We're Home!

Yesterday we travelled from Moscow to NY, and from NY to home. It was a long trip but we survived. Lilya was a trooper. The flight was ten hours and she held it together for the first five hours. After that, she gave us a little work to keep her happy. We had to do lots of walking with her up and down the aisle for a couple of hours before she finally fell asleep. She slept through the landing. She technically became a U.S. citizen at the moment the plane touched down on U.S soil. The picture below shows her excitement at this big moment.

One thing I really love about international flights is that they plot the plane's course on a real-time display. I thought it was pretty cool to see our state from a Russian's perspective. The city name that the plane is heading for in this picture is Providence.

Yesterday we went to the US Embassy to get Lilya's visa but we were not allowed to take pictures in or around the building. Later, we did one last shopping binge. Here's Emily enjoying a rare moment of sunshine on Arbat Street.

Now Lilya is at home being loved by her sisters.

Getting Closer Every Day

Today we flew back to Moscow. Before we left though, we had to squeeze one last birthday party for Emily. This one was last night in our hotel room and our friends from Novokuznetsk were there as well as Zack, the son of one of the couples were have been traveling with. Zack and Emily have been best buddies on this trip. It’s been good for both of them to be able to just be kids for a little while.

Our flight to Moscow forced an early start today. We were up at 4:30 am and in the air by 7:40 am. Now, I may sound like a biased proud dad, but Lilya had the best airplane manners of all the three little girls flying out this morning. I won’t name any names, but one girl nearly caused the oxygen masks to be deployed, if you know what I mean. The other just screamed now and then, and now and then. Lilya slept for almost the entire four hour flight!

We arrived in Moscow and had to do some running around to take care of some of the final stages of getting Lilya home. This included a physical exam required by the INS. This is done at a children’s hospital in Moscow by an English speaking doctor named Boris.

Tomorrow, we will go the the US Embassy in Moscow to get Lilya's visa to come into the US. Then on Thursday, we fly home. Can't wait for that!

One Step Closer

Hello everyone. Today I was able to upload the images from yesterday's post. We picked up Lilya from the orphanage today. Unfortunately I don't have any pictures because I was not there. Holly and Emily picked her up and I and the other two dads had to drive to Kemerovo to pick up our daughters' passports. A boaring day for me, and an exciting one for the girls.

Yesterday we went to church at the Novo Ilyinka Tsertov which is the New Ilyinka Church. This is our friends' church in Novokuznetsk. The service was wonderful and we had a translator to keep us in the loop. We were also introduced to the church, I spoke a few thoughts to the people with Ilya translating and then they all prayed for us and for a safe journey home. We spent the afternoon with Ilya and Janet and their youngest son having dinner at a Russian Chinese Buffet (some things are universal).

Tomorrow will the first of a few long days. We will be getting up at 5:00 am to fly back to Moscow with Lilya. Once there, we will have a few appointments for official business.

Three more days left!

Work Day

I was not able to upload any of the images for this post. I tried two different computers at two different internet cafes. Blogger.com shut down temporarily for maintainence last night and I think they broke something. I will try to upload the pictures tomorrow. For now, here's the text. Whenever you see a number, that should be a picture. Just use your imagination.

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Friday morning, we and the other two families went to the orphanage. We went to visit Lilya, but they went to pick up their babies. We had decided to leave Lilya at the orphanage over the weekend thinking that it would be less disruptive to her. Otherwise, she would have had to spend the weekend in a hotel room with no provisions for babies. That would also allow us to do some of the things that we had planned. One of the other families also would have left their baby at the orphanage but they didn’t think they would have a social life in Novokuznetsk. We somehow managed to manufacture one.


Well, on to the social life. Before we left home, Holly had met a Missionary family online and we planned to contact there while we were here. They run a church here in the city as well as a drug rehab program in a neighboring village. Drug and alcohol abuse is a serious problem in Russia (as it is anywhere else) and they are at the forefront of helping people recover and find new hope. Their names are Ilya and Janet and they have two girls and two boys. Ilya was born and raised in Novokuznetsk and then immigrated to the US and Canada in the 80’s. He now has a dual US/Canadian citizenship. His wife Janet is from Pennsylvania and she told me that she has worked very hard to learn the language; I’d say her hard work has paid off.

We called them from the hotel a couple days ago. We were told that on Friday night their 10 year old daughter was having a birthday party and Emily was invited! Can you believe that? The birthday party was to be at a bowling alley, a new thing here in Novokuznetsk. It was attended by about 12 girls. Only two girls spoke English but all the girls accepted Emily completely. They were all very kind to her and she had the time of her life.


While the girls were bowling, Ilya and I went to pick up his boys at a hockey practice near their home. The hockey rink is maintained by the city and the coaching and games are free. The kids only need to provide their own equipment. Part of the goal of this program is to develop talent to play at the higher levels. That reminds me, Novokuznetsk has the honor of being home to the world champion girls rugby team.


After bowling, the girls gathered at a set of tables near the bowling alley in an area reserved for such occasions. The bowling alley is in a mall which has an entire entertainment area including a movie theater, a food court, a children’s play climbing area, and arcade games. It was pretty nice; all of it being only a couple years old and within walking distance of the Hotel Novokuznetsk. There were noise makers, masks, and of course lots of cake. Here Emily is enjoying the moment.


There is a dessert case at the store where the birthday cake was bought. The picture below describes the self image of a person indulging the desserts in this case.


Saturday morning, we were picked up by Dimitri and Pavel, two of the men who run the drug rehab program for Ilya’s church. The building they are using is a crumbling elementary school building that was abandoned by the city and given to them for this purpose. There is much work to be done to this building to prepare it for the big future plans that Ilya and his church has for it. They hope to use it as a women’s drug and alcohol rehab facility and orphanage. When women are helped to recover from this condition, there are often children involved, and those children need shelter and a home. That is what they hope to provide in this building. For now though, while the building is still in rough shape, they are using it as a men’s rehab center. This building is better for them than the street or jail, which is where many of them have been. If anyone would like to contribute to this effort, please let me know and I can give you contact information. Your prayer is always appreciated because the need is great and God is doing a great work here.


Our goal today was to help in whatever way we could. We were given the job of painting a room and mounting a door in one of the future children’s rooms. The girls did the painting and I mounted the door. Here you see Dimitri, Pavel, and me outside a hardware store about to get our supplies for the day.


Before you can paint, you must clean!


Painting radiators takes much longer that you think!



My kingdom for a couple of 2x4’s and a power saw!



Today we will be going to Ilya’s church and then out to diner with him and his family. We miss everyone and are looking forward to being home again.

Court Day

Good morning everyone. Yesterday was quite a day. I’m having difficulty even writing anything about it because there was so much that happened, so much emotion, but yet it seems almost insignificant compared to all we have been through and all that lies ahead. Yesterday was the symbolic culmination of all the work and planning we have done for the last 13 months. This was certainly a cause for celebration. Now, however, we are beginning the transition from planning and hoping to doing. It will be no small feat getting Lilya home. We, being nearly complete strangers, will be taking her from everything she has even known. We will be taking her from her “home”, her “family”, her diet, her time-zone, her language, her entire experience. We pray that this will go smoothly while riding literally in planes, trains, and automobiles, all of which she has never seen. Other people who have done this, and there are many, have experienced everything from having their baby sleep through nearly the entire trip to having their baby cry through nearly the entire trip. We are very happy to have Emily with us because she has already made a connection with Lilya and she will be a very big help in this time of transition. Already, during our visit two days ago, Lilya was enjoying Emily and showing trust in her. Children are a blessing and Emily has shown us that during this trip.

Yesterday we were driven from Novokuznetsk to the regional center city of Kemerovo for our court hearing. This is about a three to four hour trip. We left at 6:00 am, while it was still dark out. There are two other families traveling with us, we were in a car and the other families were together in a minivan.

We thought it strange that we had to meet our driver at 6:00 but the other families only had to gather at 6:30. We found out why about an hour or so into the trip when we were passed by the minivan as if we were not moving.. Our driver was slow, I mean really slow. But, in the spirit of story The Tortoise and the Hare, amazingly we arrived at the courthouse 20 minutes before they did. How could this be? We couldn’t understand, until we realized that they had stopped for breakfast on the way!

Every city and town in this area has a large custom 3D sign at its entrance. Below is the one marking the entrance into Kemerovo.

The courthouse steps. These are polished marble with a skim coat of snow. Be very careful!

While waiting in the courthouse lobby to be called in to our hearing, the tension mounted. Among the three families, we were selected to go second. The first family went in, and we waited and waited. About 40 minutes later, they returned with big emotional smiles and hugs for everyone. That was encouraging for us as we were ushered into the courtroom.


Present in the courtroom was the judge, a representative of the orphanage, a representative of the Russian child welfare system, the prosecutor and the secretary. Of course all three of us were there along with our interpreter Lena. We were asked some routine questions that required only Yes or No answers. Then the moment that we had been preparing for arrived, addressing the court with our speech, no notes allowed. We each had to tell the court why we wanted to adopt, and why from Russia. We also had to answer several questions from the judge and the prosecutor. Have some stress!!! After all of the proceedings, we were asked to leave the courtroom. While waiting outside for a minute, the judge made her decision and then we were called back into the courtroom for the announcement of the decision. And the decision was? We get Lilya, and we get to come home early!

And that was it, all done. Well, almost. We had to wait a few hours while the translator prepared documents for us, and then we had to go to a different building to sign the final set of paperwork. We were shown the new birth certificate with our name on it as the parents. Here you see us signing the paperwork, it felt a little like closing on a house.


We drove back to our hotel, another three hours on the road. Here you can see the sign at the entrance to Novokuznetsk.


This one’s for Pete!


We were pretty tired at this point, but we had to get some food so we walked to the shopping area that I had found the night before. There is a small but very nice mall in that area and we ate at the food court. We also bought a local newspaper dated March 16th to put in Lilya’s memory book. Emily looks like we all felt at that point.


In one hour we will go to visit Lilya again. We could take her out of the orphanage today, but we are going to wait until Monday. If we took her today, we would need to care for her in our hotel room, and that would not be the best for her. I hope this weekend goes by quickly so we can start the journey home.

One side note, as you may know, our little Lilya is very small and has not been able to gain much weight in the orphanage. One of the families we are with also adopted a girl who is nearly the same age as Lilya and from the same orphanage but she is quite chubby. Because of this, we have had a running joke about how this other girl has been stealing Lilya’s food. Well, while all three families were done with our court hearings we had some time to kill so we went out for lunch together. During lunch I was joking about how I wonder if at the exact moment the babies became legally ours, if they felt different as if to say, “Wow, I feel different, what just happened?” The dad of the chubbier girl replied, “Yeah, and while Lilya was looking around trying to figure out why she felt different, his daughter was busily stealing her food.

We have been in touch with a local English speaking family running a church in town. They are also involved in setting up a Teen Challenge style drug and alcohol rehab program and also an orphanage. Sounds like a busy family. They have a 10 year old daughter who invited Emily to her birthday party this afternoon. Who would have thought we would have a social life here in Novokuznetsk? We hope to be able to help them this weekend in whatever work they are doing for their programs.

Breaking News!

Late breaking news from Kemerovo!

We are officially the parents of a 21 month old baby girl; Lilya Briana (you know the rest). The court hearing finished at 11:30 local time and to complete our joy, we were granted a waiver of the 10-day waiting period. That means we will be home by the end of next week! God is good. More details to follow.

We're Finally Here

Today we arrived on two hours sleep on a beautiful sunny morning. The flight in was more interesting today as we could see more in the clear dawn hours. The view from the plane revealed enormous expanses of snow covered fields, forests and hills. Occasionally a village or road can be seen. Long frozen, snow covered rivers snake their way across the landscape. From the sky, it looks very bleak, but also very peaceful.


We landed at Novokuznetsk airport and waited for our luggage to arrive at the luggage garage shown here.


Here Emily is spending a moment watching our luggage. I wonder what she is thinking of all this?



Winter must be tough on the vehicles around here. Our driver couldn’t open the frozen door of his van to let us in.


We drove to our hotel, and checked in. Since last night in the airport, we have been with two other families also picking up their new children from the same orphanage. One family is from RI, and the other is from TN. It’s nice having other English speaking people to travel with, especially since we all have a common purpose.


We were so excited to be finally able to see our little girl again. The drive to the orphanage was much shorter than in December because we are at a different hotel. We arrived at the orphanage with the other two families and were quickly brought to the “music room” and our babies were brought to us.

Our little girl looked at us and cried a little like last time, but not for very long. It was so much fun seeing Emily interacting with her. We were able to spend just over an hour with her and in that time we were able to hold her and play with her on the floor and reconnect with her. It was so wonderful to see her again. She really liked Emily and at one point she raised her hands up to Emily signaling her desire to be picked up. We thought that was great! She is walking much better now than she was three months ago.

After leaving the orphanage, we stopped for lunch at a “mall” across from our hotel.


This is what I had for lunch.


After lunch, Emily and I returned to apartment and had a nap while Holly shopped. Emily had been doing really well so far but it all caught up with her today. At around 4:00 pm we woke her from her nap and she got up, but it was clear that she wasn’t going to make it till bedtime. That became apparent to us when she asked why we weren’t getting dressed for court. She thought it was the next morning already. We gave her some food and drink and tucked her back in bed at 6:00.

This is our view from the hotel window on a snowy evening.


This evening I went for a long solitary walk around the local area, leaving the ladies to rest. It was snowing big fluffy flakes the entire time; snow can be so peaceful. The walk began as a search for an internet café that I had been told about in broken English by a hotel employee. I quickly found it but it had closed minutes before I arrived. I was then overcome by curiosity and continued walking, and walking, and walking. Walking is a very common mode of transportation around here. There are always many people walking, all of them dressed for the apparently endless winter. While exploring, I saw many stores, a movie theater, grocery stores of every size, and small sidewalk kiosks selling everything from newspapers to rotisserie chickens. Now, I know that men never get lost, so I would have to describe my eventual situation after walking so long on snow covered streets as “location challenged”. I also know that men never ask for directions, especially when in a foreign country where the answer given would not even matter. However, after some time, I began to rehearse the phrase “Gdyeh gosteeneetsa Novokuznetskya” which means “where is hotel Novokuznetsk”, just in case. I did eventually find my way back without help. I told you, men never get lost.

Tomorrow is court day. We were prepared for it today by our translator. She told us about the types of questions that would be asked by the judge and also that there would be a prosecutor who represents the interests of the state. Some thoughts on tomorrow’s court hearing. We are not so concerned about being denied the adoption. Our concern is with the 10 day waiting period which every Russian court ruling is subject to. This waiting period can be waived in certain cases, but this is entirely up to the court. If it is waived, that means that we can start heading home with our new daughter (and our old one too) early next week. If it is not waived, we will be forced to stay here an additional 10 days before beginning to travel home. Either way, we will be bringing our baby home; it’s just a matter of how long it will take before we can get her started on her new life. Your prayers are appreciated.

Bargain Shopping

It’s Tuesday afternoon and we are about to leave for the airport to fly to Novokuznetsk. We have been doing the tourist thing for two days now and we are enjoying it. We’re glad though to be moving on to the next phase of our trip. This has been a good reintroduction to the Russian culture and people. One of the side benefits of being here is that I am getting better and better at pronouncing Russian words that I have no idea of their meaning. Sometimes though, I will labor through phonetically processing a long word and realize as I give birth to the last letter that it is an English word. There is tremendous satisfaction to that. Wow, I must be really bored!
Now it’s time for some editorial business. I was informed by James, my friend and co-worker (if that’s what you call what we do) that my history was a bit wrong back in December when I described the events that occurred near the Russian Parliament building. I would like to point you to a web link that properly describes the actual events. At least I was right about the presence of tanks.

http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Soviet_coup_attempt_of_1991

Ok, so now back to the tourist stuff. Our tourist experiences have consisted of mostly walking, subway riding and shopping (mostly not buying, just shopping). Along the way we noticed that the problem of pedestrians being seen as targets by drivers is somewhat mitigated by thoughtful Moscow civil engineers. Major roads have underground passages that allow us to walk under the road. These walkways are also wheelchair and stroller accessable. Of course, since Russia doesn’t have enough lawyers, the accessibility is under the control of the same civil engineers. Since engineers are very interested in efficiency, you will notice in the picture below that the route taken by wheelchairs and strollers is the shortest distance between point A and point B. You could probably sell tickets to this thing, or maybe we’re witness to a newly forming Olympic event?

Ok, back to the shopping. Below is the toy section of a large old-style department store. So many toys, so little time!


Can you believe Emily’s fortune in finding an English children’s book section in this store?


Traveling on the Moscow subway system is very good. I personally have a bit of experience with the New York subway system and I would say that the infrastructure of the Moscow system is comparable. The crowds are quite polite and not too pushy. We did have a few moments when entering a escalator when we felt more like molecules in a fluid than like autonomous people. The idea of having “free will” at that moment was quit irrelevant. In spite of being in this situation, we didn’t get shoved or treated rudely. There was a constant pressure exerted by the crowd, but everyone entered the escalator in a smooth stream with a measure of fairness.


Because it snows nearly every day here in Moscow, snow removal is a full time job. Everywhere there are crews loading snow into dump trucks where it is driven away for disposal, probably in Siberia.


Mind the gap! Oops, wrong country.


On to the unpleasant subject of toilets. The Russian word for toilet is very similar to the English. It is pronounced two-ah-lyet. All around town there are locations where you can pay 10 to 12 rubles, about 30 to 40 cents, to use a toilet. These are usually manned by an old lady who collects the money and keeps them clean and stocked. The one pictured below was particularly interesting because of the brick pattern on the front.


Here Emily is getting fit to her new Russian hat. Looks great on her doesn’t it?



Happy shoppers enjoying their conquest of the open-air market. Can you say haggle?


I will leave you with this picture of a Russian version of Dunkin Donuts. Now it’s off to the internet café and then to the airport. See you in Siberia!

Here We Go!

So begins our second trip to Russia. We have waited three months since seeing our little girl in Novokusnetsk. Since then, we have prayed, planned, packed, and waited, and waited some more. Finally we can continue on to complete our mission. As I write this, it’s Monday morning and we are sitting in the nice warm (hot) Hotel Ukraina lobby having just finished stuffing ourselves at a breakfast buffet. We didn’t stay here, but rather at an apartment 20 minutes walking distance away. We just came here for the food, a worthwhile exercise if I must say so, considering the selection. As you might expect, I am writing this blog entry feeling the combined effects of jet lag and overeating. For now, I will just mention some of the highlights of our trip.

Here we see Emily with our friend Sam, owner of Excel Limousine and Sedan. He drove us to JFK to catch our flight on the Russian airline Aeroflot. That was such a blessing because we found out last week that we needed to make a reservation for long term parking at JFK. By the time we found out, there was no room for us so our plan to drive ourselves there was spoiled. Sam definitely saved us from lots of last minute worry and confusion. In driving to JFK, we found out that it was Sam’s fourth trip to JFK that week. I guess it’s all in a day’s work for a limo driver. It was very interesting watching him run his business from the car. He has a collection of cell phones that he uses to stay in touch with his customers, his drivers, and the calls coming in for future appointments.

This is everything Emily needs to get by for a month in a foreign country (besides her parents).

Once we reached our apartment on New Arbot Street, we immediately crashed for a nap. Well, all but Emily who took the opportunity of the down time to watch half of ROTK. We reluctantly roused ourselves around dusk for a trudge around Moscow which actually ended up being very invigorating and exactly what we needed.

If you remember the comments I made about pedestrians being in danger on Russian streets, I have more on that subject. During our last trip, we were always escorted by our translators hired by the adoption agency. On this trip, we are on our own, by our choice, and are now subject to all of the nuances of Moscow city life. This means having to finding our way around the city which includes negotiating the crossing of streets and other equally perilous undertakings. Case in point, while walking in a park near the Kremlin, we were confronted by a fleet of city plow trucks, that right, trucks plowing the park walkways. We barely escaped becoming plow fodder as we dove to one side of the walkway. The first driver stopped and yelled at us because we had chosen the wrong side and ended up directly in his path.

After our snow plow experience, we saw a changing of the guards at the Russian tomb of the unknown soldier. This was quite impressive, and also made me aware in a new way of the reality of war, however necessary, and the human loss that results from it regardless of national identity.

On our way back to the apartment, we were so incredibly tired that we really thought we would never get back. Noteworthy was the policeman that we encountered at a potato stand near our hotel. I wish this picture were better, but the guy in uniform on the right was armed with an arsenal that would probably enable him to outgun the entire combined police forces of Seekonk and Rehoboth.

Our apartment building, humble as it is, is our home. It’s warm and clean inside and we love it!