Florida Bound Saturday!

Our son Oleg's passport will arrive via overnight train at 7 tomorrow morning.  We have appointments for him at the hospital to examine his Mantoux test and pick up translated records. We make an appointment for obtaining his Visa in person at the Embassy and then go Thursday afternoon to pick that up.  Our travel agent already has us booked on a flight home Saturday, we leave Kiev at 5:45 AM lay over in Frankfurt for 6 hrs and then fly to Orlando arriving at 6:05 PM if everything is on time.
Yesterday I picked up a sinus infection and have been battling that.   God has been good and I've gotten some rest and a prescription is coming.   I'll have a long week work wise too as this is the 2nd Tuesday Microsoft security update week.  That starts for me and my coworkers in just over an hour from now.   Pat took Oleg to a hydro park on the Dniepr River along with the other family adopting a girl. they live in Louisville KY and we'll likely be sharing one leg of the flight home with them.
Thanks for your support and prayers, we've been blessed and graced extremely well here!   We'll also continue posting to this as we get home and make room for Oleg.  Many blogs stop when the family is home, we'll try and keep ours up as there will be many new and interesting things to say in the  days, weeks, and even months to come.
Darwin

Moving Right Along

Today we went to the hospital that does medical exams for immigrants. Oleg had to have a short medical exam and a TB test. We got there at 9 am and found out we needed passport pictures and that the TB test would be done around noon. We had three hours and it took a lot of that time to take a bus and get the pictures done. When we got back to the hospital we waited in line to go into three different offices. We were done by 3 pm and have to go back on Wednesday to have the TB test read.

While we were waiting we met a woman who is in the process of adopting four children, two sets of siblings. She has had nothing but problems the whole time. She was working with an agency and a facilitator but they were not being very helpful. It made me so thankful for the facilitator that the Lord provided for us. She really knows what she is doing and she has helped us the whole way through. We have become good friends.

Oleg was patient for the most part as we were waiting at the hospital. It was very hard for him to get up early to be to the hospital by 9 am. After lunch at a Ukrainian cafeteria we went shopping for a few things for Oleg and then went to a park so he could jump on a trampoline. He needed to burn some energy!

We got news that Oleg's Ukrainian passport should be in the hands of the facilitator in Simferopol tomorrow. She will send it to us in Kiev by train, arriving on Wednesday. Hopefully we can get what we need done at the American Embassy on Thursday and Friday. We could fly home on Saturday or Sunday! We are excited about bringing Oleg home. Please pray that it all fits together.

Fun in Simferopol

Oleg's sleeping schedule is opposite of ours right now. He likes to stay up till 2 am and sleep till 2 pm. We go to bed at 10 or 11 pm and get up in the morning. Our facilitator is a night owl usually so she and Oleg get along quite well. We will have to get his schedule changed when we get home.

Yesterday Oleg wanted to go ice skating again. We picked up four girls that our facilitator knows. Oleg knew two of the girls that used to go to the same school he did in Kerch. He is good friends with one of those girls. They all had a great time. After skating we took them all to McDonald's. A first for Oleg. He thought the cheese burgers were too small so he had a cheese burger and chicken nuggets. He still prefers a full meal, starting with borscht.

We leave tomorrow evening on the train to Kiev. Maybe after a week in Kiev we will be heading home. We are really looking forward to getting our son home!

Please pray for the girls we went skating with, that they will all be adopted. They all want a family. Thanks!

Excited Kid in a New City

Oleg has never been to Simferopol. It is the capital of Crimea and is larger than Kerch. His eyes light up whenever we pass a park that has rides or things to jump on. After a long boring day of doing things for the adoption he needed to do something to burn off some energy. He wanted to go ice skating. We were not ready to injure ourselves, so he went by himself, with us watching. This was his first time to ice skate and he did great! He was going frontwards and backwards, spinning around. He did fall some, but kept on going. He makes friends very easily and got pointers from a couple of guys. He even helped a little boy that fell to get back on his feet. Can you tell I am a proud mama? :-)

We don't know what today will bring. There is a skateboard park Oleg wanted to find. Darwin has to get a new suitcase, his has a broken zipper. Saturday we take the train to Kiev. Hopefully everything there will move quickly and we can travel home soon!

Gotcha! Now in Simferopol

August 6 and 7 were two jammed days with getting documents ready for the passport for Oleg. We have been graced with faster than expected results in obtaining birth certificates, and our trip to Simferopol though the car was packed, we all made it Tuesday afternoon.  We arrived with 20 minutes to spare - or wait 2 more days to apply for his passport. This application then required a full 8 hrs of going between the police records office - since Oleg has a new middle name and last name, they need to see a clear history for Ammala, Oleg Kevin as they say it here.  We then had all of our documents (Application for child Passport with USA permanent residence, from us, Application for Citizen Travel Passport from Oleg, and a letter of obligation from us to report on him to the Ukrainian Embassy in Washington once per year till age 18).  notarized and then went to the Ukrainian citizen immigration office in Simferopol and finally got his photo taken. Notarization in Ukraine is done by lawyers.   Another family was at the exact same stages and the kids spent the day talking and being bored waiting for each appointment to finish.  Oleg knew their girl from a summer camp a few years back.  This family is from Louisville KY.  We then asked for permission to have our facilitator based here in Simferopol pick up his passport and put it on a train to Kiev next week.  This was granted, it's not common but does happen.  A prayer answered!  We can then all leave for Kiev on Saturday night. That will be our last long - 17 hr or so train ride. We will then have more appointments with physicians and the US Embassy there.    The consent to have someone other than a parent  pick up Oleg's passport saves us at least a half week.  We don't have a fly date yet, but it's much closer now!   We need Oleg's passport and visa before we can book a flight. Though perhaps all we need is the proof via an application number for the visa to do this.  The Embassy will weigh in on that.

An Hour in the Catacombs

Today we went to see the Catacombs outside the village of Adzhimuskay which is a short drive from Kerch. The Catacombs were once a limestone quarry used to build parts of Kerch from the 1830's or so.  Over the years about 9 KM, - over 5 1/2  miles worth of land had been dug out with numerous tunnels all connected.  In World War II the Nazi's had intended to drive the Soviets out of Kerch to control the strait connecting the Azov and Black Seas, which would have given Hitler a valuable shipping alternative in the region.  The Wehrmacht garrison began occupying Kerch in November 1941.  The Soviet Red Army had been starting to use the old quarry as a hiding place. In May 1942 a siege by Hitler's Wehrmacht began and it lasted until October 30, that year.  In early July the Soviets defeated the Wehrmacht and for a short while seemed to be winning, however they ran out of food, sustainable water and ammunition.

 For the next three months the group of up to 13,000 at its peak began a resistance to capture as their last hope of defense.  There had been no advance planning of extra food or water so getting these became missions in and of themselves.  For light, they burned old tires, and scrounged up wire to run a few lamps off of an old tractor used in the limestone mining process. That tractor is still down there.  They resorted to eating livestock which was war casualties, and when the meat was gone, they boiled the skins and bones as soup.   They had a salt and a sweet water well for awhile until the Nazi's polluted them - they were located outside of the quarry and indefensible. To obtain water they. relied on condensation of the limestone 10-16 meters down - 33-50 feet underground, which would give less than a quart of water per day, that they gave water only to their hospital patients.  One girl named Maria had successfully carried many buckets of water from further away back for the patients, however she was eventually shot by the Nazi's.  They had an operating room to remove bullet fragments and a recovery ward. The patients got the most water daily -  received about a tablespoon of water per day. Those not in the recovery ward were allowed to wipe their lips once a day on a damp cloth. The air temperature in the quarry at their depth runs between 45 and 52 degrees year round. This was the only thing working in the favor of the people since it put less of a demand for water on them. During the resistance the Nazi's bored holes into  the quarry and pumped gas down - the same as which was used in Auschwitz for example. In one day over 1,000 of the Red Army forces were gassed.  The resistance forces fashioned blankets to cordon off parts of the quarry when they suspected that the Nazi's were boring more holes.   This resistance crumbled on October 30, 1942 at which only a few survivors of the 13,000 who started remained.  There are 2 mass graves underground with about 3,000 dead beneath the large marble slabs.    I've never been to a death camp before but this network of limestone tunnels qualifies as one. 

This part of Kerch history was covered up by the Stalin government and only hinted at during the Khrushchev years.  In the 1980's it become more widely known around Ukraine and Russia.   

The resolve and resourcefulness of the defenders of this quarry in their tremendous adversity is awe inspiring. 

The heroism of the Red Army and citizens of Kerch and Adzhimuskay was commemorated in the monument atop Mt. Mithridates which we showed in our last post. 

Here are a few pictures, we will add some that our facilitator took later on.

Entrance to the Adzhimuskaya quarry / Catacombs

Map of the quarry network, the red parts are fully known. 

Some artifacts from the Rd Army resistance 

Sculpture from expended ordnance. 

Expended shell casings became oil lamps 

Mural showing scens from the lives of the resistance fighters. 

Nazi bomb that failed. 

The weapons of the resistance 

Our last weekend in Kerch - some sightseeing

The 10 day wait after the court decision is up as of today! We thank God for His faithfulness, and for leading us in each and every step.  The law though gives one business day and then the court decree can be published - that will be Tuesday morning the 6th, aka Oleg's Gotcha Day.   On Monday we will visit Oleg's school and have  tea and cake with the staff in the afternoon and go to the hospital to order Oleg's birth certificate listing us as his parents.   Tuesday morning we pick up the decree and the certificate and then will travel to Simferopol, the Crimean region capital and apply for his Passport.  Next Saturday Pat, Oleg and our facilitator will travel back to Kiev for a medical test for Oleg the following Monday.  I will go also if the authorities permit our facilitator from Crimea to pick it up for us.

Knowing our time here was coming to an end, we took in some local sites and went to the best beach yesterday.  This morning we visited the Adzhimuskaya quarry which was a hideout for up to 13,000 local citizens and the Soviet Red Army during May - October 1942.  I'll blog about the quarry visit in another post, to be brief, it is very solemn and yet awe inspiring to see it.  I make mention here because the place we went yesterday includes  a monument erected by the Red Army to commemorate the heroism of the citizens of Kerch and Adzhimuskay against the army of Adolf Hitler.

This picture if you look quick may resemble our Washington Monument, it is one erected by the Soviets designating Kerch as a Hero City, it is along with Moscow, Leningrad, Minsk, Odessa, Brest, Tula, and several others.  It is located on Mt. Mithridates.  

It is 432 steps to the top, not all are even nor smooth

For the heroism of the citizens of Kerch 

 The next several pictures are the view from the top, it is worth the climb!  Pat has had some knee trouble here and been a real trooper! and with God she made the trip without much affect.

Russia in the distance and what we think is an oil research ship. Exxon is checking out the Black Sea for potential drilling spots. 

Oleg spent many a happy summer day swimming, diving, flipping here at one of the city's street front water parks. 

Another beach used often by Oleg and the people of Kerch 

There is active archaeology and possibly treasure hunting at the top. 

Some pictures of the ruins of the first settlement here in the 7th,6th Centuries BC. The city was called Panticapaeum. 

Eternal Flame for the cities, Adzhimuskaya is one listed here. 

Kerch and Feodosia - about 40 miles away are listed on this side of the flame.