Velikoretskoye, Kirov region

I have been dreading this moment...typing the second orphange name into the blackberry. My fingers are almost numb anyway...our morning drive was through beautiful farmland with rolling hills. A great way to start off the day, not to mention we have SUNSHINE! A true commodity in Russia! Do not ever take a sunny Russian day for granted! It almost makes you forget how horrible the roads are...bumpy to the point you smack your head! We already feel extremely blessed and we haven't even been to the...wait...here it comes...the moment we've all been waiting for...Velikoretskoye orphanage! Whew! We will have to nickname it if this is it, b/c not only is it long to type...it is a mouthful...just trust me on that one!

Gyorgy, the director is an older gentleman who has directed the school for 30 years and the orpahange dir. since it opened in 1995. I kept calling the town a 'village' and kept getting corrected-apparently it is a settlement. There are only 500 people in the settlement and 80 kids in the school. The orphanage kids are more than half the school since they have 46, and the school is 100 years old so they are building a new one.

Gyorgy is a man of few words, but we can already tell what a huge amount of love and attention these kids get here. He has divided the family groups up so that sibling pairs stay together, and their areas look like a home with a living, kitchen, and dining area.

The intriuging part of this town is that the orthodox icon of st. Nicholas was found on the river bank here. He is also known as Nicholas the miracle maker but Americans would know him better as where the story of Santa Claus came from.

We took an amazing walk down to the river, it was a gorgeous walk I cannot even explain how fantastic it was! The air is so fresh here! The photos will hopefully shed some light on it...
We spent some time with the two groups of older kids tonight...they were all dressed up and really kind of intimidating when we walked into the room. We laughed...we answered questions and groundwork is being laid, we hope...'Cause we definitely already like this place, and tomorrow should be eye opening. We have already started transitioning our thinking from just looking at this orphanage to 'is this going to be our new home'? Kurlovo had become home...so we cannot help but take a serious enough look at this place and see if we could fit in here...join us for Day 2 tomorrow!

Praise the Lord for answered prayer in this place not being like Nolinsk! And we are prayin' that God will confirm for us tomorrow that we are in the right place even though it is a HUGE long name! We may seriously have to come up with a good nickname-feel free to post a recommendation! Stick with us - this is gettin' good!

Stephanie