Author Archives: Dan Nelson

Gotcha Day +3, Still in Moscow

11 Saturday Sep 2010

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Our room in Moscow, Yes the "beds" they gave us are playpens. But they will sleep there.

Yes.  We are in Moscow.  It seems like it has been forever, but it has only been 3 nights.  Four more to go.  We have learned some good things.  For example, having a child with you seems to entitle you to special privileges.  Russians seem to hate lines, and prefer mobs instead, but if you walk up holding a child, the seas part, and you get to go first.  It is actually refreshing.  On the other hand, dear Russians, if someone asks you “Do you speak English”  and the only word you know in English is “Yes,” then that would not be the time to use that particular word.  But thankfully, a large percentage of the population speaks “a little” English, and we can get through our day with broken English, random Russian words, pointing and holding up the number of fingers of the things we want.

We had an adventure today because we decided we needed strollers.  We didn’t get strollers before we left, because we thought it would be okay, but after these 3 days, we decided that they would be very helpful.  (And after walking with them down to Arbat street-two blocks away… they crashed and burned pretty quickly.  Strollers would be a good thing.) 

I realize many are saying “but they’re too old for strollers”.  Not really.  They are very small children.  Nathan doesn’t weight 25 pounds, and is four years old.  He is too small to fit into the 2T clothes we brought.  Ben is only slightly bigger.

Strollers.  We asked the man at the hotel desk where we might find them and the only place he knew of was a place that would have them, but “there they are very expensive.”  But we tried it.  We got a taxi and took off.  He was right- there they were very expensive.  It was one of those boutique stores, and the least expensive stroller was $400.  So we asked our taxi driver if he knew of any other place, but he didn’t speak English very well.  It turns out he was a friend of Sasha (who went to his country home because it was the weekend).  We called him, and he directed his friend to a children’s hypermarket.  So the driver went there, and then helped us with the transaction.  We bought us two strollers, but they didn’t take credit cards (and we didn’t have that many rubles on us) so our driver found out where there was an ATM.  So we made a 10,000 ruble withdrawal, which covered two still expensive strollers and the taxi fare.  (I thought the price for the cab was excellent, considering he waited for us, carried one of the strollers for us, and Ben puked in his car twice.)

And the boys LOVE strollers.  They both thoroughly enjoyed them.  We used them to go get lunch: pastries from a little shop under the street.  But they wereWalking on Arbat Streetn’t really pastries, they were baked breads with stuff in them.  Some were sweet, but most were meats.  We had the hot dogs and I got one with cheese and mushrooms.  And there are several tunnels that go under the busier streets so that no pedestrians have to cross these streets. The tunnels have a name, but I don’t know it.  They are tunnels with shops in them.  With good prices.  I got a liter of Pepsi for 50 rubles.  That isn’t bad at all.

We also used the strollers for going to the grocery store.  It made the trip much better.

We continue to learn more about the boys.  We’ll start with Nathan.  Nathan is a very smart, well rounded little boy.  We watched him playing really well tonight.  He has a great imagination (he used his Lego blocks to build a gun- simple and crude, but that’s abstract thought.)  He has started repeating English words to us.  Just a couple here and there, but each day it grows ever so slightly.  When we say, “Nathan!” he looks up and comes to us.  So, he is learning his new name.

Benjamin, on the other hand, has some serious issues.  We don’t know how deeply they go.  He seems to be sincerely trying to get us to reject him.  The poor little guy doesn’t realize that no matter how much he fights, we will not give up on him.  I got bitten pretty hard today.  I also got smacked, pinched, and spat upon.  Yet no matter what he couldn’t make us go away.  He is very intelligent-there is no doubt about that.  He started singing “You Are My Sunshine” today with Shannon (with no intelligible words, but the tune was right).  But he cannot focus on any given task for more than about 15-20 seconds.  He does sometimes listen to an entire Thomas the Tank Engine storybook.  And he already is calling them books, and yells “Peep Peep!” when  we start to read.  And on the airplane I got him to color with me for a few minutes.  But he has no idea how to play with toys.  Every toy he either chews on or throws.  Nor does he look at the books, but he throws them, too.  He is very upset that his new car only has three wheels, but when you bite one of them off, there isn’t much that can be done about it.  He has such a long way to go, and is the source of 99% of our struggles.   If both boys were like Nathan, this would be a very fun and enjoyable time.  We would probably venture out to the zoo, or maybe take a walk (with strollers) to Red Square.  But they aren’t. We spent six of our 24 hours trying to get him to sleep today.  He fights it.  He fights us.  We have no support team here.  So we are really in a sort of survival mode.  We spend the entire time we are awake redirecting him.  He   Things are moving in the right direction, though.

Now I said, “if both boys were like Nathan” but I want to make sure that everyone understands that we do not regret the boys we have.  We wish the baby home would have given us a better heads up, but knowing that he is the way he is would not have deterred us.  We are not adopting to make us a happy little family.  We are adopting because we were called by God to serve in this manner.  Because two little boys on the far side of the world need a place where they will be loved and will grow.  We do it because He adopted us.  We are seeing the gospel all over this.  As I watch Ben fighting me-I get frustrated.  Yet my frustration is me fighting against God.  He is sovereign, and has put this very difficult task before us.  We had no idea it would be so difficult.  But he has been preparing me for something for some time.  I have told several people that he was going to do “something” in our lives.  I cannot explain how I knew it, but I knew something incredibly difficult was coming.  I think this is it.  (Actually I thought it would be something different than this- but this is really very close to what I thought).  Sorry if that sounds enigmatic, but I do not know how to describe it.  I was being prepared for some unknown thing. 

But we got the boys to bed fairly quickly.  We have prayed and cried more than we have ever done before.  I have begun praying regularly with Shannon, which I am sad to say was by far the exception than the rule.  It is a difficult time in a difficult place and we desperately miss Erin and Sam.

So please pray that we would continue to get to know the boys and their idiosyncrasies. That Ben would begin to trust us.  (Right now he does not like us to touch him).  That fear would leave him.  That both boys would bond with us.  That Erin and Sam would continue to enjoy their time with Grandma.  (Spending last weekend with cousins in Kentucky and the fair coming up this week has helped tremendously.)  Pray that Shannon and I would continue to grow closer to God and one another.  That we would have the strength to endure four more nights in a foreign city with two boys we don’t really know.  And that which we fear the most-our trip home Thursday (adding an extra 9 hours to the day because of time zone changes, 12-13 hours in an airplane, and getting to meet new siblings).  The trip from Vladivostok to Moscow was not bad at all, but I think that was mainly because they were still in shock and terror of having left everything they had ever known behind.  They will have a week, and will be more comfortable (and likely more unruly) by then. 

Thank you everyone, again, for all of the help and support you have given.  We have been given clothes, beds, food, money, prayer, a housecleaning (yay!), babysitting, and so many other little things.  Thank you, everyone!

Gotcha Day +2; Learning about our New Lives

10 Friday Sep 2010

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We made it to naptime

Here, I begin typing during nap time.  I am posting this at 2pm Moscow Time.  We are not having a fun day; we have two little boys who still don’t know what parents are, and that every contest that they get into with them will result in total loss for children.  But they are both very strong willed, and it is wearing out the parents greatly.  But the parents have the power of God who is granting patience and strength and compassion.

Last night went pretty well.  Nathan slept all night- he went to sleep about 9pm and slept through the night until about 7am.  That would be a normal night in the orphanage for him.  Of course, it was really 4am Vladivostok time that he fell asleep, but he slept the night.  Benjamin, on the other hand, had some issues.  He was so exhausted from the long day that he fell asleep pretty quickly at about 9pm.  He woke me up about 3:30am (so he could have been awake 5 minutes or 2 hours) in his bed singing.  We tried to tell him to sleep, but again-language barrier.  Finally I asked Shannon, “What would we do if Sam was acting this way?”  And so we put him in bed with us.  He didn’t like it at first, but we played some music on the computer (we only have two songs, so we looped them) and he fell right asleep.  Shannon has discovered that he really likes music.  He slept really well until about 7am, and then had a bad dream.

Our morning was pretty nice.  Breakfast went wonderfully.  I went to the store by myself last night.  It’s only across the street from the hotel, but wow that feels like an accomplishment for me.  (I went to McDonald’s earlier yesterday, too, by myself.  I’m so proud! But I do regret not spending enough time in Rosetta Stone!)  So far today was not too bad until nap time.  Nathan only got hit with a book one time, and so far nothing in the hotel room is broken.  (Well, the TV doesn’t work, but that is only partially their fault-it involves the cable being attached with electrical tape so that once it came out it wouldn’t go back in).  The boys behaved pretty well, but again, not good.  But not like they were demon possessed like on the first night.  We watched a little TV (it was still working then) and read a couple of books.  Shannon went down to the lobby and asked a couple of questions and had a cup of coffee (which we can only drink in the lobby-we can’t bring the cups up to our room), then I went down and checked my e-mail and had some coffee myself.  Sasha came and got our documents ready for the embassy.  We have an appointment on Monday to go for our interview so that we can get visas for the boys.  By doing it this way, the boys will be US citizens as soon as we land at JFK.  So that leaves us in a foreign land for 3 days (the rest of today, Saturday and Sunday and half of Monday) alone with nobody really to help us with two boys who can’t speak to us.  We are really afraid.  We then have Tuesday and Wednesday to register with the Russian consulate office.  Why it takes so long, I do not understand.  We need to get home!

Naptime was, what’s the word… traumatic? I think that’s a good choice of words.  For some reason, Benjamin hates to go to sleep.  He fights it.  Erin fought it, and so I would walk her around the house and sing to her.  So maybe fight isn’t the right word.  It is beyond fighting.  It took an hour-and-a-half of working with him to get to sleep, and he was so incredibly tired!!  It involved screaming and spitting and hitting but in the end we won (note he was the one hitting and screaming and spitting).  It was a hard battle, but he is so tired that he simply cannot function.  He must sleep.  Kirill is fought it as well, but understands naptime a little better, and so gradually (once new brother wore himself out to sleep) fell asleep on his own.  Shannon went right after that, and we have decided to sleep in shifts.  Hopefully they stay asleep- Moscow traffic is horrible, and for reasons only known to Muscovites, they enjoy laying on their horns when they aren’t moving.  All of them at the same time.  So we are staying on a major loop around the inner part of the city, and there may be a hundred cars honking at once.  Just for fun, I guess.

So we have another half of a day to go.  I will be so thankful to be back at home, where we can speak to people we understand, and our support network is available.  At home we have doctors and social workers and friends and family who can help us.  Here we have facebook messages from everyone and prayer.  So thank you thank you all!  They are very helpful!  We appreciate the messages and the prayers; right now that is what is keeping us going.  Because we are limited in internet access, we have very little access to Erin and Sam (aka “our children who already speak English”).  We haven’t spoken to them since we left on Sunday, and that has been extremely difficult.  It doesn’t help we are so very tired.  I think I am actually doing better than Shannon, but this has been such a busy and tedious 3 weeks for us (30,000 miles is circumventing the earth more than once) in multiple cities, states, and countries.  Countless lines to get onto planes and get through immigration and eating what we can find because we don’t have a fridge and pantry of food (although we do have a fridge, and we have made us a little pantry in the closet.  Right now it has two bananas, some shortbread cookies, and bread.

The language barrier isn’t moving much.  A funny example, I tried to teach Nathan the word “Bread”.  I said, “Skaghee bread.”  (Say bread). And he responded with “Hlep” the Russian for bread.  I said, “No, b-r-e-a-d.”  to which he responded, “H-l-e-p.”  It was great.  So they aren’t getting far very fast, but we are working with them.  We are saying the Russian (which is oh, so limited) and then the English.  We are doing the same with their names.  When I blog, I sometimes refer to them with their new names and sometimes with their old.  Right now they are interchangeable.  Nathan is Kirill and Benjamin is Yarrig or Yaroslav.  So far we haven’t called them much by their new names, because they just don’t understand.  I wonder if they will still remember Russian after a few months.  They do, after all, have each other to communicate with.

But make no doubt, this is a difficult time for us, but we are not discouraged.  We are at the most difficult time in the process.  And we are making it.  Day-by-day and moment-by-moment.  We are getting there.  But believe me that Thursday cannot come quickly enough.

Gotcha Day + 1

09 Thursday Sep 2010

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When I said that no day could possibly be worse, I failed to take into account the fact that we only had both boys for 10 hours from the time we picked them up until they screamed themselves asleep, and that today included an extra 7 hours due to the time zone change and 9 hours on a plane (have I mentioned that Russia is really big?)

That being said, today was good! Not perfect by any means, but much closer to what we expected difficult times to be. Personally, even I don’t act that well on a 9 hour plane ride, but once Yarrig fell asleep it went pretty well.  We’ll say on a scale of one to ten, Gotcha Day was a -18. Today was a 4, possibly even a 6 (but there may be some inflation due to their exhaustion).
The two boys are very different. One is a cute little boy. The other is more like a feral dog with rabies. (I’m not trying to be funny, that’s really what he acted like, including the growling and biting).

But all is well. A hard day was to be expected. But let’s compare my prospective compared to theirs. Compared to them, not much changed in my life. Two new children, compared to what just happened to them, is minor. What changed for them? Everything. Everything they have known in their lives is now new and different. New food, new schedule, new family (of which they have no reference to understand what “family” even is), new location. Everything just changed for them. Nathan, for example- when we visited him in the orphanage last trip- insisted that he was NOT going to ride in an airplane. He was going to ride in a car to get to his new home in the United States. He explained that the cars that he saw would go to the end of the street and turn. So for him, going around that corner was synonymous with going to the ends of the earth.

So today was pretty good. Nobody got hit or bitten or spit on.  Growling was pretty light.  They did far better on the plane than I expected. And my wife is entirely awesome. She has this way of picking up on others needs and understanding personalities and doing things I can’t even describe let alone accomplish. (Yarrig likes to be sung to, Kirill was a follower-the youngest and smallest at the orphanage, Yarrig was a kingpin-the oldest of anyone at the baby home, and on and on and on…) She got both of them to take a nap, and to go to bed tonight. She is bonding pretty well with both of then I think.

They aren’t really bonding with me, but that is not unexpected either. First of all she’s a mommy, and mommies are just generally well liked by all family members. Second of all, the boys really don’t have a reference point for a man on their lives. All of the caregivers at the orphanage and baby home are women. So they have no idea as to what a man is supposed to be in their lives.

So thank you all SO MUCH for your prayers. They are much appreciated and, quite honestly, successful. (But don’t stop now- we still have a long easy to go!) We understand that this is a task that God has put us on. We understand that His purpose is NOT to give us an easy life, but that His name be glorified by conforming us more to the image of Christ. Nothing about this process has been easy, but here He used yet another point of difficulty to help us realize that we are absolutely powerless. So we turn to Him who gives us our foundation, strength, and purpose.

So tomorrow… will it be as good? We will just wait and see.  We made many strides today.  We must overcome the language barrier in order to accomplish great strides.  (If I tell them to come to me, and they respond with NYET! there really isn’t discipline that I can do.  I can pick them up and put them where I want, but I can’t take away privileges because they have no idea that the things we have given them are actually theirs–  they have no concept of personal possessions.  Nor can I do any spanking, because they simply can’t understand what is happening and why.  But we will get there.  We are getting them to repeat words, but so far it is just repeating- no speaking English of their own accord yet.  But over the next couple of weeks (especially once we leave Russia) they will increase, and within about 3 months they will speak well enough to understand, and in 6 months they should be pretty good at it.  Within a year (sadly) they will probably not remember Russian at all.  We will try to help them keep their language, but it will not be easy.

So again, thank you, and please continue to pray!

Gotcha Day

08 Wednesday Sep 2010

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It has been a very strenuous day; it started by us being exhausted, and ended with everyone crying.  Shannon and I are not yet asleep, but we, too will probably cry ourselves to sleep.  I’m not going to sugar coat it anything- this day was ugly.

This has been probably the most difficult days of our lives for many reasons.  There are many emotions tied up with everything, and we have two more children  A four year old and an almost-four-year-old!  It is a wonderful and beautiful thing.  We have had fun today, and we are getting to know each other.

So let’s recap the last couple of days.

We awoke around 8:30 today, after falling asleep at about one am (which is after we slept off and on through the entirety of Tuesday.  I actually slept almost the entire way on the plane from Moscow to Vlad (Monday night), then stayed awake as Irina took us all over Vladivostok to do paperwork.  I am very thankful for the work that she has done.  All of that was more or less easy for us- she told me where to sign, and I signed.  So on Tuesday, we got our official court documents, got the paperwork for the passports turned in, IMG_1490and papers copied, and I’m really not sure what else, but there were many other stops.  (They only needed one of us to sign, so Shannon stayed at the hotel and rested).  We both napped and woke up about 8pm, then went to talk to Todd and Rebecca, a couple from Pennsylvania who are adopting as well.  That was a wonderful visit.  We ate supper about 11pm in the hotel (we were at the Hotel Meridian, which was wonderfully inexpensive, but it was not the Vlad Motor Inn- we like the VMI for many reasons (the one exception being COST!)IMG_1507

This morning we awoke and went for a walk with Todd and Rebecca- it was short, because we didn’t have much time.  They had their court date after ours, and so they stayed here in Vladivostok for the entire 10 day waiting period.  Todd is a park ranger, and spent a lot of his time going for walks, and using the various mountains of Vlad as landmarks to get around.  It was helpful to have him explain things to me and a wonderful visit.  The plan was that Irina would bring Nathan to us and for us to leave for the baby home to get Benjamin.  Our plans didn’t quite work out the way we planned because we switched hotels.  It is a good thing, but really threw our plans off-and kept the boys from getting a nap. 

There was no room at the Vlad Motor Inn, which is why we were at the Meridian.  However, Todd and Rebecca planned to move to the VMI today- but they were gracious enough to let us have the room instead (they will move once we leave tomorrow). So Irina brought Nathan Kirill (who we will be calling Kirill for awhile because he doesn’t understand anything else!) and then we packed up very quickly and went to get Benjamin Yaroslav (who we will be calling Yarrig for awhile because he doesn’t understand anything else.) 

IMG_1532We drove to the baby home and got Yarrig, then came and checked in at the VMI and had lunch with Lana and Irina.  We went for a short walk with the boys, and then got ready to go to see the doctor.

The doctor’s visit took over an hour, which combined with two boys who don’t understand you and the fact that they had no nap and what else… oh, absolutely everything in their lives just changed, it was not a pleasant experience.  Fortunately Kirill took a short nap in the car with Lana and Irina.  I spent the time holding Yarrig.  If I didn’t hold him he would run away.  Or fall down.  Or do something dangerous.  The parking area of the doctor’s office was littered with Much Broken Glass, so it was really very important to not let him get away.  I kept thinking, “Oh, if I only had a rubber room!” 

It only got worse from there.  We have no control over them at all.  They speak no English, and we speak no Russian, so there is just no communication.  Yarrig has bitten Kirill three times-completely at random.  I have been spat on, smacked, and Kirill tried to bite me but was unsuccessful. 

The thing is, if someone tells them what to do in Russian, they immediately obey.  So it isn’t that they are horrible children- they are just children who have no idea what parents are who are testing their boundaries to the fullest extent possible and they are doing their best to do whatever they want to do (that is, to be the ones in control).  Which isn’t working for them.  If we let them win, it will only make things worse.  So I suppose it would be much easier if we just let them run amok, but that would serve no purpose.

The Vlad Motor Inn caters to adoptive families, so there are several people here.  Shannon met someone in the hall who asked how things are going.  “Not good at all,” she said.  The woman gave her a hug and said, “Let me give you two of the best pieces of advice someone told me.  It is ok to not like them and it will get better.”  Trust me, that is good advice.  We want to love them, that is why we are adopting, but at this moment… it just isn’t there.  It will come, I am certain.  What we need is that they will love us in return.

We finally got them to sleep by rocking them until they cried- it was the first time Yarrig showed any emotion all day except defiant laughter.  He finally collapsed into bed, and then it was Kirill’s turn to cry until he was too exhausted to continue.

We called Irina for help- we had no idea what to do.  Nothing was working, so Lana came and spoke to the boys-who had just calmed down about 5 minutes before she got there (calmed down out of exhaustion from screaming).  She spoke to them, and they listened, and they fell asleep right after she left.  It is clear that our biggest challenge is the language barrier.

So our prayer requests are thus (and are very urgent):

1.  We are flying to Moscow tomorrow.  Pray for patience for us, and that someone will be on the plane that will help us communicate with the boys.  And that they can deal with being strapped to a chair for 9 hours.

2.  That in Moscow we progressively get better.  Of course we know it won’t get instantly better, but we need them to get onto a schedule- and Moscow is 7 hours behind Vlad which will only hurt things.  Plus, again, absolutely everything is new to the boys.  And Mama and Papa are not on our own turf.

3.  That we have patience (yes, I said that once already).  We did not handle things all that well today.  We are exhausted having traveled, over the last 20 days, flying 30,000 miles and spending 2 nights in New York, 4 nights on an airplane, 2 nights in Moscow, 4 nights in Vladivostok and 7 nights at home.

Like I said, I didn’t sugarcoat anything.  That’s just how it has been.  We knew it would be difficult, and we knew that with two of them it would be even more so.  But it the first day was much worse than we could imagine.  Yet we know that God is in control.  Every step of this process has been difficult, and it has caused us to rely on Him more and more.  This is just another piece where He is showing us our weakness and His glory.  It can only get better! 

Court is finished; Heading home for a little while

27 Friday Aug 2010

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We made it through court!  It was an interesting experience.  I have never been in a courtroom before, but it was not too far off from what I expected.  The judge introduced everyone; there was us and Lana (our interpreter) with the prosecutor, recorder, and a social worker for each of the boys.  The judge asked several questions-everything from why my visa said “Moscow” and not “Vladivostok” to questions about schooling for the boys and about our house.  She also asked several questions about why we chose Russia.  We were surprised that we didn’t get any questions about why we chose to adopt two unrelated boys at the same time.  The prosecutor asked a couple of questions about discipline and church.  We did learn not to chew gum in court; Lana gave us some gum right before we went in.  I got rid of mine, but Shannon was chewing it.  She stood up to state her name and the judge said, “Are you chewing gum?”  It was a bit humorous. 

But court went through without problems.  Lana said that it was one of the easier cases that she’s seen.  It took about 80 minutes; she thought that because there were two boys it would be closer to two hours, so that is very good!  Thank you everyone who was praying for us! 

So the boys are ours… after a ten day waiting period.  We have never really understood what the ten day period is about until the judge said that we had ten days to appeal the case.  Which we are not going to do.

We are heading home tomorrow- and it will be a very interesting day.  We will leave Vladivostok at 10am local time and then follow the sun.  We have about 19 hours in the air plus a 3 hour layover in Moscow, but it will not even be 6pm when we land!  So the day will go on for a very long time.  We hope we get to sleep on the airplane.  And as an aside, we thought we had the longest trip, but we met a family here at the Vlad Motor Inn who are from Southern California- and they had to go through Moscow, too!

We are going home so that we can spend time with the kids and then we leave again on September 5th (returning to Vlad on September 7th) to get the boys.  We will take care of paperwork for a couple days here in Vladivostok, and then we will spend a week in Moscow taking care of immigration paperwork.  So from the day we left until the day we get home with the boys we will have spent two nights in New York City, four nights on an airplane, five nights in Vladivostok, seven nights at home, and nine nights in Moscow. 

We have been waiting for this for so long… now we have just a little more waiting.  It really feels like we are coming to the end!