Steyn's Ukraine Angel: 2008-08-17

The last few days with Dima have been so fun playing around. He has really started to come out of his shell a lot more, and has also learned a few words in English: "Thank you", "Please", and "Fish" (you had to be there!). Anyway, it helped a lot once we added the sign language. He is a very smart little guy and doesn't appear to have the speech delays that the orphanage was saying he did. He loves to play hide and seek with us up in the room where the kid's lockers are. He will climb into the lockers and peek out grinning. He also squeezes into the corner in between the lockers and laughs and squeels when we "find" him! The other day Dima and Daddy discovered the jungle gym and Dima runs for it whenever he can (when he isn't swinging or playing in the sandbox). The little guy has great coordination for his size and does very well climbing up the rails of the jungle gym. We have also started feeding him bananas and baby food and juice. He loves to drink water out of a water bottle like a grown-up! He seems to be growing everyday and we cannot wait to get him out of there and take him home!

As of right now, we are on target for getting the birth certificate on Tuesday and hopefully to take Dima home with us. If we can not get him on Tuesday, then we should definitely get him Wednesday. From there, we will apply for his passport which can take about a week. We are leaning towards going to Kiev to await the passport, but we won't know until next week. We are still having a blast with our family here. The son in the family is actually now acting as our driver/translator while Galya has returned to Kiev. We decided that it would be cheaper for us to just rent a car than to try to depend on taxis and fight the language barrier on our own. I have been able to remember some of my Russian, but unfortunately I get tongue-tied whenever trying to communicate with people I don't know. But I can at least read the signs and listen in on people's conversations!

We hope all is going well back home. School has started again and so has MOPS. I hope all the moms had a great first meeting today! I sure wish I could have been there with you all to celebrate the beginning of the new year! Hopefully we will be back in time to attend the next meeting.

To Bennett and Samuel: Mommy and Daddy love you very much and cannot wait to see you. Bennett, I hope you had a great first week of school--you will have to tell us all about it when we get home. We are very proud of you and know you have really grown up this summer. Sammy, I know you are being a good helper to Nana Kaye and Pa and Grandma and Grandpa. Are you being a "big boy"? We are so proud of you and know that you are going to be a great big brother to Dima. Hugs and kisses to you both.

Thanks to everyone for your thoughts and prayers. We are very ready to come home and see our family and friends. We love and miss you all.

Candace and Dave

We had a fun day of work yesterday. Our host family works on a farm owned by their church to raise money for the orphanage their church runs. We decided when we came that we would like to spend a day on the farm working and seeing all that they do. When we arrived, it was neat to see how much they have been able to accomplish in only five years since starting the farm. The day began with our picking apples from the orchard to sell at the local market. Dave and I thought it was really neat that these small trees had so many apples on them. After picking the apples, we then picked all the rotten ones off the ground to feed the pigs. They have about 50 LARGE pigs with about 4 of them with piglets (they were the cute ones!). After working in the orchard in the morning, Dave worked hard moving hay bales and bags of wheat while Galya (our translator) and I washed large jars for canning. We also got to walk through their veggie patch and eat some fresh strawberries and tomatoes (I had never eaten a tomato like an apple before! Yummy!). It was a hard day of work, but was very rewarding to see the sacrifice our family here makes to support the church's orphanage. As a result of selling the apples and 3 pigs yesterday, they were able to raise over $2000. Plus they had free labor--us! We just found out that they had more piglets today! Thirteen from one momma--whoa! Anyway, we have attached some pictures from yesterday's adventure on the farm. Enjoy! Dave and Candace