day 4 at Dnepro

We took the bus and the kids to Dnepropotrosk (not sure on the spelling but hopefully if you are reading this you aren't an expert on Ukrainian cities.) We rode to the main terminal and walked the few blocks to the church. Oksana wanted to go with us and when she saw the place that is in the same building as a dance studio, she said "Do you have church in a Dance studio?" I told her that we sing and dance at church :) She talked to Oleg, her husband on the phone and he said "you are going to church with them, Do you want to be a Mormon?"and she said she didn't want to stay in her stupid aparrtment. She is planning to leave there and stay i n the doctor's house with the Corbetts. She doesn't like her apt at all.
We found out when we arrived that it was a district conference. The mission president and his wife and others were the speakers and it was cool for our kids to hear some talks in their own language. Alina got sick on the bus (threw up) and so she was kind of miserable with that part of the trip. When we got back we fed them some macoroni with tomato sauce and cheese that I had made this morning with a plate of cucumbers and tomatoes and mayonaisse and ice cream. Tyler shared his loaf of sunflower seed cookie dough looking stuff and they were laughing and having a great time. We walked them back to the orphanage and are now blogging and playing the train game and chatting with the landlord who brought us a washer today. He told us that they bought this apartment for only 12,000 dollars and have fixed it up and I am very impressed. Their payment on this apartment is only $90 a month. So if anyone is wanting to buy a vacation house in Ukraine, his wfe is a realtor :)
I am going to post some more cute pictures of the kids. We are having a fun time here. Tomorrow (Monday) we need to go to Krigney Rog, where the little brother lives and do some paperwork there. We talked to Alina and Oleg about adopting or not adopting their little brother and they said that they do not know him and do not care if we do not adopt him too. We thought that they would have some kind of regrets but seemed kind of relieved and indifferent when we told him that we would probably not adopt him in this trip. We found out that he has Celiac's disease which is not serious and can be treated but they have him on a realy good treatment right now and feel that he will outgrow it if he stays here. They are really discouraging us from adopting him right now and so we are planning to not adopt him now unless we feel differently when we see him tomorow. If they are not willing to allow a separation of the kids, we will adopt him but if they will allow us to separate them we
will not adopt him and may come back for him in a couple of years when we have things under control at home and can prepare more. We will probably go back to Kiev on Wed and maybe Thursday to get the paperwok for Vitaly. After that we can apply for a court date. We will be here awhile. We may not make it to Russia. We will see how things go.

All is Well
The Hinksons

Well all was well this afternoon when I wrote. When we got to the orphanage for our evening visit Alina and Oleg's aunt was there. They call her their sister (sistra) and so it was very awkward. She was nice but told us that they did not want Alina to go to America and that they wanted to talk her into staying in Ukraine. We asked about the future that she would have there and they said that it would be hard but that she could do it. They said that she could stay in the orphanage until she was 16 and then live off of the government. When the working people here are living under what we consider the poverty level, I wouldn't want to know what poverty here is like. They hugged her and didn't seem to mind if Oleg left but Alina was very affectionate with her aunt/sister and would hardly make eye contact with us. After they left the kids ran in to eat. Alina came back out after a few minutes and was a different person with us. She was cheerful and affectionate to us and talked up a storm. We were confused. Maybe the girl just needs food to improve her disposition. We asked her if she still wanted to come to America and she said yes, like nothing had happened. Maybe she was just stressed to be in the middle when the aunt and uncle and cousin were here, it was weird. We told them that she could call them and that we would come back to visit but they still want her to stay. The uncle was a little less forceful and seemed to approve of us. The aunt was nice but there was no guesswork in what her intentions were. It was a crazy hour and a half.

After they left we went around watched Vitaly climb the rock wall and get on the roof. It was crazy what they let them do at the orphanage. It was not a shock that poor little Andre got hurt.

Tyler and Vitaly took turns doing tricks on everything and then Vitaly had to go in and do chores. He can sweep and mop with the best of them. The kids work hard and fast to get it over with.

We are not feeling as secure in what will happen as we were yesterday. We hope that we can see the Corbetts soon. We are afraid to call them since we know how tired they are right now. I want to know their first impressions of Ukraine. Good luck at the SDA if we don't talk to you first. We did talk to Igor today and he is excited to come to America. He is a cute boy too and seems pretty tall, but it could be the short shorts he has been wearing everyday since we arrived here. I told him about the Corbetts and he smiled. Whatever you are going through Sonya and Dean, it will be worth it :)