Arriving Ukraine

Arriving Ukraine Sun, Mar 22, 2009

Well, we did it - we made it to Ukraine. We were picked up at the airport in Kiev by our missionary friend Oles and taken back to the YWAM(youth with a mission) facility, which is a houseboat. Great place, very comfortable - we are renting a room like hotel, it's great.

The language on the boat is english and russian, so it's very nice to have people speaking English. There are a few Americans, so it's comforting.

We crashed for a while, we were exhausted from traveling, and then we went to Oles and Nadya's apartment for dinner and conversation.  It is all becoming real to Michael who has never been here before! It is all new to him.

We slept a little, still a little screwed up from the time change, and our first appointment at the SDA was in the morning and we were picked up and taken there and we had our first meeting and the woman said that since we were NOT able to adopt Stas, did we pick out another child?

Our attorney said we WERE adopting Stas, and she conceded and went to get his file.  For some reason they keep trying to say we can't adopt Stas.  We just keep standing in faith that it works out.  We showed the woman there pictures of us with Stas in NY and it affected her...

So the paperwork was put through and we ended up taking the overnight train to Kharkov a day early!

You can't buy same-day tickets, but our attorney Natalia has connections and she got us some. We got a first-class sleeping car for me and Michael and Natalia's assistant Tania was in the next room. We had two sleeping bunks and a table, everything we needed and a brand new train - it was really nice. Very comfortable. We tried to sleep but still couldn't sleep much. We reached Kharkov at 6am after about 8 hours of traveling, and a driver picked us up to drive us to the orphanage.  We were exhausted.   

We actually drove to the guesthouse where we were going to stay with Olga, first - about an hours drive - and we ate and then went to the orphanage. There was a problem with the social worker not being there, we had to drive back to Kharkov to pick up the social worker and do a notary, then back to the orphanage.  When we saw Stas, he was excited and said "hi" and jumped into our arms.  

We spent time with him while the people worked on the paperwork.

Then Stas had to sit with them in the director's office and they asked him if he wanted to be adopted by us and go to America, he said yes, and if he would miss Ukraine, he said no.  He then had to write a letter saying all this.  He did a good job but he was nervous.

I don't think he thought he would have to wait a while before he would go with us - he has "short-itis" being in the orphanage and is ready to go.

We had a long day and said goodnight to Stas, and we were pooped.