I love the Building a family article. It renews my faith that good people outnumber the bad behaving people. The Stahlke adopted 5 bio-siblings in 2005 from Ukraine.

I have known families who adopted 3 or 4 children from Ukraine before. Asking to adopt 5 children... Wow!

And their costs to adopt the 5 children were very reasonable; $35,000.

And now they are fund raising for their 6th adoption. There is another bio-sibling who just came off the registry. They are estimating costs around $27,000. The family has raised $14,000 through their church, Trinity Lutheran Church.



’Berg students volunteer abroad and visited a Ukrainian orphanage in Mukachevo and a "gypsy camp".

My first thought after reading this article was the students didn't realize that gypsy can be seen as a negative label. Many adoptive parents will use use labels like Roma and Romani instead of gypsy. My second thought was the students experienced some cultural shock. The hospital and medical system is very different as I blogged about last year.



I have written about Basil Tarasko before. His parents were born in Ukraine and lived in Germany for a time. Basil was born in Germany. Then the family moved to the United States.

Basil has developed and mentored baseball teams in Ukraine since 1991. And he is focused on developing Little League teams at orphanages. At My Table article states that Basil has traveled to Ukraine 44 or 45 times since 1991.

(Note: The author of this article met Basil at the Sunduk Pub on Mykhalivska Street in Kyiv. And he mentions the place is comfortable with reasonably priced food.)

I learned a couple of new facts about Basil. He is a baseball scout for the San Diego Padres team. And he is looking for volunteers to help with the Ukrainian baseball teams. If you want to help or donate baseball equipment, email Basil or visit his web page.

In a nutshell, Basil focuses on creating and mentoring baseball teams at Ukrainian orphanages because he has found children who are interested. For a long article about Basil work in Ukraine you could read this article.