If you are like us, you are proably asking...what is MOE? MOE stands for Ministry of Education. It is the equivalent of our Department of Education in each state. In the region of Nizhniy Novgorod (working on the pronounciation), the MOE is literally one half of a mile from where we are staying.
Sveta (our translator) met with us at 10:00am to prepare us for the independent adoption questions that would be asked of us by ...Something Tatiana...
So off to the MOE in a small car with Sveta....
We arrived and waited only about 15 minutes. The government building that had recently been restored had lots of old photos on the wall. We watched dozens of gemployees walk in and out...all dressed in varying shades of black of course. Finally, we were called into Tatiana's office.
We both imagined a large room with Tatiana at the end sitting behind a desk. To our surprise, the office was the size of a cubicle with three desks, Tatianna's being in the middle. Tatiana's short blonde hair and petite size do not adquately describe the commanding demeanor that she conveyed to us. We sat (Sveta, Kenny, & I) on the other side of her desk...and she fired the questions.
"Why do you want a child with down syndrome?" After a thoughtful response, she asked, "So, you are doing this because it will benefit your down syndrome child?" I tried to explain that we didn't need to pursue this adoption...we have 5 children already. I got a little emotional (no kidding) and I said something about down syndrome children being special in the eyes of God. She then asked...
"Your paperwork is confusing, what does 1-2 children mean?"
We explained about siblings and also said maybe we would be interested in two children with down syndrome.
Stoically, she explained that the deputy minister was on vacation and she was busy and it might take 10 days to review and process our paperwork. Kenny and I were insistent that she consider the fact that we have left our 5 children in the US to come and would appreciate a quicker response. Tatiana asked that we call her on Wednesday and she would see what she could do. She had us sign the register and shook our hands.
As we left, Sveta, who has experience with Tatiana said that everything went very well! It was Sveta's opinion that Tatiana liked us very much. Huh! We sure couldn't tell by her body language or curt responses that seemed cold and uncaring. Good thing that Sveta was with us or we would have been very discouraged. Sveta's belief is that it is a good thing that Tatiana has asked us to call back on Wednesday.
So...God continues to make the path clear...