Today is Friday and we have had a very busy few days. Our week started out with a surprise call from Yulia Sunday night at 9:30 p.m. telling us that the train she and Brigette were going to take to Kryvy Rih was canceled. Monday Yulia was going to get the court decree and have passport pictures taken of the kids. Yulia assured us this was not going to delay us. Monday they did get the passport pictures taken for Mariah and Jacob and we were able to visit Mariah in the morning and a very short time in the afternoon. Tuesday morning we started out meeting our facilitator Yulia and Brigitte at 7:30 AM. We jumped in the van and drove to the court house to pick up the court decree. We arrived at about 8 AM. Yulia went in to get the paperwork and we were waiting in the park in front of the court house. It took about an hour and a half for her to get the court decree. She told us when we got back in the van that had to have some spelling errors corrected on our documents. We drove around the corner and Yulia jumped out to have the documents notarized,. Then we were off to the Vital Statistics office in a suburb of Kryvy Rih to get the Birth Certificate changed for Mariah. It was about a 30 minute drive. This area was a lot more rural than where we had been before. There were mostly farms in this area. We waited for what seemed like forever, but really about an hour and Yulia called and told me I needed to sign a document. While we were waiting we walked around a little and looked at some of the old buildings and let the kids play in the park. I went into the Vital Statistics office and signed the document. Then we went out and Yulia said we had to wait about an hour before the new Birth Certificate would be ready. We went to find something to eat. We found a small cafe and ordered a few things like Borsch and French Fries and drinks. We headed back to the Vital Statistics office and Yulia went in. It only took about 10 minutes or less and Yulia called for me to go in. I went inside and it was totally dark, they were on lunch break so they had all the lights off. When I got to the back office a lady was standing there holding a piece of paper. Yulia said, presenting your Birth Certificate for Mariah Joy Jennings to the parents Jason Ray Jennings and Deborah Annette Jennings. It was very exciting to see this document. The lady was smiling and seemed happy for us. They went out of their way to get our Birth Certificate done, they even finished it up over their lunch break. We were off now to the other side of town to get the Birth Certificate for Brigette's son Jacob. When we arrived Yulia got out and went into the Vital Statistics Office. We realized that we were close to a McDonald's so we called Yulia to see if we had time to go she said yes so we made a fast break to McDonalds while Yulia was in the office. We hadn't even finished ordering our food at McDonalds when Yulia called and said we needed to get back and pick her up. After we picked up Yulia she said Debbie and the boys could go back to the apartment now. It was about 3 PM and it was very hot so they were glad to be able to get out of the van. Yulia said I could stay with them for a little while and then they would come back and pick me up. I was in the apartment for only about 45 minutes. Then Yulia called I went back to the van and we picked up the attorney for the Orphanage. We rushed to the tax office to change the Ukrainian SS# from their original names to the their new names. We also stoped and dropped off some paperwork at the bank. The children each have an account in their name of money designated to them from the Ukraine government. This money is donated back to the orphanage.They have said this money will help them finish repairing their roof. We are thankful to know that we are we are in some small way giving back to the orphanage that has taken care of our daughter for the last 20 months of Mariah's life. We are thankful that she will have a home and a family now. There are so many other children that are still here. We hope that they too will someday have families!!! The need is so great. We then drove to a passport office to drop off some more paperwork. It was now about 5:45 PM. We stopped at the grocery store and headed back to the apartment. We had done all we could do for the day. Yulia still had to translate all the documents to English so she came over to our apartment to use the computer. She finished about 10 PM and we all passed out for the night.
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