what a weekend! i don’t know how many miles we traveled through the russian countryside, but it was many hours with our wonderful friends; elena, zhenya and natasha! saturday morning we headed to the children’s village orphanage in zaimka (a small village about 100 miles north of nizhni tagil) for our annual summer bbq. the local customs folks provided transportation and a driver in their wonderful passenger van.....FREE of charge. we were stuffed to the gills with boxes and bags and crates of fruit, vegetables, hot dogs and bread, cokes, pastries, candy, ball caps, shoes, toys, etc. when we arrived at the orphanage we were welcomed enthusiastically by the staff and the children. the best thing was that ALEXEY ran to greet us and gave me HUGE hugs! how wonderful to see him again after 4 years! he is grown and handsome and will soon be graduating and learning how to be a house painter. due to some learning disabilities, he will not be eligible to attend a university.
we immediately started to prepare for the bbq as everyone was STARVING! a fire had already been started, all they were waiting for was us and the food. and boy, did everyone eat tons! we had brought enough hot dogs for everyone to eat 5! sound like a bit much? well, it wasn’t!! the kids ate and ate and ate until they couldn’t eat more. they were so happy to have the cucumbers and tomatoes....every russian child LOVES these and this was the first they had this year. one little boy said “this is the best picnic ever!” yep, it’s these type statements that make traveling hours, or say DAYS completely and utterly worthwhile! 
after the picnic we toured some of the individual homes in the orphanage....the kids are so awesome!! one of the highlights was seeing nastya again. don’t know if anyone remembers but when we had first met her, she was only 5 and had just been rescued from a trash dumpsite...a little child with a deep voice and a sad history... she is now a lovely 9 year old...smart, adorable, happy and so friendly. she sang for us and showed us her hamster. thank you Lord for taking nastya to the loving caretakers at the children’s village! some of the boys did a russian dance for us, one recited poetry. these kids are so talented and smart! we went back to house #5 where we would spend the night and george did magic tricks which everyone loved. george and alexey and some of the other teenage boys did these hand slapping games and it was soooooo funny! everyone was laughing so hard that i think they forgot the point of the games was NOT to get slapped! elena and i went for a walk and heard 2 cuckoos. elena said there is a russian superstition that if you ask a cuckoo how long you will live, he will cuckoo the answer. we decided NOT to ask.....!
since it never really gets dark in northern russia at night, we went to bed while still light so we could get up early to travel further north to the town of karpinsk, home of the handicapped children’s hospital and orphanage. what an amazing transformation the facility has had! desana has been funding projects at the hospital through the guidance of our project director and dear friend, Elena Antropyanskaya Hibbler. and how totally awesome this place is becoming!!! we have assisted in providing a new, safe playground...a gazebo....remodeling bathrooms and classrooms....and a state of the art Sensory Lab! elena told me that the Minister of Health brings people from all over to see this Lab because it is the only one of its kind in the entire area! how cool is that???????
we gave candy and ball caps and toys to many of the children. there are approximately 200 residents....all of whom will live their entire lives in institutions. it is not an emotionally “easy” place to visit....especially when you see teenagers living in cribs and unable to feed themselves or walk or talk..... but we know that each and every life is valuable and created for a specific and unique purpose and we are grateful that these children have been placed in our lives. God is good all the time. the caretakers at karpinsk are so kind and loving and each and every child receives exactly what he/she needs. you know, no family members ever visit their children here. can you imagine? some of the children are so excited to see us.....perhaps it’s the candy, but perhaps somehow they know that people really do care. we are so fortunate to be able to visit this institution...it is because of elena and zhenya’s special relationship with the faculty and staff and honestly, because we work so hard to raise funds to help in whatever ways we can. we had tea and prepared ourselves for the long 4 hour drive back to nizhni tagil...all exhausted physically and emotionally.
we decided we had let too much time pass between our visits to russia. the russian people are amazing....i just love them. they all want to feed me. they all talk to me and when i try to explain that i don’t understand, they just talk more and louder......hmmm, sort of like my mother used to do when i was a teenager, maybe there’s something to that after all........!
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