Our Second day in Ukraine...Running a marathon!

We are actually on our 9th day here... but I am trying to catch up on my blog... sorry this is late. Internet access difficult. I have every day journaled on my laptop, but because I can not connect to this old computer at the guest house I have to retype the whole thing... so tonight I can only get to day 2---------------

Second day...
Today we had our first official adoption appointment wwith the SDA. Our appointment was conveniently scheduled for 11 am. Last night Natilia, our lawyer arranged for one of her driveers to come and pick us up at 9:45 and drive us into the city center where the SDA office is.

We had a good night sleep. I don't think either one of us moved during the night. We were so exhausted from the flight.

We woke up this morning before the alarm and got ready and went downstairs to wait for our driver. (Arranged by our lawyer) At about 9:30 we got a call from Nataila. It seems that the driver had a conflict and could not come to get us. She had called 4 cabcompanies and noone had anyone that they could send to us. We would have to find a way to the SDA ourselves-- perhaps we could bet a cab on the street?

We did not feel confident to do this ourselves so we called our missiooonary friend Oleg for advice. We explained the situation and he said he would make a call to see if someone could drive us. He called back and said that there was too much traffic for us to make our appointment in time by car. We could make better time by taking the Metro. He said he would take us there, and that sounded good to us.

Oleg suggested we save some time by meeting him outlide the base. He told us to go out from the boat, go left, walk oover to the next big boat on the river and walk up the stairs drom the river to the street. I thought he wanted us to continue walking left and he would meet us on the way. We walked and ran at times thinking if we ran we could make up for some lost time.

We walked/ran for quite a way until we came to an overpass. Not seeing Oleg anywhere I gave him a call to let him know where we were. He said I had misunderstood his directions. He wanted us to walk over the the next big boat and wait for him at the stairs. When I told him we were at an overpass, near a hotel and I could see the Metro going over the bridge to the city, he sounded sick. "Oh no, I told you to go in the wrong direction" So in a complete panic, we decided to head back towards the base and meet him there.

So... here we go again, in the opposite direction... walking and running as fast as we could. The old hip joints not very happy about this sudden imposition on them. We ran all the way back to the base where we finally met up with Oleg. Wnen we explained to him where we had just run from, he looked ill. We DID go in the right direction. John and I had walked/ran to just a few yards from where the Metro was!!!!!!!!!!!!!

Now what to do... the clock was ticking. Run back in the direction of the bridge again? "Please NO!" cried my hip joints. Oleg saved the day-- and my joints by getting us on a bus which took us almost to the door of the metro station. From there we hopped on a train and changed to a connecting train. We made it to the city center in great time--much faster than you could have by car. In the meantime, I had told Natalia that we were on our way. She kept calling us every 15 minutes to find out where we were. After the second train, we ran to the incline train. Thank God there was an incline train. It is a unique train that travels up the hill at a 45 degree angle. I could NEVER have walked that hill and made our appointment alive! As it was, we got on the train and I was huffing and puffing like an old smoker who had just ran a marathon.

Once off the incline train we only to walk about half a block to meet Natalia wwho had been waiting for us out in the cold. After alll that running and stress, we were only 10 minutes late for our appointment. Thank the good Lord!

We went up one flight to a small but neat office where a lovely young woman greeted us warmly and our interview began. They told us normally the interviews lasted about an hour, but since we had identified children that we wanted to adopt through hosting, our interview would only take about 15 minutes! WOW.

We found out a few new bits of info about the boy's circumstances before the orphanage and showed the photos of Sasha and Artur in America that we had brought with us. The Psychologist thanked us for our willingness to adopt older children and the interview was over. I felt that we had met with someone who genuinely cared about the children and was happy for us.

So now our first big hurdle was over, and tomorrow we go back with Natalia to get our letter of approval to visit the boys. We are scheduled to meet Natalia at the SDA at 4pm and Oleg wwill accompany us again. This time we will not have to stress out the old hips and we will walk only once to our meeting place at the bridge...walk not run!

After our meeting we took Oleg out for lunch-- the least we could do for him after he gave up his afternoon to take us to our appointment. We went to a Ukrainian cafeteria style restaurant where I had some traditional meat dumplings and borscht. John had a fried chicken cutlet and potatoes. I thought the food was just great. I actually love Ukrainian food and have enjoyed everything I have tried so far.

We walked around a little in the square in Kiev and took some photos fo the famous churches and statures before heading back to the base.

That pretty much sums up our second dy in Ukraine. a confusion filled morning, but through it all, we could see how God took care of us and blessed us.

Tomorrow morning, we have an invitation for breakfast at the home of Nadia and Oles, one of the Directors at the YWAM base.

More to come....