The Keenes' Blog

This day in September we drove FOR HOURS. The location was so remote that even our very experienced director of the Ukrainian team had to stop and ask for multiple directions and half the time people asked could offer no help. We were going to Nowhere, Ukraine. Random chickens on the side of unpaved streets (now THAT is a definition of “free-range” LOL), cows walking alongside your slow moving car (why slow moving? Well, that’s because you definitely don’t want to hit that pothole if you are lucky to be on a ‘paved’ road) and my well seasoned US partner, Colleen, who’s adopted four kids from Ukraine and “has been there, done that, seen it all” saying: “Can you image doing an adoption in THIS region?!?” The irony is that she’s also now adopting from the same orphanage in this region, almost a year after our first trip there and adding two teenage boys to her family of six kids.

 

When we finally arrived to the orphanage, we met the director, who identified the children who would ‘qualify’ to be put on a hosting list. If are a full orphan or your parents’ rights have been terminated, you get to be interviewed. We’ve had instances when the orphanage staff would make a mistake and bring in a child to be interviewed and then after checking the child’s file realize that the only remaining parent is in prison and his / her rights were never terminated and on technicality the child is stuck and legally cannot be adopted, and then have to tell the child to leave since he or she does not ‘qualify’. In the realm of qualifications this is as low as it gets.

 

When it was Yaroslav’s, Raya’s and Kolya’s turn to talk to us the kids immediately stood out. Colleen and I both made hasty notes in our files: a definite “Yes”! These kids are coming to America! They will have a family! On our way back to the US as we are discussing the trip she asks: So have you found “your” kids. I have, but now is not a good time. Surely God has someone else for them. In reality, having just done our fourth hosting of Diana we were exhausted and really needed a break to regroup, take a step back, just to breath and get back to the American normal one boy / one girl type family life. But the kids kept being on our mind. When a family stepped up to host them for the winter we were both excited and sad for the kids. Well, its an answer to our prayers, right?... But when their adoption fell through and the kids became available to be hosted we had to say yes. By then I met the kids for the second time during my January impromptu trip to Ukraine and it was a sweet reunion. We can’t wait to see them, only  now this time in Hartsfield Int’l in June.