This weeks update!

It has been a non-stop two days trying to gather documents for completing all the paperwork, saying goodbye to new friends, a congratulation party/dinner at the home of some dear friends (that was an unexpected blessing and surprise), more running around for documents, another visit with the children's Grandma, Jenya hanging out, friends stopping by and, in the midst, trying to deal with the realities of life for a family of 6 like food 3+ times a day!



The Lord is so amazing though; He provides each step of the way and continues to encourage us to just do the next thing and not try to control the timing or outcome. We are in His hands and our job is to be obedient and follow Him.

We now have birth certificates with their new names (and our names as their parents). We visited the passport office and will return there tomorrow with more documents. Natalia continues to work on various deed issues. Our hope is to have the passports in hand and leave Odessa by Monday and arrive in Kiev on Tuesday morning. If that works, we should make our flight out on October 1st. If not, we will have to wait in Odessa for passports and we will keep you posted of our travel plans. Please pray for Monday! Financially it will be difficult to wait much longer.


Tomorrow and Friday will also be very busy with trips to lots of different offices. When possible, Carol has been traveling with Natalia to try to accomplish things and Steve has been keeping everyone occupied with walks, board games, and visits with friends. Fortunately, there is a nice park and playground nearby. Tonight, Steve took them to the small group prayer meeting, while Carol and Natalia remained at the passport office until after 7pm. It was nice evening for the walk to Ron's apartment (it's about a mile one way) and the group offered a prayer of blessing on the children's lives, that the languages barriers would be quickly overcome and that the children would quickly integrate into our family. We are so thankful for the Church.

Thanks so much to everyone for all the encouraging emails and comments. We eagerly anticipate those each morning. Your prayers are more precious than you will ever know. Looking forward to seeing you soon.

Love,
Steve and Carol

GALIA'S ART

In His Hands

LYONYA AND PASHA SAY GOODBYE TO THEIR CLASS

Hi Everyone,
The weekend was nothing that we thought it would be. For that matter neither was today, but all four children are finally with us and we are praising Jesus!

We arrived at Internot #4 this morning at 11:15 as planned but as we let the children change into the clothing we brought and waited for a regional representative to arrive, the director left the property. She walked right past us with not a word. We were told we would have to wait for her return. By 3pm Carol called Natalia, as she had walked down the street to get something to eat, and told her something needed to be done. We were ready to file a formal complaint with the SDA. (We needed to get to Internot #9 by 4:30 to meet with Andrei's director.) We had a court order, we had waited our 10+ days and now we needed the director present to sign the children out. Within 30 minutes of Natalia notifying the director's secretary of our intentions, the director returned to the Internot, signed the documents, apologized and wished us a happy life. It's that way with a lot of things here. I guess, if the truth be told, it is that way with life anywhere. Power and control are the only things some people have. Pretty sad actually. We pray the Lord will bless this director and radically change her life. He sure had plenty to deal with today in our own hearts and attitudes.



GALIA SAYS GOODBYE TO CLASSMATES


STEVE LEAVES #4 WITH LYONYA, PASHA, AND GALIA


Steve left Internot #4 with Lyonya, Pasha, and Galia by bus while Carol and Natalia proceeded on to #9 to sign out Andrei. The difference was night and day. The whole process took about 45 minutes, 15 of which was spent with Andrei hugging his teachers and classmates. By 5:30pm Carol and Andrei were on the bus headed to meet everyone else at the apartment.

The whole lot of us were very hungry...especially since some of us missed lunch....so we made a quick walk to the super market. That was a sight. All six of us walking thru this narrow market and loading up on supplies. We made pasta with a a white mushroom sauce and salad (without lettuce). Andrei ate the most! Three helpings! They are all so very thin. We can't wait to see them a month from now.

DINNER IN THE APARTMENT

After dinner, showers, one flood in the bathroom, reading of Jesus calming the storm in Russian then in English, many hugs and kisses, all four kids fell asleep amongst giggles. We wondered if they even remember the last time they were all able to sleep in the same place.

Tomorrow we will head out early to work on their new birth certificates. We will let you know the outcome....we have no expectation and that's probably a good thing. It's all in His hands.

God is on His Throne

Not the Friday we wanted, but God knows best. We will not have the children with us until Monday, but we have been given an exact time to meet at the orphanage to sign them out that morning. The children are disappointed, but satisfied that we have a countdown time.

Work has begun on the deed issues. Please pray about that for us. This can be costly and time consuming. We are praying for the Lord's protective hand on this situation. We have an appointment Tuesday morning to obtain new birth certificates and then we will be waiting on passports. If things go as it appears we could be in Kiev by the end of next week. We will see how things progress.

Weekend plans include a visit with Andrei in the morning, some shopping in the afternoon, a concert in a different park tomorrow night again by the city orchestra that Pasha's teacher, Sasha, plays with (he invited us today). Sunday morning we hope to attend the church nearby to say our goodbyes to these new friends. Sunday afternoon we plan to go to #4 to visit with the children and say our goodbyes to the other children. That evening we will move to the bigger apartment. We could try to squeeze into this one bedroom with the children, but we also have Natalia with us, so a two bedroom place will be much better for the 7 of us! :o) It should be a full weekend!

For now we will spend a quiet Friday evening. I think we will need the rest for tomorrow. Please pray the Lord will continue to cover us with His wings.Hope you all have a wonderful weekend.
Blessings,
Carol and Steve

He can...

As we said yesterday, this week we have spent a lot of time with Jenya. We haven't discussed it out loud, but we all know the time is drawing near for our departure.

Most afternoons we go to watch Lyonya and Pasha play basketball at #4. Lyonya loves playing basketball. Jenya proudly says he taught him!


AFTERNOON BASKETBALL (Pasha is in the green Mexico shirt and Lyonya is in the red and white stripe shirt)


PASHA'S MUSIC LESSON


Andrei is always excited to see us waiting to visit. He comes running down the long, steep flight of purple stairs to spend a little time with us before it would be time for him to go back inside for the evening meal.





Our evenings are enjoyable. One night we stop at a friends apartment to share dinner,visit and encourage each other a little before catching the bus downtown to spend a few hours with Jenya, another night we attend a small prayer meeting at another friends apartment. There is never enough time for all we want to do and see and experience. The time here is just seems to fly by.

We asked Jenya a lot of questions this week about the trade school he attends. As best we can understand with the language barriers, Jenya attends the trade school that is offered to orphans when they graduate. He is studying mechanics. We're told that most of the graduates never make it thru the school. It seems that they are taught some of the basics of their field, but if they want anything advanced there are additional fees. Of course they have no means of paying an additional fee. They receive a small stipend from the government if they stay in the program but that may or may not show up and then it is barely enough to survive. The school day last from early morning to six or seven in the evening so there is not much chance to work. It is a four year program. The living conditions in the dorms is pretty difficult. It's almost impossible for these orphans to break out of the cycle.

It's so difficult knowing these are our children and leaving them each night in the orphanage. Only a few more days...only a few more days....but what about the ones we will leave behind. Please pray with us for these children. They also need a hope and a future. They need His glory to fall on their young lives and transforms them into His own children. We might not be able to take them all home, but He can!

During the wait....

Our Apartment

This week has been our waiting time. Things are pretty much rolling along.
We spend our days visiting the orphanages, (one one day, the other the next) and our evenings with Jenya or friends. Jenya has taken us sightseeing several more times and likes to show us the special spots in town.


Last night after a short walk through the city he took us to a Turkish kiosk to have a bite of baklava. We buy some each year at the Greek festival in Columbia, but we have to admit this stuff was amazing! It melts in your mouth.

Having spent 4 of the last 6 nights with Jenya I can't imagine how hard it will be for him when we leave. Please be praying for him as he makes this transition in life. He's a really special fellow.



Here are some photos from the last week to enjoy. We are still praying that the paperwork can be processed Friday and we can sign the children out of the orphanages. If not, it will be Monday. We will let you know how it goes. Trusting it will all be in His perfect timing.

Steve and Carol


Horse in the street.

Courtyard view from our apartment.

Galia sewed a pillow.

Hard Hugs from little girls at Andrei's orphanage.

This cute little girl wants to be a ballerina.

The carrots grow extra large here!

Day 5 of 10 day wait...

Sunday September 13, 2009

Friday we visited both #4 and #9 so we were pretty tired as we took the bus toward the apartment. We had a call from Lena to please stop by on our way since we would pass her apartment before we caught our second bus. When we arrived, we were so hot and tired. She was preparing dinner in hopes we would stay. That didn't take much convincing! Lena said she had something she wanted to share with us. The day before when we had gone shopping, she had cleaned some trash out of one of the pockets of a jacket we had purchased. Later that night when she got home she looked at the trash that she had stuffed into her own pocket. Some of it was trash, but one piece was a paper Euro. She was shocked. We had prayed for deals and this euro equaled about half of what we had spent at that second hand store. She wanted to give it back to us. God is so amazing at showing up in ways we would never expect.

Our picnic lunch with the children yesterday was nice and Southern. We had chicken salad sandwiches and sweet tea. The kids were happy and it was a pleasant afternoon. The children's Grandma had checked the children out of the internot for the weekend so they were planning to spend the evening with Jenya and Grandma.

We had been invited by Pasha's music teacher, Sasha, to a concert at the park around the corner from our apartment. Last week when we had asked if he would play us a sample of his music, he instead, invited us to hear the city orchestra Saturday evening. We didn't realize how different a concert in the park is here from at home. There was a large crowd, with many people dancing all along the front of the gazebo in the park. One little girl was especially cute. We waved to Sasha to let him know we were there.

SASHA,(on far right) PASHA'S FRENCH HORN TEACHER PLAYS IN CITY PARK


LITTLE GIRL DANCING IN THE PARK

This morning we awoke to no electricity and no internet. Every now and then the city turns things off. Not sure why, repairs maybe…who knows. After a very cold shower, we decided to visit Andrei in the morning and attend an English speaking church later in the afternoon. It worked out well, as we arrived at #9 in time to console Andrei after he had a run in with some of the other kids. It appears that once someone is “chosen” there is a lot of grief dished out. We encouraged Andrei that it will only be a few more days. In English, he said, “Andrei, Lyonya, Pasha, Galia, soon, Kiev, America!” We are all ready to be together. Please pray that the children can be signed out on Friday the 18th instead of having to wait until the following Monday.

It's been a tiring weekend so we will close for tonight. More details to come.