Home

We are home!! It is so great to be here. All of our flights were on time and we acutally landed a bit early. Natalie got sick toward the end of the flights and Benjamin threw up this morning. But they are doing great now.

We were met at the airport by some wonderful friends and came home to some good old southern comfort food!! Natalie & Benjamin checked things out and then went outside to play. We ate a little, got showered and all were asleep by 8:30.

We woke up at 6:30 this morning, had breakfast & coffee, talked to some friends, played, went shopping and now all are gone bike riding at the park while I unpack and head to Walmart.

Our first day is going smoothly and we are the proud parents of 4 amazing children!!!!

Done!!!

Gotta say....our facilitator rocks! Zhenia left Kiev last night at 10:00 on a train headed for Poltava to pick up the childrens' passports. He arrived there at 4:00 and sat at the train station waiting for them!!! He said they would likely get there by 10:00 or 11:00.

We left the flat at 8:00 and dropped some documents off at the Embassy and then went to the medical center for the required physicals. Zhenia told us to be ready for to wait up to 2 hours, as they see children with their passports first. We went to Dr. Yuriy's office, gave him some papers and he showed us into his office. He immediately went to work with their physicals!!! Praise God. While we were there, Zhenia called and said he had our passports at 9:15!! I love it when God shows up and shows off!!!

David left to get some money to pay for the Embassy fees, as we were going to head straight back there to get paperwork started and pay the fees, and I stayed to finish things up at the medical center. After we left the Embassy, we went back to the flat for lunch and a rest. We then went to the Embassy. We were there about 2 hours and left with Visas in hand!! We thought we were going to have to go back in the morning and pick them up.

Celebration pizza for dinner and now we are resting and thinking about packing. Tomorrow we will head out around 12:30, grab some lunch at TGIFs and then go to the airport. Our plane leaves around 5:30. As I said before, we have a night layover in Paris, but are going to rough it in the airport.

Thank you for all of your prayers, emails, and encouraging words. We know that we could not have made it mentally, physically or spiritually without God or without your support!!!

In Kiev

We are finally in Kiev!! To back up a little, on Sunday we hung around together and on Monday, we packed and got ready to leave. On Sunday, we also had a party for Natalie's class. Alot of the children leave the orphanage on the weekends, so our party was about 7 boys and 2 girls. We had fun though. We brought them candy, fruit and toys. We talked with them and asked each other questions. They tried out their English on us and we tried on Russian on them. When we left, I had the opportunity to hug and kiss each child. It was a blessing for me!! On Monday, we were waiting on word about our passports and we found out that our passports were processed but did not get sent to Poltava. So, we made the plan to travel to Kiev this morning so that we could go to the medical center.

So, we got up at 5:00am and got dressed and started the last of the preparations. The kids got up around 6:15 and we headed out in a passenger van to Kiev- with Zhenia. The trip took about 4 hours. On the way over, we found out that we would not be able to go to the medical center due to some paperwork issues. So, we got settled into our flat. It's a pretty spacious place. We then walked to McDonald's and had lunch. David and I are pretty tired, but the kids are non-stop. Hopefully they will wear down early tonight.

The plan for tomorrow is to go the Embassy at 8:30 and give them some papers so that they can start work on the Visas'. We will then go the medical center and get the children's physicals done. Then we will wait on Zhenia, as he is going back to Poltava to retrieve the passports we have been waiting on. Once he returns, we will head to the Embassy to finish the paperwork on the Visas'. We hope to then get the Visas' on Thursday morning and we fly home that afternoon.

Now, you can see that many things must fall into place for everything to go as planned. We have encountered many delays and obstacles throughout the process. We ask you to pray for this end of our journey. Unless you have been here, one has no idea how things change from minute to minute and how people seem to make up rules as they go along. Please pray that all of the necessary paperwork will be completed in time for us to fly home on Thursday afternoon.