the other one... maybe it doesn't meet the American standard, but it is definitely better than the one Valary was in. Please pray that Ruslan recovers soon. According to the hospital protocol, he will have to stay in the hospital for at 10 days.... which means we will not in back by Oct 3th like planned. After Ruslan gets out of the hospital we will need to get visas and passports, so hopefully we will only come a week later.
God Bless

Name Change

I got several emails from people asking me if we changed the boys names. Sorry I guess that was kind of confusing..... Yes the older one is Kaleb Ruslan Makarenko and younger one Eddie Valary Makarenko.
As most of you know kids almost always take their adopted parents last name, we also wanted them to have our last name.... so they feel like they are part of our family:)
Now about first... is it common for children to get new names once they are adopted. Most kids are excited about getting new names. So I asked them if they would like American names and they both said yes... the next day I asked Ruslan if he would like his name to be Kaleb and he said he did. Then I asked Valary if he wanted his named to be Edward/Eddie and he asked he also liked it. So that was very easy!!! Their middle names will be their real names, just in case they decide to go back. For now we still call them Ruslan and Valary since we are around people who are used to calling them that.

Pictures of Simferopol

Today we welcome Kaleb and Eddie Makarenko into our family!!!!!!!!!!

Today the judge has agreed for us to adopt Ruslan and Valary Ivashen. The judgement will take effect Sep 29th. Soooo... we are almost legal parents :)
We celebrated our first day as a "family".
Here are a few pictures!!!!
As always keep us in your prayers so that God blesses us as a family. We hope to spend many happy years with our boys and see them grow up into amazing christian men. Thank you!

Pictures of the Hospital

Here are some pictures of the hospital that Valery is staying at. Valery is doing very well and should be out of the hospital on Monday.

Miracles do happen!!!

Miracles do happen!!!

We spend all day yesterday trying to find a way to get a sooner date for court. We even waiting for our judge by his office for an hour only to find out he sneaked out on us. The day before we also approached him to try to explain our situation, but he did not even stop to listen. ( and yes unfortunately we even offered him money ) . We really had no choice. Our only option was to stay in Ukraine for at least another month and a half and pay for apartment, food, transportation etc OR go back to US for three weeks, come back to Ukraine Oct 10, for court without Nessi, I would stay here just for court and then fly back and then Sergei would came with the boys in a few weeks later. And worst of all it would be really sad to leave the boys behind for that long :(. So anyways today again in morning we made some calls and everyone said that it is impossible to change a judge once you have been assigned one (we wanted to switch to another judge who might have sooner appt) So regardless of what everyone said we came to court as asked for another judge. The new judge secretary helped us put together a request for another judge. We waiting for approval for several hours and got awesome news : We are assigned a new judge and our court is Sep 19th !!!! Praise God. We asked the secretary how we can thank her (basically asked how much money she wanted for her help.) She sincerely told us that she didn't want anything, she just wanted to help us. I left the court in tears, I could not believe what happened and mostly WHY did she decided to help us. I just really thank everyone who is praying for us. When we were walking to court I had absolutely no hope! Thanks you everyone for your encouraging emails (and blog posts) It's so nice to hear that people are praying for us and waiting for our safe return. Thank you, we love you very much and please always keep us in your prays, we are only half way done. And we pray that God will bless you in your time of need, just as much as He has blessed us here.
We have meet some really great people, our landlord for one , is an amazing person (and his wife). They have helped us a lot and are always asking for ways they can help. They even took us shopping and out to eat in a very nice restaurant and what I am most thankful for is they introduced us a awesome coffee shop which is actually only a couple blocks for us. Believe it or not , but it's better than starbucks, not only that but their restrooms even have toilet paper( it is very unusual for a bathroom to come with that here). They have also offered to take us to the city were the boys were born to pick up birth certificates. That will be huge help since we don't have a car.
Also believe it or not we ran into someone from Salem here !!!! One of my friends brother, who is also a past client of ours. That was a huge shocker for us !!!!!! SMALL WORLD!!!! They were headed to Yalta, a really big city about one and half hours from here. So they grabbed us along. Nessi had a blast, they have 2 girls Vanessa's age.
We also visited Valery at the hospital yesterday, he is doing really good. He seems to be very well but the doctors want to keep him in the hospital until Monday just to make sure he doesn't get any of the other kids sick.
The hospital was another huge shocker for us... It's is a extremely old building with cracked tile floors, electric wires that are visible and just really dirty It looked like its been years since the floors were washed. The main lobby had a really strong cigarette smell, the director of the hospital was sitting in his office smoking. I didn't know these of hospital existing on our planet. And this is not a hospital for orphans, this is Simerpoles main children's hospital. I really thank God I never had to take Vanessa to a hospital like that and hopefully never have to see my boys there! Can't wait for Valery to be our of there. Lucky the little guy doesn't think anything is wrong with the hospital because it is just like his Orphanage :( I really can't even explain how thankful I am for everything that we have.

I also thought this was interesting... when we came to the orphanage the first day the director told us she wasn't really familiar with adoption process because it's been a while since someone has adoption from her orphanage (last adoption she did was more than a year ago) we just found out that there are now 3 Italian couple trying to adopt kids from this orphanage, just within this past week. Praise God !!!!!!! Unfortunately we can't talk to them since they don't speak same language, but we can just point to the kids and we all know why we are there :)

We came to the orphanage today to find out that Valary is in the hospital. He had a high fever and cough for several days and was not getting better :( So we are praying he gets better soon. We are hoping to visit Valary at the hospital tomorrow.
Ruslan is doing really good. He impresses me everyday with how comfortable he is getting around us. He was jumping on Sergei back for piggy back rides,playing with my hair and just being really sweet. He is now also asking our how much longer until we take him home with us.
Now the really bad news......... we got our court date today for OCT 10th. That is just when our court is going to be.... after that we at LEAST have 10 day waiting period. We already purchased our tickets to return home Oct 4th. We are going to contact some people tomorrow morning to see what other opinions we have. Please pray for us so we can get a sooner date. We are all every anxious to be home.

This is the apartment we are staying at. This is considered average !!!

We are seeing boys everyday. Everyday we came, they ask if you are going to come tomorrow and what time. When the caregiver tells them that our visit time is over they always ask if we can stay just a little bit longer. Even though they don't call us mom and dad, the teacher tells us that they refer to us as parents when we are not around. She says they talk about you guys all the time and are always waiting for you to come.

Yesterday I was telling the boys that they are going to have 2 grandpa's and 2 grandma's, aunts, uncles etc... then I started to tell them just as they are brothers I have sisters too. Ruslan says "REALLY, I have a sister also" I was like "oh really!!!!!" (great, I know nothing about a sister.......) I nervously asked him how old she he and he points to Vanessa and says "there is my sister!!!"

I little about the boys - Ruslan.... has a big heart, is very considerate (if I am caring a bag, he will always take it from me) He is always looking for ways he can help. Definitely act s like a big brother to Vanessa. He always has to push the stroller, hold her hand or carry her. During our visits I find him doing a lot of thinking (but I am not sure what he is thinking about)

Valery is very sweet, adorable and very affectionate (Ruslan is more reserved) He always ask s how much longer until we take them home with us. Loves to play with Vanessa. During our visits Vanessa has a blast !!!!

Pictures with Ruslan & Valery !!

The boys are soo sweet....

Today we arrived at the orphanage at 10. Just as soon as Valery saw us he ran up to us and grabbed my hand. Ruslan left somewhere then came back seconds later holding a skirt, he said “This is for Vanessa”. The teacher later told me that Ruslan woke up early today and told her he needed a dress for Vanessa. I melted right there!!!! I hugged Ruslan and told him thank you, he hugged me back.
We then went to the room where the boys sleep. It was a room with 20 beds standing right next to each other. The boys showed us their beds. The orphanage is very old and extremely dirty. The bathrooms were disgusting!!!! (I’ll spare you the details)
Later all the kids where called for a head count. After counting all the kids, the kids where given a candy. Valery ran into the room we were in and gave Vanessa his candy. What a sweet little angel.
We then sat around in the family room with about 20 kids, mostly boys. The boys were all wrestling, jumping off furniture, walking on their hands, etc all of them were trying to impress us. The older kids would approach us to ask us if we are adopting Rulsan and Valery, we said yes, hey said that they thought that they were very lucky. That was really hard. All the kids wanted to tell us what happened with their parents and where their brothers and sisters are. After telling a 13 year old girl named Tanya that we are adopting the boys, she said “that’s awesome, if I was old enough I would adopt them too”.
Being in the orphanage just confirmed to me that this is really what God wants us to do. Seeing the circumstances the kids are in makes me really happy to at least take 2 of them out of it. I’m praying that everything goes well with court paper work and that we will be able to adopt these 2 boys.
Spending week in Ukraine has really made me realized how blessed us “Americans are”. If someone would to ask me how Ukraine is different than US, I would say everything is different!!!! People look different, ACT different, absolutely different. People buy raw meat in 80 degree weather on the street with flies all over the meat. At the market you will see grandmas selling eggs, garlic or tomatoes in small amount. You can see that is all they have to sell that day and that in their income for the day. There is no such a thing as customer service. If you came to café or restaurant you better be on you best behavior. One example :yesterday I came to a coffee shop where a girl told me I needed to wait for her to make my coffee because she first needed to finish hers. Once she finished her coffee I ordered my coffee and asked for it in a to go cup. She said that they don’t have to go cups (which is very normal here and even if she had one in would be a plastic cup with no lid. So I asked her if I could take the cup it up to my room (we are in a hotel btw it’s probably the best one in Simferopole) She said “NO!!!, if I let everyone take one to their room I wouldn’t have any cups, besides I know you won’t bring back. If you ask the waitress, receptionist, etc a question will answer as fast as possible and as rude as possible. Yesterday we went to expensive restaurant were we were severed cold mashed potatoes, cold French fries. . The locals see nothing wrong with it. It is normal to see people arguing with customers. At first this really bothered me but now Sergei and I have a good time laughing about everything that is going on.

8/30 Update :

Yesterday we came to the orphanage to meet the boys. Once we arrived we were told the boys are gone camping and will be returning tomorrow (today). The director told us to call her at 11 just to confirm that the boys have arrived. We called at 11, 12, 12:30, 12:50 and finally and 1 we were told that the boys have arrived. Just as soon as we left our hotel it started raining really hard! We stood outside for 45min waiting to the bus, it never came…We came home to change out of our wet clothe and call the taxi. While waiting for the taxi we called to director to tell her we are running late… when we called the first time she h ung up the phone on us . So we called back again and she said that she very upset with us because we reschedule so many times… ??? W hatever that meant, we reminded her the we called several time and the boys came late, she didn’t want to listen, all she said is if we don’t came by 4 we won’t be able to see the kids.
We arrived at the orphanage , we walked into the directors office, she sat us down and called someone to bring the boys. That was the longest minute in my life … I could hear my heart pounding! We soon heard a boys giggling voice. They walked into the office and quieting stood b y each other. The director asked them for the ir names, they asked them if they would want to live in a family, if they would want to have a mom and dad and a little sister. They both smiled and said yes. During the time I was fighting my tears of joy, they were so adorable. I can say we instantly feel in love with them . The director told us we could go in the lobby and get to know each other. We sat there and talked for a while. The boys just sat there and told us everything they knew about the ir family, friends and the orphanage.
. We told them that we are going to come back tomorrow and we wanted them to think about if they wanted us to be there parents. The young one said that didn’t need to think about that he did want to be adopted, the older one agreed. The both had and cutest smile and were very happy and of course so were we !!!!!! It was amazing! I was so surprised we how perfect everything was!!!!
We then went outside…(because Vanessa asked to go) Once we went outside the boys (including Sergei) were racing to see who can run the fastest, jump the the highest etc. The boys took turns running with Vanessa. It was so adorable. Vanessa loved the boys!
Valery the younger one said “ Ruslan is the cap tain on the football team, he run s the fastest in our class”. Another boy standing near by confirmed, he said “I am second fastest, after Rulsan”. Later Sergei asked if they like to draw, Ruslan (older) said” Valery, drew a bird and it looked just like real one.” And just during our visit they would only tell us what the other can do, never about themselves. It was really nice.
The visit was just really amazing. Thank you for everyone who has been praying for us. After meeting the boys today I know there are many people praying for us. We couldn’t be more happy. Please continue to pray for us