Hard to Say Goodbye: Friday April 28 2:17pm

I will never forget Andy's voice calling as we left "Dasvedayna Mama y Papa."

They are overjoyed to have a Mama and Papa, and here is the tear-jerker. To them, this only means that they have nice people to visit them and bring presents: presents for all the kids and special presents just for them. That is what Mama y Papa means. The care-givers tried to explain that we will take them with us. They understood field-trip, as they get field-trips twice a year. So, nice visitors, presents, and field trips = Mama y Papa. We tried to show them the house and the furbabies, but they only want to look at pictures of people.

The second half of the little book I wrote, which I did not bring as I need to add their pictures to it, shows the voyage home. I will mail this to the care-givers and I hope they can help the kids begin to understand this.

There are other children in the groupa that have legal parents who neither visit nor relenquish. They are tugging at our hearts. We got the orphanage address and the other kid's names and hope to send care packages.

I made myself do my tasks today and traced their feet and measured them for clothes and took a lot of pictures and videos. We got to put new clothes on everyone and they were all thrilled. Lil'Girl carefully collected and hoarded all the tags.

They are very self-disciplined about putting away one activity before starting another. I hope we are not a bad influence on them!

I wept as we left the orphanage and their social worker came to comfort me. It is clear that the director, the social worker, and the care-givers are all happy for the kids and they are all very friendly and nice to us.

Today is the celebration of the orphanage's founding in 1933. They are having a big celebration with dignataries and supporters, so they had cleaned and decorated the halls.

It is sunny and pleasant outside. Jamie is napping. We are waiting for our facilitator for one last round of signatures. We leave tomorrow at two and then have an overnight in Seoul and home late late Sunday night.

Welcome, Tim, to blogland!

Love,

Suzanne

edited to add concert report and pics.

Father Joseph McCabe, the sole Catholic priest in Khabarovsk region (which is huge) graciously invited us to the Friday night Easter music concert, even calling a taxi for us and helping us navigate the taxi pricing system. The concert was fabulous. Ave Maria, Exultate Jubilate, and a host of other wonderful pieces. The program was printed in Russia of course, so I can only list what I recognized and remembered. We were so blessed by such a evening of beauty.