Today's blog covers three days. I'm sorry for it being kind of long to read but I will do my best to keep it as brief as possible.
I haven't read Scripture for a few days now and I can surely tell. My patience has not been where it should be. Friday and Saturday provided a lesson for me from Scripture about pride. During the small amount of traveling I have done in Europe and the several trips I've now made to Ukraine, it's obvious that people here do not extend common courtesy or politeness to each other. This may be the case in larger cities in America as well but I just feel it's much more prevalent here. As I was standing in the line at the grocery store on Friday morning, a lady just jumped right in front of me. She was very arrogant about it and I just spoke up and asked her if she could see me standing in line. She spoke some English and this allowed for a bit of back and forth argument. After a couple of minutes, I just said, "go ahead lady, I don't expect anything different because this entire country is rude to people". She replied, "you know, you shouldn't insult our country". As I left, the store, the walk back up the mountain gave me time to cool off and reflect. She was right in many ways. I shouldn't have insulted her or the country. I should have just exercised some kindness and patience and let the lady pay for her item and move on. But, swallowing pride is very difficult to do. I think that if we all really take time to examine ourselves, it's easy to see that pride is the most difficult sin for us to admit to and resist temptation of. We may not want to admit it, but we all like to be better than someone else at something, look better than someone else, have more or nicer stuff than others, and generally try and find some reason to elevate ourselves above others. As we read Scripture in Luke 22:24-30, we see that even the disciples fell victim to prideful thinking. Jesus commands for those that love him to humbly serve others. One beautiful example of this is shown when Jesus' washes the feet of the disciples before they eat their last meal together. The greatest example was Him humbling himself to be placed on a cross and bear the punishment that God intended for me. My prayer today is that God will show me the prideful areas of my life and that He will remove them from me so that I can better serve others and Him.
We spent part of the day on Friday with the kids teaching them English / Alphabet / Counting. After only about 4 sessions, Tolya knows the English alphabet all the way to the letter "T" and he can count in English from 1 - 10. Vicka works on reading, writing and math in English on a daily basis and she is progressing pretty fast as well. I am proud of both of them. Taking advice of other international adoptive families, we have decided when we get home to America, it's probably best to make it a rule that we (and they) only speak in English. This will help them progress into their new language skills out of necessity.
Friday ended alot better than it began. My friend Dima who lives in Kiev invited Angelia and I to visit their home for dinner on Friday night. He even came and picked us up. I can't tell you how excited I was to see that his lovely wife Anya had prepared taco salad for us, with all the fixin's. This was very thoughtful of Diman and his wife and we are grateful. The food was delicious and the company was quite wonderful. Even though I'm not a fan, I took time to try and explain NASCAR to Dima but I'm not sure is ready to stop following other sports for NASCAR racing. During the night, we found out (through Dima's translating) that Vicka would like to be a hair stylist when she grows up. Tolya said that he would like to be a "police car racer" when he grows up. I hope this doesn't translate to "I want to run from the police". LOL! If the way he is always acting like he is "on patrol" is an indication, he might really want to be a policeman someday. I have been arrrested twice by him already. LOL! We also found out that the kids favorite place to eat is McDonald's. Lucky for them because we sure go there alot. LOL!
Saturday began on a sad note because we received an e-mail from Angelia's brother that her Aunt Peggy passed away after health problems related to a long battle with cancer. She was a sweet lady and will be missed. I can honestly say, she was the exact opposite of the observations I have about people here not being polite to each other. Anytime Aunt Peggy saw you, her warm and standard greeting was to make sure that you were given a big hug and a kiss on the cheek! We pray for Uncle Jim because we know he is very sad, and that he misses her dearly. I am grateful for them being part of our family!
 |
| Our Aunt Peggy and Uncle Jim - We will miss you Aunt Peggy! |
For the rest of Saturday:
Although some games started earlier in the week, I'm sure you all know that Saturday marked the official start of college football in season in America. To celebrate, Angelia and I gave AU shirts to the kids that were sent with us by Ms. Nancy - a long time Hope Lodge volunteer and devoted UA fan. For those of you who live in Alabama, you can imagine that her purchasing AU shirts was a very sweet but difficult thing to do. LOL! I did spend some time trying to break the iron grip that soccer has on Tolya by showing him some YouTube video's of AU football games, the AU Eagle flying before games, etc. It got me more excited than it did him. We also found out that Vicka likes playing baseball. Sports teach us so much about life and hopefully we can find ways to get them involved in sports soon after getting them home.
 |
| Taylor family get's ready for College Football 2010 - War Eagle! |
Another fun thing we learned on Saturday is that the washing machine cycle to wash one load of clothes lasts for 2 hours and 24 minutes. As Angelia went to bed last night at about 9:00 p.m., she started a load of laundry. When I laid down (after the AU game was over at 6:00 a.m.) the washing machine was still washing that same load of clothes. I had to search for a manual on-line this morning because obviously, it was not working properly. I was able to find a manual for this model machine and was able to correct what was wrong and reduce the cycle time to 74 minutes. Yeah!!!!
I made the committment to stay awake and watch the AU game on-line. That didn't work out so I listened to the game via the internet. The game didn't begin until 2:00 a.m. here so I stayed up 21 hours straight. This was probably not a good idea because I have been tired today, for sure.
Sunday has been pretty low key. We didn't attend church today because I stayed up all night trying to catch the AU game. I'm sure that going to worship the Lord and sing his praises would have been much better for my spirit than a football game. My prideful, know-what's-best for me attitude got the best of me today. This afternoon, I asked Vicka to pick out between the two shirts and ties I brought to see which ones I should wear for our court appointment tomorrow. I think she really liked doing this - she is quite the fashionista and I am all set! LOL! Angelia was greatly encouraged by an e-mail she received from her friend Ginger today. Ginger's family is keeping our dog so we value their friendship now because they likely won't be friends after keeping our dog for so long. I received a call from my brother Mike and it was great to talk to him about how things are going at home. We even managed to talk about fishing and football some. It's hard to describe how much these things do to make us feel not so far from home.
 |
| Tim & Tolya being silly |
Our court date is Monday at 3:00 p.m. We pray for the Lord to prepare and bend everyone's heart so that we can continue finishing the process to becoming a family and returning home very soon. Thanks again for all your love, support, encouragement and prayers. We love and miss you all!
1 comment:
oHas anyone just out of curiosity asked you if the two children belong to you. They interestingly enough favor both of you even though in this grand scheme does not matter. Wondered if you had noticed it yourselves. Anyway was an observation. My husband is adopted by his father who married his birth mom. He and I always joke that the two of us will probably adopt a child that is very petite with blonde hair and blue eyes. I am 5'11 and he is 6'2 so we make a tall pair. My best friend's child has those features and she is many times asked if Maggie is the milkman's child which only makes Margaret mad because she is a very dark brunette with a california girl as I call her. We are prepared and excited for whichever child that we will be blessed with. I am excited as I always say for all of you. Additions to families that are positive in any form are a blessing. I pray that your court date goes well for you. It will as I feel about ours one day will be one of the most important days in your lives.
Post a Comment