News from Marina

Dear Marina fans,
We are pleased to announce that Marina had her cleft lip and palate surgery on Tuesday at St Joseph's Hospital in Tampa, Florida and she is doing great!
I am attaching a picture so that all of you can see how she is doing. She has some swelling and some stitches that will have to stay in for a while, but she is recovering great, eating, playing and adjusting to her new mouth.
Breathing was a real challenge that first night, with the swelling and the new roof to her mouth, but she came through beautifully and is doing great. We even get a little smile now and then.
She is on blood thinners because of her blood clotting disorder and will need to be in the hospital to be monitored for a few days, and she is really wanting to go home, so pray that she will be at peace until she is released from the hospital.
Thank you so much to all of you who have called and written to let us know you are praying and thinking of us.
We appreciate you so much!
After the stitches and tubes come out, I will send a new picture.
Blessings,
Rebecca and Marina

The lost and found

Natasha's mom received an unusual phonecall in December.

"You should come and sign papers concerning your daughter that you left to the hospital a year ago."

She had given birth to a tiny baby girl (only about 1kg or 2lb), who according to the experts was not going to live. So she left, grieving over her lost daughter.

Miss-Gobble-the-Hut has been with us since year ago February. In the beginning we did not see much but cheeks and eyelashes. She has done a lot of growing to catch up with her cheeks and has turned to a charming and surprisingly plump little girl (how she does it with the orphanage food, we don't know). She loves attention and can hardly wait to have her own mommy to love her all the time! For this is as true as rumor can be - mommy went to court and should be coming to pick up her lost baby any day now. Looks like this story might have happy ending.

Update February 27th

I asked today at the hospital. Mommy came to take Natasha home. Fair well!

Mobiles for kids

When we asked for mobiles for the kids we were not exactly talking of the kind that Karina is holding here. Although we do have some use for those within our team.
For kids we were thinking of more like this educational device attached above Oleg's crib. It is both nice for them to watch and for him it offers a great opportunity to excercise. Just to let you know, Oleg did not do much grabbing of any kind until this mobile came along...

Look mommy, no hands!

Can you tell me she has no emotions? The nannies at the orphanage told us that Karina had no emotions. We would see her laying despondent in a ball pit or rocking back and forth with a green piece of foam before her eyes. God’s love has truly reformed a life before our very eyes.

Karina is all smiles and giggles these days – she has learned to walk. We are ecstatic with her, for we know even more what this means for her future. Learning to walk and feed oneself with a spoon before the age of 5 are some of the main goals we work towards in the orphanage. These are the requirements for special school here in Kyiv. Karina will be five in December of 2007. She has now all summer to steady her steps and get ready for school. We have hope that people will be investing in her life instead of her living in remote, poor, far away storage for handicapped. She can learn to read maybe, maybe learn some simple crafts or other way of making herself useful and help her find her place in a hopefully more accepting world 15 years from now.

Or maybe someone will adopt this beautiful, brown eyed little girl and she will get to live through all the colors of life with a family that enjoys her and accepts her and gives her emotions room to grow. She might be scared of the Santa Clause, cry when her pet hamster dies, be nervous before her first piano recital, exhausted after a camping trip and maybe fall in love and experience the pain and joy of parenting?