The last two days we walked to the orphanage to spend time with our girl. Our coordinator/translator said 2 hours each day should be long enough but we do not agree. We asked to spend 2.5 hours with her on Friday and then today we spent 4 hours with her. On Friday we met several of her friends and enjoyed seeing her room for the first time. She told us it was messy but it was not messy when we got there so she must have cleaned it:) She shares a room with 4 other girls so there are 5 girls including her in her room. There are enough beds for 6 girls but one top bunk is empty right now. In her section of the orphanage the children, both boys and girls, range from age 5 to age 12. Our girl seems to be one of the oldest in her "den". We saw two caretakers in her section, one male and one female. When the children enter their living quarters they take off their shoes and put them in their cubbies. They take out their slippers and put them on. In her area there are 6 sleeping rooms, a commons area where children watch movies, color, or play foosball, a school room and bathrooms. There are 2 very stinky bathroom areas. In the one closest to the entrance there are two small shower rooms, two toilet stalls with doors and 4 sinks in an open area. The other bathroom area has one small shower room with 5 sinks and two bathroom stalls. By the smell, we wonder how often the bathrooms get cleaned. There are probably around 35 children in her section who all share those 2 bathroom areas with only a total of 4 toilets, 3 showers, and 9 sinks. We saw no soap at any sinks so we suspect that little, if any, hand washing really exists. At home sometimes our 3 bathrooms are not enough for the 6 of us. I cannot imagine the amount of sharing and taking turns that has to happen! Speaking of sharing, the girls that share Angelica's room all shared the one bottle of water to drink from. They also eat off of each other's food and snacks. The girls act like sisters, not just friends. We were impressed with how our girl includes her friends. When we arrived today the male caretaker came to our girl's room and told her roommates to leave so she could spend time with her momma and papa. We told our girl it was okay if they stayed so she went to talk to the caretaker and he came back to ask us. We told him in Russian that it was good if they stayed, so in the girls came bounding in! We enjoyed our afternoon playing with the girls and 3 small plastic balls in a small room with 3 bunk beds! After awhile of group ball playing and tricks, our girl asked if we brought the iPad. We took it out and two girls chose to play or watch with our girl and one girl kept playing ball with Jason. Girls would come and go but 3 stayed the entire time. After they all went to lunch we finally met another roommate. She came in quietly and sat on her bed. I asked her name and she did not respond. Our girl told me her name. Then I asked the girl how old she was and again she would not answer so another girl told me she is 8 years old. The other girls in the room said that she likes to sleep a lot. I wanted to take a picture of her and now wish I had because a picture is worth a thousand words. She looked so sad and alone. I invited her over to where the girls were playing iPad. I asked our girl to offer her a cookie we had brought for everyone and she took the cookie. She then moved closer to the other girls and I so badly wanted to pick her up to sit on my lap or at least to hug her. I prayed silently that God would help me show her love. I moved over to the crowded bottom bunk of girls and got a ball. I tossed it to the girl and she looked surprised and tossed it back. This turned into almost an hour of tossing one or two balls to each other and she smiled and laughed the entire time. We counted in Russian, in English, and said words that I did not know or understand. The first time I touched her she recoiled but after that she reached out to me and she let me hug her before we left. Tomorrow we will bring her some socks so her feet can be warm. Her big toe was poking out of one sock today. The orphanage is cold and even with wearing double socks my feet were cold so I cannot imagine how cold her feet must have been. I am praying we will see more smiles from her again tomorrow! We needed to walk back to our hotel so we planned to leave around 3:00 to get back before it got dark. The sun sets at 3:30 p.m. here. At 3:15 we realized the time and said we had to go. No one wanted us to leave. We promised we would stay longer tomorrow. We gave hugs and more hugs to the girls and went to get our boots on. Our girl followed us to get her coat and boots and the girl Jason played ball with so much followed too. When I said it was cold outside she looked sad. Then I asked if she wanted to come and she smiled. I asked our sweet girl if that was okay and she said yes. We walked to the gate of the orphanage and gave hugs to both girls. We told our girl we would be back at 11:00 again tomorrow and she said 10:00. She wants us back earlier than today! Our daughter-to-be is so sweet and gives such great hugs that I hate to leave her each day. Two hours each day is not enough; even 4 hours like today is not enough! Tomorrow we plan to stay 6 hours as long as we do not get asked to leave sooner by caretakers. As we walked from the orphanage we talked about how we wish we could adopt them all! These children are starved for attention and want to feel cherished and loved even above having needs met. (None of the girls wanted to leave, especially our girl, to go eat lunch even when we told them we would wait for them.) The orphanage that is home to between 400-500 children is called "Emerald City" from the movie, "The Wizard of Oz". There is a huge mural of the movie characters on the side of a building with lions and turrets on the front of the main administration building and even Disney characters all over the campus grounds. If you would like to see a picture of the area outside the main entrance you could google search "Emerald City in Ukraine" and it should get you to a site with an article about Ukraine's Children of War. This summer camp for at-risk youth now turned orphanage is not what we had pictured in our minds. When first arriving at the gate each day a gate keeper greets us and allows us to enter. Then we walk to the main administrative building office to ask to see our girl. Someone in the office calls a dorm caretaker to summon her. Before leaving the office she is reminded not to leave the grounds. After that we are free to go where she wants within the walls of the orphanage. If you google the article I mentioned above you will see another picture in the same article where we walked on Thanksgiving morning. We did not attempt to go in the church or monastery but hope to walk there again another day to further look around. (If you would like the exact web address of the article, email me and I will send it to you.) Please pray that God will use us tomorrow to share His love with these special children He has created. Pray also that God be preparing families for these children. (This was my prayer since January for our girl, we just did not know God was preparing us for her!) May God use us in some small way to make a difference in the lives of His precious creations!