Monday, April 12 Day #27 since leaving home (but who’s counting?) Grateful for a sweet conversation with Cooper and Brady (and my mom) this morning (6:30 Monday AM here and 8:30PM there). It helps so much to know they are getting along so well without us.
Oh, that our God of order can make good out of such a mess. Yes He can. Yes He can. We are trusting that He can. It’s 1:30PM and we are back in our apartment waiting for Gulnara to call us to rejoin her and Iger for our afternoon appointments. Today we have no clue what appointments we have, we just ride in the back of Iger’s car and if Gulnara says, “stay,” we sit in the car while she goes into a building and if she says, “let’s go” we go with her. Iger picked us up at our apartment at 8:15 this morning and then picked up Gulnara and we joined Zhanat at his office at the university to go over the petition and other documents that Zhanat redid last night. Zhanat had asked the notary that works in the office next to his to come in early to help us. This nice lady had also come in late one evening to notarize several of our documents from our trip to Timmertaw. After about 10 minutes in this woman’s office John and I could tell that the conversation was going south very quickly. “Nyet, nyet, nyet” and a look of disgust on both our attorney and the notary’s face is a sure giveaway that this transaction isn’t going to happen. Turns out that Gulnara had told the woman to her face that she was stupid (don’t know the Russian word for stupid but it must have come just before this usually warm and friendly woman’s face turned to a look of disgust). And guess what? The notary told Zhanat that we are no longer welcomed there for further notaries. Zhanat is now upset because he has worked with this woman for quite some time. Lucky for us there is another notary in this city and so we are back in Iger’s car to visit this one. Oh, how frustrating to be represented by someone who does not treat people with the same respect that we would. In this notaries office we walk right past several Kazak people who have been waiting their turn to see the one notary who works in this building (one such waiting individual follows us down the hall to let us know in Russian that it isn’t nice to cut in line.) John and I are told to wait out in the hall while Gulnara and Zhanat meet with the notary. Several minutes later, Zhanat, who has been the most patient and tolerant 24 year old, comes out of this notary’s offence and throws out an American slang word he learned while in New Jersey (which is a very bad word no matter what state you are from) and says that he has had it - and off walks our stable minded translator friend. Who needs a translator anyway? WE DO!
11:00AM We stop by the office of Education (where the big hat lady works that was present at all of our initial contacts in the baby houses) and this woman apologizes for the noisy construction work taking place on the floor above her office. She asks us to wait outside. HOWEVER, her eyes were kind and she had a bit of a smile on her face and for now, and we are hopeful that she will help us.
11:20AM We arrive at the baby house and are told to wait in the car as Gulnara goes inside to do something. From the car we can see a group of little ones outside on the drive. It’s Kirill’s class and as we walk closer (we decided we didn’t want to wait in the car) he RUNS to us. How sweet and just what we needed in the midst of such a day of “yuk” to remind us why it is we are going through all of this. He is our little boy – not legally, yet, but in our hearts he is ours. I was able to sit on the curb outside and have many of the other children come and “sigh-dees” (sit down) on my lap and tickle and hug on them. These kids are very well cared for but are so hungry to be loved on. Aren’t we all?
3PM - We arrive at the baby house to join Gulnara who needs us to sign a document saying that we have been shown all of Kirill’s medi cal history. Because we have no translator to translate this document, the baby house director, Rosa (who has been away for the past several weeks), will not permit us to sign the papers until after we know what they say (understandable since this is important information). Standing in the hall outside of Rosa’s office, Gulnara and Rosa get into an exchange of words that has me and John very concerned and practically praying OUT LOUD. There is not enough room for two big fish (our attorney and the head doctor/director of Shapagat) in one little pond and this pond belongs to Rosa. Listening to the two of them fire an unpleasant sounding exchange of words and then watching Rosa walk back into her office and lock the door was frightening. We have never met this woman before and we certainly would like to make a much better first impression than this with her.
3:50PM Gulnara heads to court to try and obtain a court date for us. We have been told that this can take a week to obtain. Since we still have 10 minutes before we can go and get Kirill, John and I close ourselves into the bonding room and pray for Gulnara’s visit to court. This has been a day full of short tempers and conflict. God, please help her be gentle with people. Please get us to court in time. 4PM - Our 2 hours with Kirill is very good. The other families have commented on how comfortable and content he looks sitting on our laps. He seems just as receptive to our hugs and kisses as our other children. Every time he sees us he picks our pockets to see if we have gum and candy for him.
6:15 Iger and Gulnara pick us up at the baby house and we have GOOD NEWS – we have a court date for this Thursday (3 days from today) and we have even BETTER NEWS – the judge (after seeing pictures today of Kirill’s living conditions before arriving at Shapagat) said that he will allow Kirill to be adopted. According to Gulnara, this is very unusual to have a judge agree to this without having a parent’s written release of a child. But all the evidence that Gulnara has obtained seems to be enough to show that Kirill has not received proper care. Thank you, thank you, thank you God! Hoping and praying that this judge will feel the same way on Thursday. We are very optimistic.
6:30 Iger drives us to a town about 25 minutes from Karaganda where Albert (the German Baptist missionary) and his wife and two children live (in an apartment that is part of the Baptist missions office). They have invited me and John and Gulnara for dinner. (Kelly and Tucker after 21 years your mother was a gracious guest and ate a piece of cake.) What a precious family who have left all their family in Germany to live among the people of Kazakhstan for the sole purpose of sharing the love of Jesus Christ. Albert drove us by the Christian orphanage (all private funding) that he helped to start and build and it is an amazing place. Being invited into another’s home for dinner for a 2nd night in a row has been a good reminder for how wonderful it is to extend the gift of hospitality. We will remember the warmth of these kind people.