Hello everyone,

I realize that it has been a very long time since we have posted, and some of you were probably starting to wonder why you had even subscribed to our blog. I do apologize. We don’t have internet access at our apartment, so it is a bit of an ordeal to post. Now that things have calmed down, we think we will be able to write updates at night and then post them the next afternoon at the McDonalds which is about a ten minute walk from here. I am going to summarize the first few days very quickly, because I think Greg has been working on a journal entry which will become a blog post about those days. Just know that my quick summary won’t begin to do them justice, and you will have to wait for his post for the real story. We flew over to Kiev Saturday night into Sunday morning and the flight went as well as could be expected with two small children. They were tired and a bit cranky, but really did very well. Many of you know that we were still short a great deal of the funds that we needed when we left, and we had never communicated that to our facilitators in country. This mistake nearly cost us our daughter. They were understandably very angry when they found out what we had done, and were ready to send us home without Mikaela. Then God worked an amazing miracle through the generosity of His people, and we will be able to continue with her adoption. Praise God! Reading back over that, I am surprised by how calm and easy it sounds. That time was in no way calm or easy. It was the worst time I can ever remember, and the clearest work of God I have ever seen. Hopefully Greg’s post will be able to do it justice. Until then, I only want to add that we see God’s provision as a testimony to His goodness and love, and NOT any stamp of approval to the way that we had done things. We were wrong not to communicate with everyone, and we thank and praise Him that this mistake did not cost us Mikaela.

Now, on to more current events. On Tuesday we had our SDA appointment which was quick and uneventful. On Wednesday, we picked up our referral and boarded the 8:20 train to Simferopol. This was neither quick nor uneventful, but we did make it. Hopefully we will be able to go back and fill in some of those details too. It was pretty crazy. Wednesday night was fairly pleasant, although I didn’t sleep particularly well since I was sharing a tiny train bed with Gabriela. Meghan had to share her tiny train bed with Josiah, so I am guessing she didn’t sleep great either. She is a wonderful sport about everything and didn’t complain at all. We got into Simferopol about 11 am, and then ran as hard as we could for the next six and a half hours. We went from the train station to the social worker, and Meghan had to wait in the car with our two kids for quite a while so that we could do our interview with her. Then we got back in the car and drove to the orphanage to meet with the director and doctor. We waited out front for quite a while in a very nice entry-way and then they called us back, but told us that the kids weren’t allowed in that part of the orphanage, so Meghan got stuck watching them again. By this time, they were both exhausted and starving, so it was a very difficult job. Greg and I were taken to the back part of the orphanage and told that we would be allowed to spend about ten minutes with Mikaela. One of the caregivers brought her out and handed her to me, and I just held her and cried. She was even more beautiful than we had thought from her pictures. I couldn’t believe that we were finally standing in a room with Mikaela. We had been so sure that we were going to lose her just a few days before, and now I was holding her. She is smaller than Gabriela, but seems healthy and is much, much stronger than we expected. She holds her head up well, and sits with assistance for short periods of time. She makes amazing eye contact, vocalizes a wide range of sounds and pitches, and they tell us she can also roll over. We were shocked! Then, the attorney asked if we required more time with the girl, or if we were ready to make our decision. We stared blankly at each other for a minute. What decision? Then I turned and asked,”Do you mean if we want to keep her?” Our facilitator nodded. We were shocked, because we had made that decision back in January. There has never been a moment since then when we even considered not keeping her. We both answered yes emphatically. Then they took Mikaela away to put her down for her nap, and we went to meet with the doctor. She gave us some information about Mikaela’s birth family, and it sounds like her birth mother was a really neat person. It seems like she would have raised Mikaela herself if there had been any way for her to do so. It is just impossible over here. I fought tears again as I thought about this woman who had no choice but to give her daughter up and hope that someone would adopt her. It was the only way that she could give Mikaela a fighting chance. We asked if the birth mom knew that Mikaela was being adopted, and the doctor told us that she was waiting for our permission to tell her. We both gave that permission without hesitation. We want Mikaela’s birth mom to know how much we love Mikaela, and that we are going to give her everything we can. The doctor also told us that Mikaela has a hernia and hip-dysplasia. That was surprising, but we can certainly take care of that once we get home. She also confirmed that Mikaela does have a heart defect, but it seems to be pretty mild. We will get that checked out when we get home, too. Then we went to meet with the orphanage director. He asked if we still wanted to adopt this child after meeting her and hearing her medical history. Again, we answered yes emphatically. We then picked up our children in the lobby and got back in the taxi. Next, we had to go to the notary. Once again, Meghan was stuck in the car watching both kids while we were inside. This time, Josiah was a real handful. He was starving and way past nap time, and he nearly drove Meghan crazy. We waited and waited, and finally they called Yulia back with our papers. Then we waited some more, and they asked for our passports. Then we had a real scare, because the notary noticed that somehow the immigration officer had forgotten to stamp my passport upon entry. Yikes! Fortunately, all visitors to Ukraine have to fill out a little form and have that stamped when they enter. We are supposed to keep that with us at all times until we leave. Since that was stamped, they said the passport thing wouldn’t be a big deal. If Greg had not had my form with him, I don’t think we would have been able to process any more of our paperwork that day. We then signed all the forms for the notary and went back out to the car. Finally, it was lunch time. We went to McDonalds and none of us has ever enjoyed a hamburger quite so much. Then we went back to the notary to pick up some forms. Then back to the orphanage to pick up more forms, and then back to the social worker to drop all these forms off. Finally, about six o’clock, we arrived at our new apartment. We were exhausted, but happy. Meghan was just exhausted. We unloaded all of our bags, but the landlord and landlady told us we couldn’t come in yet, because they weren’t finished cleaning. So we stood outside and waited. And waited. And waited. Finally the landlord came out and offered to take Greg to the grocery story so that he could go shopping without having to pay for a taxi. This was wonderful, because taxis are very expensive here, and even with God’s amazing provision, our money is very, very tight. While the landlady finished cleaning, Josiah wandered over to play ball with her little girl. The little girl was about 2 1/2, and they had a great time together. It was really good for him to be able to burn off some energy. I don’t think any of us would have survived the evening if not for this. Once she was done cleaning, I began carrying everything inside while Meghan stayed outside and took care of the kids. I was nearly done when Greg called needing help communicating. Neither the landlord nor the landlady spoke any English, so Greg couldn’t communicate what he wanted to buy. Greg and I discussed a list, I looked the word up in the dictionary, Greg told the landlord what he wanted, and the landlord took him to it. Since we were working through our list alphabetically instead of by food group, they spent a little bit of time running back and forth across the store. The landlord was very good-natured about the whole thing. Meanwhile, back at home, the landlady had brought us dinner for that night, and soup and cheese for tonight’s dinner. She also brought butter and eggs. We were so touched by their kindness that we didn’t know what to say. We just kept saying “Spasibo” again and again. Once Greg got home, we ate dinner, bathed the kids, unpacked the absolute essentials, and all went to bed. Josiah slept for 11 hours, and is much more like himself today. Gabriela had another bad night, which means that Greg and I also had a bad night. We are feeling almost desperate for a good night of sleep at this point, so please pray for us.

At 9:00 this morning, Greg and I left with Yulia to go back to the orphanage. Yulia had to take care of some more paperwork, so Greg and I waited in that lobby area again. Once she finished, we signed the papers, and then we got to have an hour and a half with Mikaela while Yulia took our papers to the correct office. Mikaela was even more wonderful today than she was yesterday. She loves the snuggle, which is very rare for a child in an orphanage. We also discovered today that she reaches for things. She kept reaching out to touch our faces, and once, she grabbed my glasses. She was fascinated by the camera, and grabbed it several times. She is a very alert baby, and turns her head to follow movement or in response to sound. She is so far ahead of where we thought she would be. At noon, Yulia came back for us and took us to our apartment. When we got home, we were happy to hear that the kids had been very good for Mehgan this time. Gabriela had slept most of the time, and Josiah had been pleasant and fun for almost all of it. Our paperwork is now done until our court date. We don’t know when that will be yet, but we hope to find out on Monday. Once Greg and I had grabbed a quick lunch, we all walked down to the McDonalds to check email. Then, we walked home so that I could put the kids down for a nap while Meghan and Greg walked to the little market to buy bananas. We have all been eating a lot of bananas here, because they are so easy for the babies.

We plan to take Meghan and the children to the orphanage tomorrow as long as it does not rain. They are not allowed inside the orphanage, but as long as we can bring her outside, they will be allowed to play with her and Meghan can finally hold her.

Thank you for all your prayers. Please pray that God will continue to supply everything we need. We are in awe of His miracles so far, and we know that He will work to bring Mikaela home. He is so good. Pray that we will be able to sleep. We don’t know how much longer we can function with only three to five hours a night. And one more prayer request — Meghan brought a camera and MP-3 player with her and kept them in a little bag. One night, when we were moving from one apartment to another, she put this little bag in the side pocket of her backback, and brought it out to the taxi. The taxi was very crowded, and the driver did a lot of rough moving things around and shoving things in to make it all fit. It seems like the little bag got knocked out during this, but we didn’t discover this until the next morning. We asked Yulia, because this is a driver she uses regularly, but the last we heard, she didn’t know what had happened to it. Please pray that somehow Meghan’s things will be returned to her. She has been amazing throughout this whole process, and there is no way we could have done any of this without her. She is tired and homesick and never complains about anything. It makes Greg and me both sick to know that two of the things she brought along for comfort on this trip are now gone, and there is nothing we can do about it. We feel so bad for her. She is really a wonderful girl. We will try to post on a more regular basis from this point on so that none of the posts will be this long again. Thank you for your patience and support.

We will try to post pictures tomorrow.