1000+ words from Dan

Kolya came to the window and Marina waved for him to come on in. I’ll never forget it! He came directly to us, and with a huge smile, hugged us both individually, then gave us a group hug. Then he stood back to listen to what we had to say to him. Although it was a bit awkward at first, things warmed up and he was all-smiles. He was clothed heavily since it is so cold here. His heavy outside coat had a NASCAR emblem on it and a number “3” for Dale Earnhart. I couldn’t bear to tell Kolya that ole Dale is dead. Leslie has just reminded me that Kolya doesn’t really know anything about NASCAR, so it didn’t matter. We tried to talk with Kolya for a few minutes, there was a group picture on Marina’s shelf with he and Christina in it, so I pointed to him. Marina said that Christina and Kolya are the most beautiful children in the orphanage. They are! After that Kolya asked to go find Christina. So off he went. It seemed like an hour before he returned (it was only 10 minutes probably); then they both returned and there was Christina. She was heavily clothed as well, and had on a stocking hat. We all hugged and it was the sweetest thing I could every dream. Again, I will never forget it!

We had them try to say ALABAMA, and they did well. We asked if they could help us learn their Language as we will help them learn English. They counted to five in English, Leslie and I can only count to three in Russian, they laughed.

The kids were dismissed with a picture (posted on the blog) and hugs. They ran out into the courtyard and disappeared. As we exited we both made an effort to tell Marina how much she had done for us and how much we appreciated her. It was a sweet time. As we left and stepped over to the car, both kids ran up to us out of the dark courtyard to say “goodbye” in English. They had conferred with a few friends who reminded them how to say it. Kolya ran off, Christina stayed and hugged until we were forced to leave (not really forced, but it was obvious…both Sergey and the inspector were in the car waiting for us), so reluctantly we stepped into the car and departed.
Leslie and I cannot describe, with words, the impact of the afternoon. We rode back to the inspector’s office in the cramped back seat of that little car; we held hands, and whispered to each other that it couldn’t have gone any better.

From Dan