We choose Joy!!!

Thurs. May 25

This picture is of the park in Timertau and shows some of the graduation costumes mentioned below.

I wanted to clear up something that I have had several questions about. Sasha will go by “Sasha” if and until he wants to change it. Over here Sasha and Alexander are synonymous. If you ask him his name, he calls himself Sasha Gabriel because he considers the names to be one and the same. At some point he may want to be Alex or Gabriel, that will be up to him but we wanted to let you all know before we see you all at home.

We were invited this morning to go to Timertau to see a Graduation Ceremony at Sasha and Stella’s school. None of their friends were in it so it got old fast as far as they were concerned. It was very interesting how different it was from our usual sit and listen to speakers and then call out names as we each parade across to the Principal to get our diploma. In this case it is all done by the graduating class. They call their names at the beginning and they parade out in their costumes boy and girl holding hands. They have blue sashes that look like a beauty contestant would wear. They have words on them, I can only assume that it says “Graduate”. The interesting thing to me is the girls’ outfits. They have on what we would call a maid costume. A black top and very short black skirt with a white frilly apron that goes over the shoulders and ties in the back is the costume with lace knee socks and heels or flats. They also wear big white puff balls of the same fabric in their hair. Most unusual to us. They also sing and perform at least 25 songs in different little acts and parade flowers to different groups of teachers at different parts of the program.

After 1 hour and 20 minutes we decided to leave. We went down to where Sasha’s classroom is and waited a while to meet his teacher. She was very nice and speaks English. She teaches it at the school. She is a different teacher from the one that taught Sasha English at the English Club you have heard us talk about. She had only wonderful things to say about Sasha which is very common from anyone that knows him. We have quite a remarkable boy and girl as if you did not already know it! I can hear the grandparents saying, “We know it!”

We visited with Sasha and Stella’s mommas and had tea. It is such a great opportunity for us to understand more about them and experience their lives here. They will be going to camp June 8th and we are invited to go for a visit with swimming in the river and a picnic! We look forward to it! Sasha never likes to turn down an opportunity to swim.
We visited a Botanical Garden that Temirtau is very proud of with banana trees and peacocks and squirrels. It was right next to the park that we took Andre, Rada and the kids to last week. We went over to the park and got some food since they were having special food for the graduation celebration. We have decided most of the Kazak diet is bread, potato and sweets. They also serve Shish kabob but we have not been brave enough to try it when you see the uncooked meat laying on a plate uncovered for who knows how long. It kinda kills the appetite.

We left at 3:00 with our friend Andrew who drove us back for free for English conversations with him. He is such a nice man. We exchanged some money at the bank. The dollar continues to drop in value over here. It was 125 when we got here and is down to 120 now. We hung out at the apartment and the kids did their English homework all by themselves without us asking them to do it. Stella came over to get Garrett to go over words with her.

They watched the end of “Madagascar” and then the little song at the end “I like to move it, move it!” came on and they broke out in crazy dance. Garrett even did some serious River Dance. Sasha tried his best to imitate but Garrett’s moves were just too fast. It was quite humorous here!!!

At the end of our day we found out some disappointing news. We have been assigned a preliminary court date of Monday at 2:30pm. We are not allowed to be there, just our lawyer. They will meet and then the judge will assign the court date 3-4 days after. We were expecting one court date and definitely NOT two. We have never heard of such but apparently in certain parts of Karaganda they do this…lucky us. We were very bummed yesterday but went to bed praising God and declaring victory over this situation and we have FAVOR in this situation…far and beyond…head spinning favor… We are expecting good things and are doing our best to encourage ourselves and each other. We heard of another family here that was given some very bad news about their adoption so we are thankful for what we have. There is always something to be thankful for if you try hard enough. Please pray for this other family.