The Mysterious Oleg

Here he is - the man responsible for orchestrating adoptions for dozens of American families every year. When I finally met the man whom I had corresponded with for the past year-and-a-half, Oleg was not what I expected. I had come to think of him as a sort of Wizard of Oz. He existed only in the form of his cryptic emails from a faraway land and he just did not fit the image I had.

The first thing that struck me about him was his gentle spirit. But while he seems very quiet and reserved, you could instantly tell that he commands respect from the SDA workers and other adoption facilitators. He was answering calls from two cell phones and apparently doing about a dozen different things at once as we stood waiting outside.

Something about his demeanor made me feel complete confidence in his ability to handle everything and indeed he did. When they told us that we would have to "come back tommorow" for our referral for the girls, somehow I just knew we would get it later that day. And sure enough, Oleg came through. He hustled us off to the train station and we were riding the rails to Odessa in a matter of hours!