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First Edition of our Newsletter.

Organization News

We welcome Pam Barnes as the first editor of the Prokopyevsk Family Ties Newsletter.

Road Sign to Prokopyevsk
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Prokopyevsk Family Ties Newsletter

Edition 1
Fall 2002

Prokopyevsk Family Ties Newsletter

October 2002

 

Welcome to the Prokopyevsk Family Ties Newsletter, a new way of keeping in touch with other families that have adopted from the Prokopyevsk orphanage in the Kemerovo region of Russia. We also welcome any Kemerovo-processed families no matter what city their beautiful children were adopted from.

 

This first publication is rather small and quick. It takes quite a bit of time to gather information and publish, so we will be taking baby steps. The first thing I'd like to do is introduce myself, and then provide a list of the families who have joined.

 

My name is Pamela Barnes and I adopted my son, Nickolai, from Prokopyevsk orphanage this past Christmas Day, 2001. THAT was a merry Christmas. I traveled with my mother and another family (Kevin & DeeDee Coats) who adopted a beautiful girl from Novokuznesk orphanage.

 

Nick was 15 months old on our adoption day and just turned 2 this past September 24. A little man with tons of charm, he loves laughing and his favorite thing to do is play in the water. ANY water source: sink, bathtub, toilet, dog dish...

 

Our pictures can be viewed at www.geocities.com/adoptingfromrussia2000. However, theres good news. Dave Brotman and his niece have volunteered their time to build a quick group site to share pictures. What a great idea. So please send any pictures you'd like to have added to Dave at adoptfrom.kemerovo@verizon.net. Please make sure you email him the caption for each picture as well.

 

I think it will be amazing to see pictures from another perspective. I'm so grateful to Sherrie Michaels who has sent me several pictures of the inside because I didn't get the chance to take pictures or see anything other than Dr. Ludmilla's office and the music room where Nick and I spent about an hour. (Our sons were cribmates.) Unfortunately, due to paperwork deadlines, they sent my mother to the orphanage to pick Nick up while I ran around doing paperwork. So I didn't get the chance to see the rooms, meet the caregivers, ask questions, etc. And of course mom was so excited that all she could think about was getting her grandson. She could have been in the middle of Siberia and she wouldnt have known it. Oh wait she was in the middle of Siberia - LOL. So the pictures that Sherrie has shared with me touched me deeply. Especially since I may never get the chance to recapture things I didn't get to see or do. So seeing other's pictures from many perspectives will be great. And it will be a chance to print them out and add them to Nicks lifebook.  Ah, the lifebook. Actually its not a book yet, just a box full of the memorabilia waiting to be turned into a book. One day J

 

So without further ado, here is the current list of Prokopyevsk families. If you know of anybody who wants to be added, just give them my email address. Ive listed only the information that folks have emailed me to give out. If you want to publish more, introduce yourself, etc. please email me and Ill get it into the next edition. Until then, please let me know if you want any additions, changes, deletions. And please feel free to contact any of these families one-on-one. Its what were all here for, to stay in touch, share stories, maybe some fund raising or letter mailing to the orphanage, and have a more specific bond with others than just Russia because its amazing how many kids came from that little itty-bitty coal-mining town in the middle of that huge country. Awesome indeed.

 

If youd like to share snippets from your journals or just random thoughts, Id love to publish those too. It would be amazing to know that others were thinking the same things, saw the same things, etc. And I think it would bring us back in time to the little coal-mining town in Siberia, half a world away where we found our children.

 

P.S. For those who havent received the 2-file information I gathered on Kemerovo and Prokopyevsk, let me know and Ill email it. I know, I know, AOL is horrible with zipped files. I'm still trying to figure out how to break it down for one family. I can print and mail, but having soft copy is nice so you can manipulate the text its an unfinished document. But hey, a hard copy is better than none, so I'm still working on getting the files into a more manageable size. Can't wait to hear from everybody.

 

Warmest regards,

Pamela Barnes