Team Redding: Village gathering tomorrow

Alex sent us Natalia while he with working with another family right now. She is great also! We have been praying for the other family that he is working with. They had their 3rd SDA appointment yesterday and got the referral for a healthy 7 year old boy. They met him today and it seems like things are going to work out. Please join us praying for them. They have been here a long time already and I can't imagine all they have gone through. We got to see the kids today and we were all really happy! We got a text from Tanya's friend last night telling us that she missed us. We did buy some more minutes for our phone so we were able to let her know why we hadn't been there. It was really hot today and they didn't let us in the camp again. Today a bunch of kids came out to play with us. They were all really sweet. What we couldn't believe was how dirty they were today. Every child we saw (or smelled) was filthy. It hasn't been this bad until now. Maybe today is shower day. I guess we will know tomorrow. We brought candy for the kids and they loved it. They ate it in seconds! Today Bogdan was really quiet. I think he was a little disappointed that Alex wasn't there. We are actually thinking of Alexander for his 1st name. We will keep Bogdan for his middle name. We have to decide in the next couple of days. I think Tanya will keep her name but we will add a middle name. We told her tomorrow maybe we can think of some. Our separation meeting will be tomorrow at 3:00 pm. Please pray that it goes smoothly because Yarik is not being as cooperative as we hoped. Everyone is really worried how he is going to act in the meeting. Tanya says that she is sure he will agree to the separation. Tanya wrote her letter today that said she wanted to be adopted by us :) Natalia asked Bogdan if he wanted to be adopted by us and he grinned and said "Da"! We will wait outside the classroom where Yarik takes his exam for him to finish. Everyone is worried that if we don't catch him right away, we might not be able to find him. He is asking what we will buy him if he says he agrees to his brother and sister being adopted. This is frustrating but this is just the way it is. We were planning to take him to purchase a graduation gift already but now it feels like a bribe. We are praying about how to handle this. After we pick Yarik up, we will go to camp to get Tanya and Bogdan. The meeting will be about half-way between Zhytomyr and the camp. It will be nice to take the kids away from the camp but I'm thinking the drive to camp with Yarik might be a little uncomfortable. I notice that the older kids are pretty bold when they are in groups, but individually they are better. Today we had to go to the orphanage to get something signed. We waited outside for 2 hours while Nastya was inside. These 3 kids who are graduating came and tried to talk to us. They kept walking off in the woods to smoke and then coming back. They were asking if they could drive the car and asking us for money. We gave them gum and showed them how to play a few games on our phones. One boy asked if he could have our phone, and asked Jody if he could have his watch. It was a little uncomfortable. One of the boys got in the drivers seat of the car and was trying to turn the car on. I was in the front passenger seat and just said "Nyet, Nyet, Nyet!" ("NO") Thankfully he stopped because I was so worried he would do it anyway. I better go, we are about to meet the orphanage lawyer for her to sign more papers. It's 6:45 pm here. Here are some pictures from today:

I know the quality in this picture is terrible but we had to follow these cows for a while today on the way to camp!

Pasha is holding the little snake they found. Jody was very impressed with Pasha and his soccer skills. You should have seen him!

Bogdan loves to look and see what we've brought each day. He is content playing by himself for a while. After a little while, Tanya told him to "come and play with us or our parents will leave. " He didn't really want to stop listening to the MP3 player but he came over to play. I love it that she called us her parents :)