Visiting Our New Addition

Saturday, November 29, Kherson

I slept in Richard and Jacob’s room last night because Jacob was having tummy troubles. I gave him a couple of Children’s Pepto-Bismol the night before but he said that his tummy still hurt. In the past if he said that his tummy was hurting he would end up throwing up some time in the night. Well he was ok all night. I woke up very early around 6:00am and could not go back to sleep. I finally got up around 6:30 and went next door and woke up mother. I knew she wouldn’t mind, since a lot of the time she gets up. We needed to be ready by 10:00am for Ira, so a little after 8:00am we went to the café downstairs. The menu has 4 different breakfasts, ranging from fried eggs w/ham to fish w/bread. All of the food that we have gotten at the café has come with carrots w/vinegarette and pickles. Our breakfast came with a salad of chopped cucumbers, tomatoes, black olives and mushrooms along with eggs sunny side up and ham pieces. Mother does not like anything that is not cooked thoroughly, burnt, or scalding hot. Needless to say she did not enjoy her food. They do have very good hot tea. We have been drinking hot tea for almost every meal. Sometimes Mother and I have only have tea and toast for a meal. Well head back up to our room to await Ira it was almost 11:00am before she is knocking on our door ready to go. We quickly packed up the bags and headed to the lobby. The kind hotel manager let us keep our bags in another room until we found an apartment. We have to travel in two taxis, because of the new the fines if there are too many people in one taxi, to the boarding school. We go to the same room that is in our boys’ living quarters. We loves to play with the PSP and the digital camera. He went around taking pictures of the other kids in his dorm area. Ira had left to do some paper work and to find us an apartment. She came back around 12:30pm and says she has found two possible apartments. They are in the middle of Kherson and close to the school though we will need to take a taxi to the school and back. It is also close to the main street where there are shops and a market. We first go to the Notary’s office to have another document prepared, and signed. Then we go to the apartment that has heat. (Evidently the city is having trouble with their heating) . The apartment is on the fourth floor with no elevator. We will definitely get our exercise. We move our stuff in and settled a bit before we all went back out except Mother. Ira found a toy store we bought a 7-1 game and a small police Lego kit. Well you would have thought it was Christmas when the boy saw all things. He did not know what to do first. I even had brought crayons and a coloring book. He played with one thing for a few minutes and then went to the next thing. Still his favorite thing is the PSP. I am beginning to think that it was a bad idea to bring it to the school at all. Richard finished the Lego kit and Ira helped teach the boy tick-tack-toe. The PSP was played the most. I hope that over the next few days we can play the checkers or chess that we got him. We stayed for about an hour and a half then left back to the apartment. Ira took me and mother to the market, which was very big. We got some things to last a couple of days. When we got back to the apartment, Richard and Jacob were watching a Harry Potter movie in Russian on TV. It was definitely interesting. Ira we back to the friend to get her suitcase and ended up staying with them for the night. Mother and I pulled out the couch and sort of made it up with what we had. It is plenty wide enough for two people though the heat was not working very well and we did not have enough blankets. But we did fine.

Sunday, November 30, Kherson

Mother wakes first and I finally wake up after a fairly good night. I wanted to get ready and have our worship services, so that we would be ready to go to the boarding school at 12:30pm per Ira. We were able to have a good breakfast of scramble eggs (yea for mother) and toast. We had another good service and listen to Ken Weliever’s 3rd sermon on the 23 Psalm. Ira came around 12:30pm and she had to do some paper work before we left to go to the school. The children at the school go to church on Sunday mornings and then have lunch, so we wanted to wait until they got back before we went over. Mother stayed at the apartment and the rest us go over to the school. Mother had brought a teddy bear for our new child, our boy seemed to really like it. Though the PSP was still the main focus of his attention. We did go outside to the playground for a little while. It was good to see Jacob and the boy interact. Jacob was very happy to run and play with him. We said our goodbyes and came back to the apartment. I fixed some mac n cheese, hot dogs, apples, tomatoes and hot tea. We all enjoyed our semi-american dinner. Ira had to go out for a while to work on those papers and came back after dinner. We definitely have a hard working translator that is not afraid to ask anyone to help us move our paper work along faster. She has had the school Director working on Saturday, and is hoping to get the judge give us a early court date. We will see tomorrow how our time table will be. It maybe after Christmas but before the end of the year when we get home. Well everyone has gone to bed and I guess I need to as well. Please keep us in your prayers.

Good Day but Busy Day

I hope that you have been reading my mother's blog because she is a much better writer than me. I believe she has also talked about our warm and pleasant journey from Kiev to Kherson, if you haven't you need to. Let's just say that we have wonderful public transportation in the US. I would also recommend traveling by car if you can. We were up and going early this morning to head over to the boarding school before classes started at 8:30am. All four of us head into the foyer of the school and meet with the Assistant Director. Ira and the Assistant Dir. talk for several minutes when it becomes evident that she does not have all the documents that Ira will need. Ira asked us to stay at the boarding school while she went on a mission to get all the documents she is going to need. Unfortunately the child's mother had lost his birth certificate. We have a firm but sweet translator, who is not going to let things stand in her way, if she can help it. Our new little boy appears in the foyer of the school, to take us to his sleeping quarters. Ira explains to him what to do and off she goes on the quest of the missing documents. Our new boy is able to miss the first part of his school. His favorite movie is Harry Potter. He has seen all of four movies that have come out. I have brought a color explosion package that when you mark on the paper with the special marker different colors appear. Jacob, our little boy and I draw pictures and watch Harry Potter movie. He is always smiling. After about an hour and half he gets up, puts his shoes and coat on and says (we assume) that he has to go back to school. I did not know what to do, I thought we were going to stay in that room till Ira got back. So, I call her and her to talk to our little boy. She explain to me that he has to go back to school and the cleaning lady is needing to clean the room we were in. So, we head back to the foyer to wait on Ira. We waited over an hour and half but did not mind because we knew how hard Ira was working. Once Ira arrived she takes us to the Notary. A notary in Ukraine is an very important official. Her office was very elaborate, and she had two assistants. We waited while they finished preparing the special documents, which have special seals and then all three of us sign the documents in front of the Notary. While we waited on the special documents, Ira had to make copies, she even got a taxi to take her to a place that had a copies. Boy, she is dedicated. After the signing of the documents we head back to the hotel and leave Ira at the school to work on the documents. We will be going back tomorrow to visit with our new little boy.

Wed-Thurs-Day for Thanksgiving!

Wed & Thurs.
Sorry , This is late in being posted. We have not been able to access the internet since about 10 a.m. Thursday.
When we got off the train Wed. about 10:30 am we dropped Mom and Jacob and luggage off at the hotel which was right next to the train in depot in Kherson. We had to climb upstairs to the hotel as it is above the shops. No elevators – 20 steps – they do not know what handicap accessible is here it appears.
5 min. later we were back out the door in a taxi – Richard, Irina (Era) and myself headed towards the Inspectors office. The Inspector is a person who has a lot of authority in a region. It is similar to what a judge would have. We waited in the taxi for over an hour while Era went inside and talked to the Inspector lady. The Inspector wanted to see Richard and I and talk to us to find out why we wanted to adopt. Then she put her seal on the document that allowed us to go to the boarding school. When we got there the assistant director met us and talked to us and told us that they knew we were coming and was hoping we would have been there earlier as the director wanted to talk to us himself. He had to go to another town for some business and would not be back till after 3 p.m. We said our good byes and said we would be back after 3. We took another taxi back to the hotel –picked up Mother and Jacob and had lunch in the café below the hotel.
We had to wait till after 3:30 before Era got the call that the director was back at the boarding school and got into another taxi to the boarding school which only took us 10 min. to get there. The director was a very nice man. He wanted to know why we wanted to adopt. He believes children should be part of families and is very happy that we wanted to adopt. He wanted us to speak to the lawyer for the school, and also with the lady doctor. The boy has been very healthy since he has been at the boarding school. They then brought in his teacher and everyone said how nice, kind, loving, good student that this boy is.
By Ukraine law no pictures are allowed to be posted or name given until they are legally adopted. The teacher then b brought in the boy a very nice looking boy. The director and all of us talked for a few min. to the boy and then the director said Era, Richard and myself could go with the boy to a classroom to talk. We talked and talked and the boy mentioned about his mother and a father but we know that he does not know who his father is. We do not know who this man is. The boy said his father comes to visit him. The boy is not sure if he wants to be adopted. His Teacher came in after awhile to sit with us, and I think to make the boy more comfortable. The time came for their supper to be served, so we said our goodbyes get in another taxi and came back to the hotel. Era said we needed up early Thurs a.m. to be at the boarding school at 8:30 so we may see the boy before his classes begin. We all were really tired after a long day, got baths and went to bed by 10 p.m. A bed not moving or bumping felt really good and we slept great!


Thursday- Thanksgiving Day
We got up at 6:30 this a.m. out of our nice comfy beds that Mother and I especially appreciate after sleeping on couches for two weeks. Mother and I went down to the market to look for something for breakfast as the café would not open in time. They have a lot of nice cakes and some pastries, milk, sausage, juice. We got a few pastries some OJ and drinks and took them back to our room to eat. We, including Jacob met Era after 8:30 as she was on the phone making arrangements for our visit. We got to boarding school about 8:45. We had to wait in the secretary’s office of the director and come to find out the Inspector was already there and was taking everyone to task because she hadn’t received any proper documents from anyone to visit the boy. This took awhile to get sorted out as she was speaking to everyone who had oversight of the child about this lapse in regulations. Then the next we knew the boy appeared –all smiles in his school uniform. We had taken him a squishy ball, and glow in the dark sticks and showed him how to use the glow in the dark sticks. We were with him, in the secretary’s office, for about 20 min when he had to go back to class. He gave all of us hugs and left. We still did not know if he was willing to be adopted. The Ukrainian law says once you are 6 yr old you have to be present when final adoption proceedings are held before the judge and the judge will ask the child if they want to be adopted. If they do not want to be adopted – they can say no and the adoption will not go through. We were told we could come back at 3p.m. to see the boy. So we took another taxi back to the hotel. It was about 10:30 a.m. The taxi only cost 12UK or $2 US. We went upstairs to get Mother and talk for a bit then went to have lunch at the café downstairs. Era had found an acquaintance that she could stay with tonight, so we would not have to pay for her another night at the hotel. She as well as Gregory is always thinking of how to save us money. She picked up her suitcase that she had left in our room and went to her acquaintance. We rested and try to start emailing. We have been trying all afternoon and evening and have not had any success with the internet.
Era came back and got Richard, Jacob and I about 2:55 p.m. and off we go in another taxi. We went into the foyer of the school to wait for the boy to come out. This evidently was nap time for him. While we are waiting we meet another girl and an American family. The family has known this girl for 1 ½ yr and wanted to adopt her. She has wanted to be adopted as well, but there have been a lot of complications with it and now she is too old to be adopted. They are working on getting a student visa for her as well as adopting another child in another city. The girl is also showing her wonderful needlework and she ended up giving one she had done of a bird. She was just beaming when the family was there and is so excited about having a family and her joy was totally overflowing. A little while the boy comes thru the front door in his regular clothes to show us where he sleeps and plays. This is in another bldg. and there is also a little room that we can sit and talk with him – just he, Richard, Jacob, Era and I. Our translator, Era starts to talk to him trying get him comfortable with her and us. During her long conversation with him she tells him that his mother no longer wants him and her parental rights have been taken away. His life will be here at the boarding school, he will have no other life than here at the boarding school. After a little while of talking and he and Jacob playing with a doodle board the little boy says he would like to be adopted and live in America. He is concerned about his mother and this other man who has taken care of him before he came to the boarding school. He does not want to hurt their feelings about leaving. So I suggested to him that we could write letters and send pictures and presents back to them. To let them know how he is doing. So that was just what he needed and it was at that point he said yes he wanted to be adopted. We then pulled out Jacob’s PSP and it took the little boy about 2 min. to figure out how to work it.Jacob was very excited this whole time waiting to see what the boy would say. Jacob wrote on the doodle board “I now have a brother” and he kept saying “go brother, go brother” while they were playing the game.
His mother had lost his birth certificate and this is the beginning of all the paperwork that has to be done before we can go in front of a judge and get back to Kiev. Era is looking or an apt. for us to move into hopefully by tomorrow to save money and to be able to cook things that Jacob likes as well as us. Era has already started to mountains of paper work involved. It is more complicated when a child is in a boarding school rather than an orphanage. Orphanages are for children up to 6 and once they are 6 they go to boarding school. Basically all the same just a different terminology for the age of the child. This boarding school is one of the nicest that Era has been to. Some boarding schools are very poor and the children may only get a new pair of socks and underwear twice a year and only get chocolate on special occasions like birthdays, Christmas etc. Their diet would also be limited on how much food they could have. The children at this school have access to all of the modern movies, video games, candy, etc. They have a very nice lunch room, bedrooms, which have several beds in each room, modern classrooms, basketball area, soccer field, etc. Everyone from the Director to the cleaning lady in the foyers has been very nice. We will send pictures after we see the judge and get the official adoption decree. We are still hopeful of getting home before Christmas.
Thank you very much for your prayers and support. The Lord has truly blessed our family.

Take Two

Well the 2nd big day finally came. Richard and I walked to the SDA office about 25 minutes till 2:00pm. We were there a before Ira came so we stood outside in the cold, cold weather. The snow is melting, which made the sidewalks and streets a little mushy and slippery. You could see where someone had been spreading salt on most of the sidewalks and streets. Ira came and I almost did not recognize her. She was wearing a full length fur coat (beaver I think) as well as a matching fur hat. She said that she had been at the SDA all morning and most of the time standing outside in the cold, cold weather. We waited about another 5 minutes and went to see if the side door was open and behold the gate was opened. Inside we go and it was wonderfully warm in there. We then have to wait at the bottom of the stairwell until we are called to go upstairs. It took a little while but then Ira got the signal to come upstairs. We saw a different lady this time and she presented us with a 8 year old and a 4 year old boy. We were forunate that these were new files that they had received today. No girls were presented to us. So we are going to see the 8 year old boy. To be presented with another child, who looks very promising, even though it is not a girl, is very forunate for us. The Lord is definitely working in our lives and it makes us very humble. We will be traveling to Kherson tomorrow night, Tuesday, by train, which is over 300 miles south of Kiev, near the Black Sea. It is a 12 hour trip, which will probably have many stops. We will have a 4 bunk bed compartment to stay in on our long journey. It is expected not to be one of the better trains, like their express trains but the price of $20 a piece is pretty good. We will also have to have our luggage in our compartment, so we will see who gets the bottom bunks, ha ha. We hope to see the boy on Wednesday afternoon and if all goes well, will start the paper work on his adoption.

Snow Day

We woke up to find a white blanket covering the ground, trees and cars. Our sleeping beds/couches are getting a little old. We are really looking forward to sleeping in our own beds. After we had worship services, and by the way Ken Weliever is an excellent preacher, he has had a three part sermon on Psalm 23 (This has been very uplifting for me.) Jacob, Grandma and I went outside to see what the snow covered. There is a park about a half a block away. The snow looked to be between 1-2 inches. Jacob had a good time playing and throwing snowballs at Mom. Grandma lasted about 30 minutes and then said she was freezing and wanted to go back to the apartment. So she went back and Jacob and I stayed to play. Jacob finally had enough after over an hour so we went back to thaw out. In Jacob's case it was to remove all wet clothing.

We have added more pictures from today.

We are anxiously awaiting for tomorrow's apointment. I know the Lord has blessed us so much so far and I pray that we have the clarity and wisdom we will need in tomorrow's appointment to chose the right child for our family. We would not be able to get through all of this if it weren't for your support and prayers. Thank you so much our brothers and sisters in Christ. We love and miss you.

Ukraine Observations

Mother and I so fascinated about the fashion and customs of the Ukraianian people I thought I would share some observations. These do not hold true of everyone we see or meet.

Women wear high heel black leather boots. Most are Stiletto high but not all.
Designer jeans that are fitted and snug on their long pencil legs.
Coats with fur collars and cuffs, mostly black but not all.
Large purses mostly black leather, all quite fancy and expensive.
Younger women do not wear hats, I think they do not want their hair messed up.
They usually have only 2-3 outfits that they wear over again.
Popular colors of clothes are black, brown and gray. We have seen one long red coat and one lady wearing a light blue coat, but that is very unusual.
Manicures are also popular with all kinds of designs.
I have not seen hardly anyone wearing glasses, they either have very good eyesight or they are wearing contact lenses. They do want to look good.
Most stores that we see are clothing, shoes and purses only.
Shoes seemed to be just as important as their clothes.

Men want to look us as good as the women.
Their shoes are black leather dress men’s shoes.
The men designer jeans or pants
They also wear leather black jackets or coats.
You also see men in suits or coats and striped trousers and overcoats carrying suitcases.

Many Ukrainians walk everywhere they want to go. Cars even used cars are very expensive. So the people walk, take the bus, subway or train. Ukrainians walk very fast, even the women with high heel boots. They remind me of runway models walking fast down the runway. We feel we should be in the slow lane because we will get run over by the other people passing us by. We also noticed that when there are two women walking together whether friends or family will link their arms together.

Ukrainians like to bargain. We have slowly got the hang of it. This doesn’t apply to the food markets and maybe the clothing stores but on the street definitely.

Taxis do not have meters and it is best to agree on a price before getting in the car. For instance we took a taxi from the large mall last Thurs. and he charged us 60H. Yesterday before we got in the taxi at the same place after showing him the address – we had 40H on the card and he said “no 50H” and we accepted.

There are several main highways through Kiev. Since there is so much traffic there are underground walk ways for the people to walk to get to the other side of the street. In these underground areas which are quite large are vendors selling food, flowers, clothes, jewelry, etc . We have also seen mostly women with a cup held out to ask for money.

The traffic in Kiev is very hectic but the drivers are fairly considerate of one another. There is very little horn blowing. Because of the traffic, parking is a problem. The Government allows the people to park on the sidewalks, which in some areas leaves just enough room for one person to get by. When the driver wants to go the opposite direction,(do a u-turn) he just waits patiently, maybe slightly toots his horn and proceeds onto the street. The other cars then wait till he has gotten out then continue on. We would not have seen this in New York. The people seemed to also have the right-0f-way on small streets . The cars have to stop to allow them to cross. Most streets do have a place marked for pedestrians to cross and cars will stop for you.

On Saturday and Sunday they close one of the main streets near Independence Square that have eight lanes to all automobile traffic. This is great so that if you want to cross the street at any time you can. Also the weekends are very quite without a lot of people around at least earlier in the day.

Cigarettes are very inexpensive here and many people smoke. The Ukrainian government has passed a law that forbids indoor smoking of any building, unless they have a dedicated smoke area. The restaurants usually do have dedicated smoking areas. We are of course happy for this law. Mall food court fast food serve beer except McDonalds like they would serve any other beverage.

More to come…..

New Appointment

We have had a fairly good day here in the cold Ukraine. Our apartment is very warm but when you get outside you feel the cold weather. Today it was a high of 34. Tomorrow it is suppost to snow. Mother and I went one of the larger markets today and found all kinds of interesting things. Our translator, Ira, called this afternoon to let us know that we have an appointment with the SDA on Monday at 2:00pm. We are very thankful that we were able to get in at the first of next week. Once we have chosen a child from the files we will know what part of the Ukraine we will be going. We will keep you posted as to where our adventure will take us next. We are anxiously waiting to meet our new child and get the process started.

We meet with Dr. Yuriy. He helps adoptive parents by letting them know what kind of medical problems the children could have when they go for their SDA appointment. He was very thorough and helpful. He also will visit the orphanage to give the child a physcial examination to help inform the adoptive parents of the child's true medical condition. The files that the SDA are usually at least a year old from what is on file with the orphanages. The child also could be misdiagnoised, so it is good that he is able to do this. He said to call him at any time. We were very grateful for his help.

Please keep us in your prayers. We are so thankful for all the support that you have given us.

Mother and I went to the market yesterday to get some groceries. The market is an even in itself. The closest market is about 15 minutes away. It has three floors and each floor is smaller than a convenience store. The bottom floor is where they have most of the grocery items that you need such as milk, other dairy items, water, soda, bread, pasta, frozen pizza, canned goods. The middle floor has meats like pork, ham, hot dog looking things, smoked sausages, cheeses, fruit and vegetables. The top floor was the sweet and tea area. There were all kinds of delicious chocolates and teas. At each section such as the meat section or the chocolate and tea section you had to pay for those purchases. I loaded up my backpack and along with a couple of bags and away we went back to the apartment. After we had put our purchases away and rested up we took Jacob to a nearby park to get his wiggles out. The park had playground equipment like we have at home plus dragon statue to play on. Then we walk to one of the many churches they have here. After we had taken several pictures we went to souvenir road. They have several vendors that carry all kinds of trinkets, nesting eggs, embroidery cloths, etc. Jacob had seen a puppet dog somewhere so we were on a hunt. We were not successful and Grandma was getting tired so back to apartment we went. We fixed supper and had a quiet evening.

I woke up around 2:30am to Mother talking very loudly about water on the floor. I get up to find water pouring out of the pipe under the bathroom sink (Déjà vu). We try to get some towels to stop it from coming into the living room area where mother and I are sleeping and into the bedroom. I immediately call Gregory and Ira to let them know, so they can call the leasing agent. They said to hang on while they got a hold of him. It took about 15-20 minutes for Alex the leasing agent to get here. He checked out the situation and got on the phone to see what he needed to do. He needed to find the cut off value which was not easy to find. He then got a towel to wrap around the pipe so the water would slow down. He asked if we had a rope or something to tie it with. Well I had packed duct tape just incase something needed to be fix and boy and I glad I did. Alex and I then started trying to get the water up. All we had was a bucket and towels. A shopvac would sure be handy right now. Soon after we had the water fairly sopped up the plumbers arrive to turn off the water. Yea! Well Alex and the plumbers left around 4:30am and everybody but me went back to bed. I was too keyed up. Around 10:00am the plumbers, Alex the leasing agent, apartment owner and the tenants from below us(we are on the 3rd floor) show up. The tenants from below said that the water was leaking down to their apartment. We explained what happen and they seemed very nice about it. The plumbers fixed the pipe and all is well. The apartment owner had a cleaning lady come by to clean the bathroom, towels and floor. I hope that we have not brought our bad luck with broken pipes from Georgia to the Ukraine. Ha!Ha! At least it was as bad as our house and we did not have to move to another apartment. Yea!

Before all of last night flood deja vu flood I had talked to Gregory. We were hoping to get an appointment with the SDA this week. Unfortunately all of the appointments had been filled and we would have to wait until next week. Needless to say we were very disappointed. I do undersand that there are many other families here waiting to do the same thing that we are. Today I called Ira to see if somone canceled their appointment maybe we could get in to the SDA before Monday Ira said that if we wait until next week we will be able to see new files on children that we haven't see before. So we just have to sit and wait. Mother and I went back to the market to pick more things to last through the weekend. Soon after we got back to the apartment it started to snow. Though it did not stick maybe next time. I know Jacob was excited to see it snow. I see that Atlanta has been having some pretty cold weather like we are having here. We all miss you terribly and you are in our prayers. Thanks again for all of support. It really means alot when you are so far from home.

Disappointing Monday

This is Long.
On Saturday Mom and I set off fairly early in the morning to go to the market. We had gone to a large market on Thursday with the help of Ira, so on this last Saturday we decided to try to find that large market again. One of the main streets in Kiev next to Independence Square is a 8 lane highway with stores on either side of it. On Saturday and Sunday they close the street to all automobiles, that way people can cross it with out having to go thru the underground walkways. We had only been walking a short distance around the square when I saw a market on the other side of the street. Lo and behold it was a full fledge market. We found everythng we needed and did not have to walk that far. We also found a lady selling umbrellas, of course it was raining but not to bad. We just hanged around the apartment for the rest of the day because of the rain.

On Sunday, we did bible study with Jacob, continue our study of the book of Judges, listen to a sermon by Ken Weliever (preacher where Mom worships) and partook of the Lord's Supper. Greogory got us tickets to a circus for that afternoon. It was very good. We saw all sorts of animals even lions, tigers and bears. We then came home to finish packing and get to bed early because the next morning at 2:00am, yes at 2:00am we had to be up and ready to go to the orphanage.

Monday- Heading to the Orphanage

Ira meet us outside of our apartment at 2:00am, with a minivan as I was told from the day before. Well when I get outsdie the so called minivan is really a 16 passenger van used for their bus system here. Ira's husband Slavic and another man were our drivers today. I was able to get a good 4-5 hours of sleep last night but mother and Richard did not do as well. It takes about 8 hours to get to the region of Kharkiv where the orphanage is located. Jacob was able to go back to sleep once we got going. The roads here are very rough and bumpy so much so that I sat next to Jacob so we would not fall off his seat. When I say rough, I would compare the roads to driving down the train tracks back home. Not all of the roads are in this bad of condition but when you have to travel 300 miles, averaging around 55 mph, and more than half of that distance on two lane roads you are ready to take a break. I was praying the tires would hold out. We arrived in the small town all in one piece, around 10:00am, near the orphanage, which is around 50 miles from Kharkiv to get the permission paper to visit the "little girl". Ira went into the Inspectors office to get the paper work and did not come back out for almost 2 hours. After we had been waiting for a while Gregory called to let us know that the older sisters of the "little girl" wanted to adopt her. They had been notified that we were interested in adopting the "little girl" but they wanted her to stay here in that area. It is very frustating since they had only visited her a couple of times since she had been placed at the orphanage and had not proceeded with the adoption themselves. Since they had not proceeded with the adoption for the last few years the "little girl" had been placed on the avaliable list at the SDA to be adopted internationaly. The Inspector requested that the "Older Sister, who is married" come by 1:00pm to sign papers to petition for adoption. The sister did come by and sign the papers, we also had to get a paper stating we had voided this adoption. So then we headed back to Kiev (by now it is 2:30pm). We got back to our old apartment around 11:00pm and we are all very tired. Ira will be talking to the SDA tomorrow to get us another appointment to view more profiles of children. She said that since this was not our fault that we should get another appointment fairly quickly and we should also be able to see newer files of children. We should know by tomorrow when our appointment is. Thank you for all of your comments. It is very supportive. Please keep us in your prayers.

Relaxing Friday

Here we are taking in a few sights in the main part of Kiev. The square is called Independence Square. The architechture is very interesting. As you can see they have very visable McDonalds. We slept in today, which was nice since we are still trying to get use to the time change. We went to a coffee shop, which had very good teas, coffees, deserts as well as main course items. We had coffee and desert. Richard got a wireless internet card the computer and then we took some pictures. Jacob has been feeling homesick, so today was his day. We played all the games he wanted, watched a movie and had a tickle fight.

Irnia called this evening let us know the approval document to visit the girl has come through. She is now trying to find the best was to get us to the orphange. There is a lot going on in Kharkiv this weekend and the hotels are booked up. She is trying to find us an apartment to rent. We will probably be taking a car instead of the train on Monday. We will find out tomorrow what the plans are. Thank for all of your support and comments.

The SDA Appointment

The State Department of Adoption and Children's Rights (SDA)is the government office that we went today. Irania our translator came to our apartment around 11:30am to take us to SDA for our appointment at 12:00pm. We went into the side entrance to wait to be called. We waited for another family to finish with their appointment, which ended about 12:20pm. We were escorted upstairs into the psychologist office. The psychologist was very nice and started showing us 4 year old girls some of them were mentally delayed. A couple looked promising. She then found a 6 year old girl with rheumatoid arthritis. We asked for them to call to see if she was avaliable. The psychologist made several calls but could not locate where the child was. So back to the files we go. She talked about a 10 year that was healthy. We mentioned that we wanted to keep our son as the oldest. She then showed us some 8 year olds but many of them were very sick. She then talked again about the 10 year old. She said that she was a good nature child. We talked and have decided to visit her in Kharkiv which about 300 miles east of Kiev. We are waiting on a referal to go and see her. We could be traveling Sunday evening or Monday morning. We are very thankful for all of your prayers.

Aimee

Tomorrow is the big Day!!!

I'm sitting here at 8:30 pm local time entering in today's post. Everyone else in snuggled in their beds snoring (very loudly). We did a little sight seeing today. We went to independence square and went shopping for the bare necessaries. One of the bad things about living in the middle of town is that there aren't big grocery markets nearby. If we don't leave before the weekend, we are going to have to go out any buy some main items. Mainly toilet paper. We were told to bring an emergency ration of paper (by the way, the small rolls located in the camping section of Wal Mart are the perfect size and easily store in suitcases) and we have enough to last at least a couple of days. You can't even get TP from the public restrooms. You pay to use the toilet but you still have to furnish the paper products. WOW. A country boy like me understands using what is at hand, but at least throw us a bone...

I also took my first shower today. Hot water is also a luxury around here. We do have a water heater but it is only on 12 hours a day. Needless to say, the coldness of the first part of the shower just made the warm part that must more enjoyable. All in all we are fairing very good. My son and I sleep on the bed (my wife and I can't sleep on a bed smaller than king size. If we do it is inevitable that I will invade her sleeping space. Retaliation is then swift and merciless. My wife is sleeping on one couch and my moher-in-law is sleeping on the other. It works out.

Now for tomorrow. Our facilitator Gregory (Which I highly recommend) sat down with us and gave us the scoop. Our meeting is at noon tomorrow and our translator (Ira)will be able to go in with us to see and help us at the SDA. This is grea news. It will be a big help having her with us. Next we will be shone girls between 4 and 7 that are available for foreign adoption (Please pray that we will recognize the girl that God has picked out for our family). After that, we will see if we will be able to travel to the orphanage on Friday or over the weekend. Gregory (who I stil highly recommend) told us that unless we can getto the regional office before COB Friday, we will not be able to see the child until Monday. We will be make those plans after our meeting tomorrow.

So from the cool Ukraine (currently 41 and overcast) I bid everyone a good night and we'll update you tomorrow.

Richard
TTFN (Ta Ta For Now)

Arrived in the Ukraine

We have arrived in Kiev a little tired from the flight of 10 hours but ok. I wish we all could have slept like Jacob did. Our facilitator Gregory meet us at the airport. Gregory is from South Carolina and is living here in Kiev teaching at a private school and helping families with adoption. His wife is an unkrainian. He hired a driver to take us to our apartment. Our apartment is nice by Ukraine standards. We have a washing machine, internet and so far hot water. A queen size bed and two couches. We are right in the middle of Kiev, close to many things even McDonalds. Our appointment with the SDA (government adoption dept.) is on Thursday morning. We pray the Lord gives us clarity and wisdom on the child we will be chosing from the profiles the SDA gives us. Thank you for all of your prayers.

Aimee

Twas the night before Departure...

Twas the night before departure and all through the house. Everyone was in a panic even my mouse. Just kidding. Well not really panic just organized chaos.

It has taken one year and a 1/2 to get to this point. A few minutes of frantic activity followed by weeks of waiting. All that is now over. Tomorrow we will be taking a plane to Ukraine via JFK. It is 9:00 pm in Atlanta and we are still deciding the final things to take with us. It has definitey been a tough decision. However Aimee has packed everything that the three of us need for 4 to 8 weeks in 2 suitcases and 3 backpacks. Sweet!

Richard