October 27, 2006

Today all of us (the Bruce’s and the Schweickert’s) walked to the orphanage through the cemetery. Olas explained to us the significance of the tables in the plots. Around Easter each year, the families of the deceased bring food and vodka to the plot. They set a place for the deceased and then they eat and drink. Then they leave food and a drink for the deceased when they leave. Kinda like leaving cookies for Santa but I wonder who ultimately drinks the "wodka"???

There is no place to sit on the playground so when we sit with the boys we sit on a pipe that is mounted about 6 inches above the ground (see pic). Yesterday we spent the majority of our time at the orphanage sitting on the pipe trying to communicate with the boys through our Russian/English dictionary one word at a time! It will be so good when we speak the same language!

Today we spent our day at the orphanage on the playground in the gym with the boys. A group of boys (around Nicky’s age) hang out with us everyday and we are getting better acquainted with them. They all are calling us Mama and Papa and one of them gave us a hand written card with all four of our names and the words love, family and happiness. They really are happy for the boys and dream that someday it will be their turn.

PLEASE pray for God’s favor for court on Monday. Olas is going to ask for "immediate execution" so he can proceed with the birth certificate issue during the 10 day waiting period. Many thanks and blessing to all for BELIEVING GOD with us in this!

Just a little info about the Hotel Berdyansk:
They haven’t turned on the heat (hot water) in the hotel yet (still mild outside – 45 to 70). I heard they were working on it yesterday. To compensate, they have these neat sheets that are like an envelope and a blanket fits in them – they are very warm but you don’t want to get out of bed in the morning! The hotel room is the size of a cruise ship room except there is no place to put your clothes. There is a small wardrobe that barely holds the coats. We are getting the room for about $28 a night and that includes breakfast. They have laundry service but it is expensive so I do the underwear and hang it to dry and send out the pants and shirts. It appears that all the rooms on this floor (11th) have been remodeled recently. They have two elevators but the operating mechanism has no intelligence – when you press the call button only that elevator will come and if it is in use, you may have to press it again! We have a TV that gets 30 channels; mostly US reruns dubbed in Russian. They do have Discovery and Animal Planet – Its funny to see Orange County Choppers with the characters speaking Russian!!! There is an Internet area in the lobby with 5 computers. It is slow – about the speed of dialup, but it is cheap – about one dollar per hour. They also have wireless set up on the 10th floor. I can pick up the signal by the elevator but if I walk down to the 10th I get 52 mbs. It is more expensive - about five dollars per hour. The restaurant in the lobby is good – just need to order at least an hour before you want to eat and they have it already to go – if you wait till you want to eat it takes a long time – they only have a four burner stove. There are many good restaurants in Berdyansk. Dinner with a glass of wine costs us about $20 to $30 with tip. Tips of 10% are huge!!