SDA appointment

Well, today was an important day in the process.  We had our SDA appointment.  It was nothing like we envisioned.  The social worker who we met with was very pleasant.  She made us feel very comfortable.  She brought us the info. on the four children, and we laughed as we looked at the pictures that were attached to the forms.
We originally had planned to use our first appointment to visit with Alona, however when Natalia discovered that the 3 siblings had 2 siblings under the age of 18 that lived about an hour away, we decided to get started on there proceedings since it seems now that this will take a bit longer than Alona's separation.  We were a bit distraught at doing this because Alona might feel that we were putting the siblings ahead of her, however Natalia assured us that when we go to meet the children in the director’s office at the orphanage, they will bring all 4 children together.  She said that the lady that does the paper work at the orphanage is very much in favor of the adoptions so she will know that we are coming for the four children and thus they will be "introduced" to us as a group.
We had dinner with Alla and Galina today.  Galina works for the department in Kiev that does the official paperwork for the orphans hosting trips.
Tomorrow we should be getting the official papers that allow us to go to the orphanage to visit the children.  This apparently occurs between 4 to 5 pm.  Then we are off to Zhitomir.

Praise God