Adopting four orphans at once is stressful enough. Add some flying bullets and explosions of homemade bombs, then you get the reality of an American couple adopting four Ukraine kids last week, the Associated Press reported.
Last week, David and Lisa Bundy of Montgomery, Alabama, were staying in an apartment in Kiev about a half-mile from Independence Square, the center of violent protests. They listened to gunfire and explosions, and the children played games and tried to sleep as bullets whizzed by their balcony.
"It was a constant boom, boom, boom," said David Bundy in an interview at the couple's Montgomery home on Monday, a day after he returned with three of the children. "It was three or four explosions every 10 seconds."
According to the AP, even though the couple had planned to return home together after the last of the four adoptions, that of 16-year-old Nastia, was finalized, they cut their trip shot due to the dangerous atmosphere around them. To escape the violence, David headed home early with the others.
"He arrived in Montgomery on Sunday night with 14-year-old Karina; 11-year-old Max; and 9-year-old Alla. Lisa Bundy remained behind in Ukraine with Nastia, moving to a safer area on the outskirts of Kiev to wait for her adoption to become final, hopefully on March 3," the AP reported.
After not having children of their own, 47-year-old David, a freelance photographer, and 40-year-old Lisa, an emergency room physician, began to look at adoption. They first looked at domestic adoptions, but got dismayed by the paperwork and long wait.
In the summer of 2013, the couple volunteered with Bridges of Faith, a program that brings orphans from Ukraine to Alabama for a month of cultural enrichment.
Through the program, they met Nastia and made plans to adopt her. Later, they met Karina and her siblings and decided their home could handle four children, the AP reported.
"Something felt very right about them being with us," Bundy said.
"Bundy said adopting from Ukraine can be challenging as it requires working with lawyers and courts outside of the U.S. The couple arrived in Kiev on Nov. 22 and rented an apartment near Independence Square because it is where restaurants, shops and government agencies are located," the AP reported.
About a week before they arrived, the protests in Kiev began, Bundy said. But they didn't think anything about them since they were peaceful at first but later turned violent as demonstrators clashed with police.
Despite the violence, government agencies and courts stayed open, and the Bundys were able to complete three of the adoptions. Nastia's was held up by paperwork problems and a judge's illness, David Bundy said.
David Bundy, who has worked as a photographer for newspapers in Mississippi and Alabama and done freelance work for The Associated Press, ventured out occasionally to take pictures of the violence.
On Friday, the whole family went to Independence Square to see the burned buildings and torched cars. They inadvertently walked into the memorial service for a slain protester, the AP reported.
"I wanted to have something sort of as a historical record for our family," he said. "It is not just Ukrainian history. It's our family's history."
