Nellie and I have been missing Anya a lot this week. We wanted to post some more pictures. In most of these photos, Anya is wearing clothes that our church Life Group gave us at a Christmas party. There was a white elephant gift exchange, and Nellie was set to pick. She picked a very large bag that the group had mischievously put right in front of her. Little did we know this gift was not a white elephant gift, but instead was a bag full of really great clothes, mostly for Anya, but some for Artium as well (we've put these away for now). Anya really loved the clothes. They also gave us some $$ to take the family out to dinner. What a great bunch of people in our group.
I had a different photo here originally, until I realized my chin puke was less than perfectly groomed (way to go Dave). So I changed it to this photo...much nicer. The other photo was a closeup of Anya on my lap. One of the things I remember about Anya was the smell of her hair. Having her here for three weeks was a lot like having a newborn baby. You notice how her hair smells, how she talks, how she communicates, how she shows and receives love. I also found her fully able to join Bekah in dishing out punishment to Zach if he got on her nerves. My sister Ann was with us the last few days of Anya's visit, and can attest to how sisterlike Anya and Bekah had become. It's like Bekah and Anya are very similar...something to be feared (Just kidding). Anya would refer to Nellie as Mama and me as Papa. I hope she always calls me Papa...it is unique and really endearing. This photo above was taken on her 2nd to last day when we were compiling a photo book for her. We were told by ECAS this is very, very important to the kids going back to Ukraine, to help them endure the long wait until adoption.
While she was here, we showed Anya some photos we had of her on our IPOD, even before she got here. Other families that have adopted through ECAS know the rest of the kids in Anya's orphanage. They took many photos, so we had some idea of what she was like. We had heard that she sometimes had trouble in the pecking order in the orphanage. We heard she loved art, and she was good at doing work, and is good at schoolwork. She is also smart. She used this pose above knowing we had the original of her doing this back in Kiev.
What is not commonly known is that we chose Anya for our visit out of about 50 kids. We looked through photo's of potential kids to visit us. Nellie and I wanted to host kids that fit the criteria we were looking for. Matthias did not want an older sibling. There were a number of kids that fit that description, but it was Anya's profile that really drew us, and also another photo we saw of her and Artium. Her profile said she likes to play with other children, but prefers to play alone. It also said she was studious, liked to do chores, and liked to help out. The picture below was icing on the cake. Just look at it for a second. It says a lot to me about who she is, and how she feels about her little brother.
When I look at this photo, I don't just see a 9 year old girl. I see poise and grace, and kindness. I remember Anya was vacuuming the den while I was in there, and she had been with us about two weeks. She was working with a hand tool, and I got whacked in the head. She holds out her hand to my face where I got whacked and kindly asks if I am okay.
We still have our fingerprinting ahead of us on Feb 3rd. Josiah, for some reason, is scheduled for Feb 9th. We are hoping for a quick review, so we can notify Ukraine we are ready. Your prayers will be appreciated.
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