Monday was Misha's birthday and he had to start the day by getting his passport at 7:00 in the morning. We finally hooked up with him at lunch time and took Misha and 10 of his friends to McDonalds to celebrate his birthday. We told the kids to get whatever they wanted, and they took us very seriously!!! Most of the kids had never eaten there. Sasha had two big macs, a giant mctasty, jumbo fry, icecream sunday, two big cokes amd he helped everyone polish off there food. He is hungry every time we see him, he is as tall as Artem now and looks like he is on a serious growth spurt. The kids had a blast eating and hanging out together. We took the bus back and Sasha got really sick to his stomach and instead of being a one hour excursion which the orphanage gave us permission for it took three, but they were very nice about it. When we got back we found out that Vladimir had received all our paperwork early and he was ready to go. This was earlier than we had planned on so Misha had just a few minutes to pack or say goodbye to his friends. He literally only brought a few token birthday gifts from his friends, no pictures, letters, awards, clothes, personal items.
I can't imagine leaving behind all my earthly possessions, especially after you see how hard they work for them and how much they value them. Misha gave everything away. This was nothing compared to how heartbreaking it was watching him say goodbye to his girlfriend, friends and teachers. The whole group was crying. I hated having Misha have to do this on his birthday. We had also tried to get Misha's sister to Sumy all day so that they could say goodbye to each other, but she was in a different village and her husband couldn't find her. We had a three and a half hour drive to Kiev, and he could hardly talk or look at us. I knew this was going to be so hard on him, but I hate to see him hurting.
We got into Kiev late, settled into a new apartment and found a great Georgian restaurant to finish the day.
We got to spend a little time with Misha's mother teacher. She told us what a great kid Misha is, that he is not capable of dishonesty and deception. That he is friends with all the kids, not just a group. She told us that his age group has some rough kids and that Misha gets a long very well with all of them, but that he is never swayed to do the bad things that they do. She said he has a lot of ambition and character and has set many goals for himelf, and that he is the strongest student in his age group. Most importantly, he is a generous, kindhearted kid. These are always the kind of things a mother wants to hear!!!!!
3 comments:
Hi Margie, we adopted from the Detsky Dom in sumy in 2000. I wonder what Misha's teacher/mom's name is. We stayed with a mother/daughter pair twice. The mom is a teacher at the Internot...if I remember correctly, she was a vocational teacher though. Her name is Luba.
Do you know of any kids in the 10 years to 12 years group? That would be my son's former groupa mates. Kids that have lived in my heart for seven and a half years. Jeri
Excellent blog, thanks for all the great information and awesome pictures.
Everyone agrees that Misha is a great kid. It's interesting that he is leaving the Orphanage on his 16th Birthday. It's literally a miracle that he's headed to a new family, new country, and new life. It’s great when righteousness triumphs.
God bless and we'll you when you back home.
The Howicks
Hi guys Deanne called today to get your flight info, she wants to meet you at the airport if possible. We can't wait to see you all, have a safe trip!
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