Day 15 - We Receive a Court Date

Hello from Kiev, Ukraine to all of our friends, family and everyone who is kind enough to follow our story.  At times, it seems our living in Kiev, Ukraine has no end in sight but we know that with each passing day, we are one day closer to bringing our family home to America.  Thanks for all of your prayers and kind words of encouragement.  Also, a special thanks to everyone who is having to take up slack for us at our jobs. 

Today, just our facilitator and I had to travel to the village / regional court to finish filing the necessary documents to allow us to submit for / obtain a court date for our adoption hearing.  Our facilitator has done an amazing job to coordinate all of the needed information and documents, especially considering the unexpected challenges thrown at us including inconsistent off days due to a national holiday, the social worker having to travel out of town for a conference and the orphanage being closed for upgrades before school starts.  But, prayer and diligence has paid off.

I was needing encouragement this morning and the Lord never disappoints.  A close friend gave us several cards to bring with us with instruction to open one at the beginning of each week.  This was very thoughtful and each card has helped us emotionally and spiritually.  Today's card contained a verse from scripture:  Psalm 145:13(b) states "The Lord is faithful to His promises and loving toward all He has made".  Reading this brought to mind 2 Corinthians 5:17 which proclaims "Therefore if anyone is in Christ, he is a new creation; the old has gone and the new has come."  These scriptures lifted my spirits and strengthened my faith today. 

So, off I went at about 9:15 towards the region / villages with our trusty facilitator (insert "Mission Impossible" theme music here), leaving Angelia to hang out alone with the kids today.  During our drives, our facilitator is tolerant of my never-stop-talking personality and our discussions are always very interesting.  When we arrived in the region, I waited in the car for a while then got out to walk around the little village a bit because the cooler weather and sunny skies were just too hard to resist.  I noticed a fairly large, half-circle, brick / masonry wall standing out in the open by itself and it turns out that it was a World War II memorial.  I found two names on the wall that match the paternal last names of our children.  Knowing they were born in or very near this village, I couldn't help but wonder if they might be related to these two brave men who gave their lives fighting for their country.  If I go back there, I might take a paper and rub the names just in case I ever have an opportunity to find out.  After about an hour or so, we left for the 20 km drive to the court building.  I was encouraged as our facilitator got out of the car to head into the court building.  As the car door was closing, he looked at me and said "pray".  I literally took this to be an urging from the Holy Spirit so I began praying.  I then sent a text to Angelia asking her to pray.  I then prayed some more.  After about 45 minutes, our facilitator came out and told me that our court date was set for Monday, September 6th at 3:00 p.m.  This is such a great blessing from the Almighty and I am grateful for His gift.  I also appreciate all the prayers for us to get a court date soon.  Consider this a prayer answered!  The next big step is that we need a favorable court finding for us to become adoptive parents for the kids.  Although I'm sure you all have much to pray over, I humbly ask that you would add this to your list.

When I arrived at the apartment in Kiev, the cupboard was bare which meant a trip down Mount KievKilamanjaroEverestK2.  We decided to hike down for dinner and supplies.  Mainly, dinner, but the oxygen masks we need for climing at this altitude were running low too so we had to venture out.  We ate at a pizza place whose name literally translates to "Papa John's".  I admit, seeing this sign got my pulse rate up and I didn't really care as much as normal as I was crossing a very busy street in one of those pedestrian striped cross-walks.  Now, I have the right of way but if I get killed then my argument to support this wouldn't really get that far.  But, I didn't care... Papa John's pizza was on the other side of the street.  I was pretty good at the video game "Frogger" back in the day but it's a little more challenging when you are pulling other people along by the arm.  As we sat down, the waitress said "we will need menus in English" and I knew I was in the right place.  I wish you could have seen the waitress's face after she asked if the pizza I ordered was for two people and my reply was "nyet" (with just a hint of southern drawl).  I managed to polish that pizza off so fast that Angelia was a little embarrassed, a baby nearby started crying and a couple of folks across the way from us moved to a table upstairs. No one was injured but I now know that I tend to over-eat when I look out the window and see the first ridge of the snow-capped mountain we have to climb going back home.  By the way, I am 100% sure this is not the same Papa John's that is present in America but maybe the store is taking a certain freedom with their marketing to attract Americans.  No copyright infringement has been breached in my recounting these events.  :-)

We wandered in and out of the grocery store without much news.  One item of note, we found some jars of peanut butter.  I don't think they get that here much because in the past, friends here have asked us to bring it from America.  I tested it when we got home by dipping some "Roshen" milk-chocolate bars down into the peanut butter.  If I'm not mistaken, this is how Reese's was discovered.  I may have that for breakfast.

Just one other observation.  We were recently having to wait in an area with lots of other people and Tolya was wandering around alot and acting up a little.  After asking him a few times to not wander away from us, I finally pulled him over with us and pointed to a painted square on the floor and told him to not get out of the square.  Of course, he went right up to the line and put his feet on it but not across it.  I realized that is how we do with God many times.  We don't believe His instruction that the sin on the other side of that line leads to death, destruction and misery.  Our pride and rebellious attitude sends us right to the line, testing God.  If we truly love God and place our faith in His truth and loving guidance for us, we should stay as far away from the line as possible.

Tolya sharpens his "street-style" using my sunglasses

Goodnight from Kiev, Ukraine everyone!

Day 14 - Timing is Everything

Hello to all of our friends and family in the States.  We miss you all and thank you for continuing to keep up with how things are going for us.  We appreciate all of the encouragment and, most importantly, the prayers that y'all send our way. 

I didn't get to bed until about 1:00 a.m. last night and 7:30 a.m. came too early.  I admit, I was pretty grouchy when I got up.  When you add to this the fact that I had no caffeinated drinks this morning (a.k.a. "Pepsi Light") then you can imagine I was not my normal, cheerful self.  :-)  Thankfully, my wife is very patient and understanding and tolerates my occasional grouchiness.   In the midst of this grouchy moment, we had made plans to attend church services with my friend Dima.  Our plan was to grab a taxi outside the apartment, show them the address for the church which was on my cell phone, and get there by 9:45 a.m.  Well, I had to make sure this taxi thing was possible before going through getting ready, etc. and when I walked outside, there were no taxis.  Now, during the week, there would be several sitting right outside our apartment but not today.  Thankfully, when I called my friend Dima, he was willing and able to help us by calling a taxi to come pick us up.  Sometimes, we have to battle through the darkness around us to reach the light and I'm thankful that we were able to overcome challenges and attend church services.  Thankfully, I was my normal cheery self by the time we got into the taxi.  (Thanks Holy Spirit!)

The kids were able to attend church with us today.  This same church visited the orphanage where the kids live on August 7, 2010 for a three day vacation bible school type event.  Several people at the church recongnized Vicka and Tolya and vice versa.  It was nice to see people be excited to see the kids and recall their time together in early August.  God is good and He is at work in immeasurable ways.

The music worship included the song "How Great is Our God" by Chris Tomlin.  I love this song and enjoy singing it at our home church.  Singing it in English while everyone else was singing in Ukrainian was very uplifting.  The sermon was from the last chapter of the Gospel of John.   This chapter describes the difference between working with God's presence versus without Him.  Also, we learn that believers who meet the person of the risen Christ still have a choice to make in what we decide to do afterwards.  At the beginning of the chapter, Peter returned to doing what he did before meeting Christ (this was, fishing) and some of the other disciples just followed His example.  All of us have someone that looks up to us in some way.  It could be our children, a co-worker, a fellow believer, a friend, etc.  Considering this, do you as a believer in Christ influence others towards Him?  Or, are you indifferent to how you influence them?  Or, by your actions do you lead them away from Christ?  We see from the last portions of the chapter that Jesus sought out the disciples and their meeting with the physically resurrected Christ had an immediate impact.  As we know from the book of Acts, Peter would later continue Christ's command for Him to be a "fisher of men" and, as a single example of many, 3,000 people accepted Christ at Penetcost.  What a great worship service and message we had today.

Also during the service, we met another American family who was in Kiev finalizing the adoption of their two children.  They were from an area outside Chicago and they were hoping to head home on Thursday. 

We came back to the apartment and decided to cook us and the kids some hot dogs for lunch.  I found we were out of ketchup.  While Angelia started cooking, I make a quick ... well not so quick... trip down the highest mountain in our solar system.  I'm not losing weight but I am developing superior leg strength!  :-)  One interesting fact about our lunch today.  We bought these hot dogs because they looked similar to the ones in America.  Someone in Ukraine has learned the importance of packaging a product because when they were opened, each individual hot dog was covered in a pink, plastic film to give them the appearance of American wieners.  In reality, these suckers were white as milk.  Thankfully, the chemical reaction between the "whiteness" and the oil they were being fried in resulted in a nice, brown, crispy shell.  And, the bread we put them into is actually used to remove teeth in 3rd world countries.  None the less, the end result was a pretty tasty lunch.  I am worried that if we stop supplying the kids with "Cheesy Cheese Pringles" (for Vicka) and Ketchup (for Tolya), they might full out revolt.  I am buying every can of Pringles that I pass and when the ketchup gets to half a bag (and yes, I said bag which is how it is packaged here), the fear causes me to run down the mountain.  I don't run back up because it hurts too much!

Now, we don't watch much tv because we don't understand the channel headings and we don't want to turn to a channel that would be inappropriate for the children or us.  But, we were able to watch a movie today as a family group.  There is nothing like watching the movie "Convoy" (circa 1978) in Ukraine language.  The kids were engrossed by the action and the superior plot.  Nothing keeps your kids entertained like a bunch of renegade truck drivers trying to put it to "da man".  Unfortunately, we don't know if there was foul language being used (because of TV station being in Ukrainian) but I suspect there was.  I was glad the police prevailed so that our children know that it's best to abide by the law.

Grilled cheese sandwiches and fried taters wrapped up our evening.

As I am typing this, I must say, the washing machine in this apartment is one amazing piece of equipment.  The fact that it thouroughly cleanses our laundry during the 2.5 hour cycle pales in comparison to the ability it's spin cycles have to reach G-forces unattainable by modern aircraft.  How our clothes don't come out either ripped to shreds or completely dry is a mystery to me.  I may have to try and record the audio of this thing hitting top speed because it is surely a sight and sound to behold!  This is one bad mama-jamma!

Tomorrow, I head up to the region with our facilitator to file some documents and hopefully get a court date established.  Ang will have to fend for herself but she will be able to hang with the kids.  Please help us by praying that we will recieve a court date in the later part of this week and that our process will continue to go along at a fast pace to a successful completion.

Just one other important reflection on today.  God is working in many, many ways to create a beautiful tapestry that shows His love for His children.  As I mentioned earlier, Dima's church visited the orphanage where our children live in early August.  Today, some of the people at church saw Vicka and Tolya and were excited to know we were trying to become a family.  They really became emotional because they said they had been praying to God that He would find families for all the children at that orphanage.  To see two of those children walk into their own church a few weeks later with parents trying to adopt them was an example to them and us that God hears and answers the prayers of those that love Him.  I encourage all of you tonight to read Luke 11:1-13 and be encouraged to pray to our Father in Heaven!

Thanks for all your love, prayers and support for us as we continue the adoption process!

Day 13 - One of Those Days

Hi everyone,

It's about midnight here in Ukraine.  There is not much to blog about today because we didn't do very much accept eat and wash clothes.  But, just to let you all know how it's going...

First of all, just a quick note to let everyone know that I have cleaned out all of the old posts on the blog.  I have saved them (along with your comments) in a MS Word file for posterity's sake. As I was reading through them, I was overcome with humble appreciation for all the prayer, support and interest you all have shown in how things are going with the adoption process.  Your kindness is encouraging us more than you can know. 

We didn't wake up until about 9:45 a.m. today.  I guess the fatigue of the last three days caught up to us.  We had cereal for breakfast and lounged around in pj's until guilt got the best of us around 1:00 p.m. or so.  We got dressed and walked down to McDonald's for lunch and then visited the grocery store to exchange some American money for Ukrainian currency.  We went on a little shopping spree at the grocery store and decided to try and fry something for dinner.  I mean, we are from the South so going without fried food for this long begins to take an effect on one's ability to run fast, think fast and walk up the highest mountain on three planets.  We chose chicken mcnugget looking things to fry.  Technically, these are pre-fried but I don't know if I can convince Angelia to let me try and fry some raw meat.  I think she secretely believes the plant that manufactures the chicken mcnugget looking things sanitized them at some point.  Picking out oil was a little bit of a chore because you never know if something has had some seasoning added to it.  We went with a bottle that had a picture of a sunflower on it - for sunflower oil. 

We did have an opportunity to hang out with the kids this afternoon.  I spent some time playing outside with them.  It started raining and we just stayed outside anyway.  One thing that was worth mention is that when it started raining, I kind of headed for an awning over the door.  The kids came under with me but they were smiling and sticking their hands out in the water.  I just sensed that they were appreciative of the rain and that they wanted to just play in it so out we went.  We just played in the rain for about 45 minutes.  We kicked ball, threw a frisbee and then just started splashing each other with water puddles, etc.  We got soaked but we had great fun.  Once again, a lady that lives in an apartment upstairs came to the window and just sat smiling as she watched us all play.  It's great to see other people smile, especially children!

Playing in the rain with Vicka and Tolya

My good friend Dima (who lives here in Kiev) called today and we are going to try and attend worship services at his church tomorrow morning.  We are excited to attend his church again.  We both miss worshiping the Lord with a body of believers.  We will have to track down a taxi and give them the address so hopefully this will work out.

After getting a bath, I settled in to cook dinner.  The frying pan is becoming so important to me that I am considering giving it a name.  I actually pet... er... polished on it and talked to it a little before putting it in the dish rack.  :-).  The sliced up potatoes, or "home fries", along with the chicken mcnugget things were pretty good so we can add one more meal to our repitoire.  We are now have spaghetti, fried potatoes, fried eggs, grilled cheese sandwiches and chicken mcnugget things on our menu so things are shaping up pretty good.  But still, I would sorely like to have a basket of warm chips, some queso and some fajita chiken quesidillas from Habanero's about now.  Vicka was looking through some pictures from her time in America the other day and came across some pictures of us eating ribs at Dreamland and she said "Yum, Yum, Yum".  A slab with some 'nanna puddin' would be pretty good right now too... okay... subject change :-)

Once again, our bible study time today occurred at night.  Tonight, Angelia and I read Psalm 47 as praise & worship.  The Psalm begins by telling us to "clap our hands" and "Shout to God with great joy".  It goes on to tell us many times to "sing praises" to God.  Psalm 47 goes on to affirm that "God is King over all the earth" ,that "God reigns over all the nations", that "God sits on His holy throne" and that "God is highly exalted".   I have so much to be thankful for and full of joy about.  Joy is the theme of a Christ centered life.  With Christ, your salvation is secure, you have power over sin and darkness, you have freedom to live a life dedicated to loving and serving others.  As it is written, "with God, all things are possible".  How can that not bring joy to a believer?  How I wish that I and all other believers would allow joy to permeate our actions and our demeanor.  Scripture tells us that Christ expect that our "joy will be complete".  Now that I reflect on the day, I think that I saw a glimpse of the kind of joy that scripture talks about when I saw the children react to the rain.  As the rain fell, they lifted up their hands, closed their eyes and smiled as the water poured down and then they began to dance and play.  I think all of us could take a lesson from them on how to react when the rains come.  My prayer tonight is that my joy will be complete in Christ, my Savior, and that I will put more effort to singing His praises with songs of great joy!

Goodnight from Kiev, Ukraine!