While we wait- Part 3

It has been an eventful 2 days. Yesterday, we went to church at Hillsong Kiev and really enjoyed it. They had little headphones for us to listen to the service in English...that was pretty neat. We took the headphones off during worship time since we knew some of the songs and we just sang in English while they sang in Ukrainian. Trish R. at your request, I am posting some pics and I had short video I made, but can't get it to upload on this post, so will try again later.....


Also, we went to church last night with our facilitator (B) (I will start putting facilitator initials for Debardelaben's and Taylors since you know them. This is our 3rd Sunday there...we are starting to feel like regular attenders there :) It is a smaller, intimate atmosphere and we really enjoy it also. They have acoustic worship that is very pretty. We broke up into small groups last night and they prayed again for our adoption process.

Today, we walked to Independence Square to eat at the underground food court and when we were about half way there we could hear singing and yelling on a microphone and cheering from a crowd. And, when we arrived at Independence Square, we saw TONS of people holding Old Soviet Union Flags protesting against NATO in response to President Bush being here today. So, there was definitely a different atmosphere here today. We tried to find out where Bush was going to be so we could go, but couldnt. Here are the pics from the protest....



Well, hopefully we will have some news this week of advancements in our adoption process! Mel

Comments:
Niki~ Tell Dan and the kids we also said, "hello"!

Stephanie~ It is great to hear from you and so sweet of you to be praying for us!! I was told yesterday about your adopted siblings and how you learned Hindi before you went to meet the one from India. That is AMAZING! Please do keep in touch and also when you get a chance, we would love to hear how things went at the orphanage with your medical mission team last week.

Lauren & Susan~ MISS YOU TOO, especially on Fridays!!! Thanks for the updates! Lauren~ Thanks for the messages from the kids to Grant. He loved them and wanted to respond to them, so I quote this from Grant:

To Gabe: "Hey Dude, What's up? We are having a good time in Ukraine. Miss you. To

Mckenzie: "If George is Curious, do you think my brother or sister will be curious like Curious George?"

To Gavin: "Hope you are having a fun time in Wed. night class. We miss you." Susan: Thanks for the scripture, I am going to read it tonight. I cannot believe Kayla's finger...we all cringed (sp?) we when read it. Hope it is feeling better now! I have thought about the retreat revisit several times and wondered how it went, so can't wait to hear about it!!!

Post again soon! Mel

While we are waiting...Part 2

Privyet (Hello/Russian :)
It has been a beautiful day here! We have no news to share yet...still waiting, but are hopeful that we will get an appointment next week. Please, continue to keep us in your prayers. God is sustaining us...it is not always easy to wait, but we feel that we are staying in the Father's will for us and there is comfort in that. We have seen His hand at work too many times in our lives to doubt Him now! He has showed us over and over in our lives that no matter what happens, "All things work for the good for those who love Him" Romans 8... and His plan IS always perfect! We are so thankful for those of you who no matter what the circumstances look like, you continue to agree with us in prayer for this adoption, encourage us with the truth of God's character and plans for us...we cherish this!

Now, guess who is coming to Ukraine Tues...DUBYA...that's right...President Bush! President Yushchenko invited him to come! And...I forgot to tell you that when we were coming to Ukraine...at the JFK (New York) airport our plane got held up on the landing strip at arrival because Air Force One was there and then departed. We could see it from our window. Cool, huh? I don't want to say that DUBYA is following us, but what do you think? Haha! We are going to try to find out exactly where he is going to be and get as close as we can if he is still here since it will probably be near downtown where we are.

I added a new song to the blog at the request of Grant. Chris Tomlin is his favorite music artist and this is his favorite song, "How Can I Keep From Singing". He brought this song to Ukraine with him and has listened to it often.

I will leave you with some pics:
1. Square of Independence (this is where the underground mall is)
2. This is how we walk so far when Grant gets tired.
3. The Golden Gate~ the log wall represents the wall that used to be around the city of Kiev to keep invaders out.
4. There are many street performers here for money...people playing music and singing (and it is pretty good too) and last night we saw this one...a guy twirling and breathing fire...and he had drummers behind him.

March 28th...While we are waiting...

First of all...
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Dad, we do hope you have a great B-day and try to not work so hard today. Better yet, hope you get some Lek's today and eat some for us too!!! Luv U!

From Grant: "Happy Birthday Papaw! My birthday is soon too! (singing) Happy Birthday to you, Happy Birthday to you, Happy B-day dear Papaw, Happy Birthday to you...any many more! I love you! Roll Tide!"

Well, we are still hanging out here in Kiev. No snow today, yet. The weather seems to change hourly here :) We have become more familiar with our surroundings of our
2nd flat, which is in downtown Kiev. For Trish R. and CCC folks, we have found Hillsong Church and it is only 5 blocks from our flat...WOOHOO! We will be going Sunday Morning. We actually walk pass it all the time! In our waiting time, we have tried to stay somewhat busy...it makes the wait easier! We have visited an underground mall several times (Although, not shopping as we are penny pinching with not knowing how long we will be here :) We do love to eat at the food court as it has a McDonald's for Grant. We also went to the World War II Museum here with Jerry and Amanda. Unfortunately, our camera battery went out as we were there, but Amanda took a cute pic of Grant on top of a tank. I will try to send that later. (Tiff, I know you said you wanted to see more pics and we will try next time!) Kay, saw your comment and decided that story was worth sharing, haha.......We do have a English/Ukrainian/Russian translation book now, but the other day, Jason went to the mini-supermarket to try to get us something to eat and he wanted some ham to make sandwiches with, but the guy could'nt understand him, so he tried the word, "Pig", still nothing, so he had to resort to saying, "Oink, Oink" and finally he was able to get the ham...I know it is pitiful! We now take our translation book around and point to the word in it that we are trying to communicate. Miss ya'll~ Mel

Comments:
Christy G~ HAHA...pics in the guestbook...we had no idea that the mini-mall man was following our blog...AWESOME...LOL!!!! Grant thought that was funny!

Julie~ Can't believe the boys! Tell everyone we said, hello!!!

Trish Gastineau and family & The Sadie's~ We sure do miss ya'll too! Thank you for the prayers and encouragement! We cherish every prayer and thought! To the Sadie's...no doubt, we are joining ya'll for a Moe's night after we get back and settled in!!!

Will try to post tomorrow!!!
Mel

Officially Waiting

Hi~ We have had a very snowy day here today! We walked about a mile in the snow to go get dinner. At times the snow and the wind was so hard that it was blowing horizontally straight in our faces and Jason would jump in front of me and Grant and tell us to look down and follow his shoes to walk. We had so much snow on us when we got there that we looked a little like snowmen, hehe! We found a taxi to take us back home after we ate. It is still snowing now! Today, we also found a mini-supermarket at the end of our street, which is great!!
We have finished our paperwork and it has been turned in, so although we have been waiting for our 2nd appointment, now we are officially waiting! We are not sure how long this will take, but we believe our facilitators are really trying to help us get one as quick as possible. While we have been back in Kiev, we have had the opportunity to spend time with the family that I told you about from Birmingham, AL that are also waiting on a 2nd appointment, Jerry and Amanda Hood. We have been meeting up with them a lot since we have been back in Kiev and have really enjoyed their company. It is kind of strange that we had to go all the way to Ukraine to meet when back home we only live about an hour away from each other. Jerry is a high school football coach at one school in B-ham and Amanda is an Assistant Principal at another high school in B-ham. Jason was familiar with both schools and teams, so it has been fun hearing about this, but mostly it is a blessing to have another family to share the ups and downs with. If you will, please add them to your prayers as they wait for their 2nd appointment also.

Also, Just for fun, I added a Photo Guestbook at the bottom of the page. We would love to see photos while we are here of friends and family and also put faces with those we may have not met in person, but that are following our journey.

Comments:
Phil Sisk~ We were so excited to see your comment! We think and pray for you often!

Julie~ so good to hear from you! Please send pics of the boys soon!

Dad~ Thanks for your sweet email! It really meant a lot! Also, our friends here told me that they got a kick out of seeing "Yo Daddy" :)

Christy G.~ HaHa...cartwheel at Biscuits game!

Jacob & Caleb~ We have laughed out loud over your comments.. Jacob...mmmm hellurh! C- BOI, hope things are going ok...let us know when you get a chance... IGHT DEN!

Paige~ Love CJ's new egg hunting technique...I can just see it now!!! Give him a BIG kiss from us!!!

Bruce & Jamie~ Did want you to know that I got your email! Thanks for all the info! I have a question for ya, so will be emailing you first chance I get.

Mom~ Luv U~ the email pics that you sent would not pull up...not sure what they were. Also, if you get a chance to take a pic of Max and put it on the Guestbook for Grant, I know that he would LOVE it!!! Don't go to any trouble, but if it is easy, that would be great!!! He has been talking about Max a lot today.

Susan~ Thanks again for your prayer last Wed night! I sure did miss my Friday "homegirls" this past week. Glad things are going good there!

Michelle F.~ Your comments all along have been so encouraging and thank you for all your prayers. We miss you guys! Tell MG and P that Grant said, Hello!

Enjoying reading the comments of each and everyone of you! It makes the wait so much more tolerable! Luv~ Jason & Mel


Some more Pics:
1. Dr. Jim & Marianna Peipon
2. Marianna, Jeanne(this was Grant's nanny while we were at the SDA~ she is also Dr. Jim and Marianna's daughter), and Jeanne's husband, Kolya
3. Jerry & Amanda
4. Grant looking out the window watching to see if daddy will be able to find us a taxi
5. Snowing as we walk to get dinner

Happy Easter!!!!

Happy Easter to everyone back home! It is not Easter in Ukraine until mid April, so we may get to celebrate twice :) We celebrated today at church with Dr. Jim and Marianna Peipon. It was a beautiful service and we thoroughly enjoyed it. The sermon was on Hebrews 11. One of our favorites that we needed a good reminder of! We are taking things, not one day at a time, but one moment at a time :) Thank you for all your encouraging comments and emails, they mean so much!!! I will respond to these later. By the way, I need to tell you that if you send an email to our knology account it may be a while before I can respond to it because it is not working for me to send out, but I am getting yours. More later, but for now a post from Grant....


This is at a pizza parlor here in Ukraine.

I quote from Grant:

"Happy Easter everyone! I hope you are having fun today. Have a good Easter! We are having a fun time in Ukraine and it is really exciting, but in Ukraine Easter is in April. Their food is o.k. here. We have a big apartment. The television is Ukrainian. My favorite place in Ukraine is McDonalds. That is all I want to say for now. I will blog another time."
Love~ Grant

Now, Jason wants in to so I am playing secretary and typing for him also.
I quote from Jason:

" Mark and Pam G. thank you for the sending the Folger's individual packs of coffee with us. That is the best coffee in Ukraine! To all the coffee lovers, let me explain the coffee here. If you ask for coffee, it comes in a minature tea cup with a shot of expresso. If you ask for "Americano" coffee, it comes in a normal sized coffee mug with a shot of expresso and then they give you seperately a small piture of hot water and you mix the two together and make your coffee. Mike Bailey, if you are reading, your driving would fit in perfectly here. When I am riding in a car here, I usually keep my eyes closed! When crossing the street, you better be running! My favorite food here is TGIF in Kiev...there is only one and we have to walk a long way to get there, but it is worth it!!! We have done A LOT of walking everywhere. When our facilitator is not with us in Kiev, we may have to walk a ways to get food or anything!!! We get excited reading the comments...thanks for them!
That's all for now, will post later!

Here are a few more pics...
1. The Opera House in Ukraine
2. Jason & Mel in the entrance of our new flat
3. A pink convertable Ferarri (Sp?) that we thought was cool
4. Looking out our new flat window

Warning: sad post below

Hi guys~ Sorry that I could not post sooner...we did not have internet access in the hotel that we were in and didnt know where to find it. We have ridden in a car over 20 hrs in the past 2 days. Partly, because we rode half way there in heavy snow, but it was beautiful! Talk about a quick weather change. It was very cold in the region that we were in, which is closer to Russia...everyone there spoke Russian instead of Ukranian. The sad news is that we arrived back in Kiev last night. There are many details that I would like to share with you, but it would not be wise for me to post these on a blog. So, to sum it up....These past 2 days have been some of the hardest days we have ever experienced for many reasons and I will share what I can. At our SDA appointment, we chose to visit a little girl that we already knew would have some special needs and we are definitely open to a child with special needs. In fact, she is almost 3 yrs old, but at the appointment, all that could be confirmed about her physical development is that she could move her arms and legs. Once we were at the orphanage and after our pediatrician evaluated, it was clear that there were other things involved. It was one of the hardest things we have ever been through, but Jason and I both knew what we had to do. Because of her condition, she was not aware of her surroundings or maybe that we were even there, but never the less, it was very difficult to leave. I cried most of that evening and then in the middle of the night started back up again and then Jason joined me. We finally prayed together and were able to get some sleep later than night. We don't know the reason why we felt led down that road, but feel that there is a reason for everything. The road is not always easy, sometimes it feels like we are going to not get through it, but we have to keep hold of Jesus love for us and his faithfulness. As for the little girl, we had to spend much time in prayer releasing her to the heavenly father and praying for her best!!! I heard someone say one time that God either calms the storms in our lives or he gives us the strength to go through them and that is what we are praying for right now. I woke up again Wed morning with the thoughts of how hard the journey is right now and being in a whole different country, taking baths in brown water (this is one of my biggest adjustments), how tired and weary we are right now, and that we still had to face the drive back and then what when we get back to Kiev and all of the sudden the thought came to me of one of our favorite movies (I know all of you~ your favorite too) "Facing the Giants" and specifically the scene of the football player on the field whose coach told him to crawl across the field with another player on his back to the 50 yd line and he blindfolded him so he could not see how far he was and quit too soon. As you know, the player was agonizing as he was crawling, saying "Coach, I can't do it, it is too hard, It hurts, I've got to stop" and the coach was following him on the ground screaming, "Don't you stop now, you can do it, KEEP GOING" When the player takes off his blindfold, he had made it all the way to the 100 yd line. This is how I felt that day and I just sensed that God was encouraging me to keep going and that although I didnt feel the strength at the time that I had to depend on HIM and "coaching" if you will and allow Him to be glorified through it all. I also received some "coaching" from Jason as he was feeling a little more ready to face the giants and go forward than I was at the time :) Thank you for all your prayers, please keep them coming! We now will wait on a second appointment, but there are several families that have had similar experiences as us and are also waiting, so we will file in line! There is another family from B-ham, AL in Kiev that we met who was already waiting for another appointment when we left for Donestk and we were kinda sad to leave them, so we are excited to get to spend some time with them as they understand and are going through exactly what we are. Also, everyone has been so supportive and encouraging this past couple of days...our faciliators, pediatrician, social worker back home...we are so thankful for them too! Last night there was not a flat available for us back in Kiev, so the pediatrician that traveled with us and his wife took us into their home and WHAT A BLESSING. They are from the states, but along with working with adoptive families they have medical mission outreach to Ukraine and are AWESOME christians who really comforted us and showed us the love of Christ. When we walked in the door, we were very tired and Dr. Jim's wife Marianna said she wanted to cook us something like we would have back home and had us a wonderful meal of sphagetti ready when we walked in the door. Her home is very much like what we would experience in the states and the beds were so comfortable. We felt like we were in heaven! Marianna gave us so many testimonies of God's faithfulness in their lives here and we were very encouraged! She has a blog too that she is going to post a video that she made of Grant last night on today. So, she said that I could give you the link to her blog. Also, Grant is doing GREAT! Although, we have traveled far and wide lately, he has not complained once and has actually been in a wonderful mood the whole time. He seems to really be enjoying himself. We are going to send a blog later today when there is more time from him as he would like to blog also.
Here is Dr. Jim and Marianna's site...
http://ukrainiac.wordpress.com/

Also, I want to leave you with a video of a song that I have been listening to throughout this adoption process and brought with me on the trip for encouragement. I thought maybe some of you are experiencing hardships this week also and hopefully, it will encourage you like it has me and Jason....please go to your tool bar and paste this you tube video since I dont know how to embed it into the post. Thanks! Mel

http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=BQVmR0jV52A

March 18th

Hello everyone~ We are having a beautiful day here in Ukraine. It is sunny and the weather feels great. We have not had to even wear our hats or gloves since we have been here so far. Sorry, if my post have been kind of choppy, we have been posting from an internet cafe that has a time limit, but have now found one that does not. Our facilitator called us this morning and there has been a change of plans in transportation to get to Donestk. To make a long story short...it is going to turn out to be best for us to drive to the region instead of taking the train. The town that the orphanage is in is about an hour away from the city of Donestk, so we would still have to find a car to take us there once we got off the train. In the process, you change facilitators when you go to the orphanage and our new facilitator is going to drive us there...so we will have 5 people riding in a Camry to the region. The bad news is that there will not be room for our nanny for Grant the first day at the orphanage, so we will not be able to take her. We feel confident that a new plan will work out. The GREAT news is that it was going to be 10 hrs by train overnight and now he is picking us up at 5:00 a.m. and it will be about a 6 hr drive instead :) The pediatrician will still be able to go with us and we should still be able to visit her at the orphanage tomorrow.

We have had a great time with one of our facilitators here. He has really showed us around and we ate dinner with him last night at his house and had homemade grape juice from his vinyard. He has 3 children 2 of them speak Ukrainian and English, so Grant had a BLAST with them! We even rode with him to pick them up from school and we got to go inside and all see what a Ukrainian school looks like.

When our facilitator is not with us, we have had a funny time trying to order meals...I wish you could have seen Jason at McDonalds yesterday trying to order for Grant. There was about (no exageration) 50 people waiting to order and Jason was trying to do the best he could. We actually ended up with the right things. Grant asked if next time, he could get it with no pickle or onion...now, he is pushing it! Also, we had to stand at table to eat because there was no room and sometimes I forget that people can't understand me and I will comment to them, like when I was trying to ask these ladies if they wanted to squeeze in beside us and they just stared at me and walked off. Jason started laughing and said in his best southern accent "You do know they don't understand when you say YA'LL WANNA SQUEEZE ON IN" I have had to laugh at myself a few times!

I know that you are probably tired of hearing about the jet lag, but it is a big thing for us right now. I thought things were getting a little better and then last night I was actually sleeping pretty well until Jason and Grant got up at 1:00 a.m. and decided that they were both hungry and went to the kitchen and ate everything they could. Then, they started going through suitcases and when I asked them what they were doing, they said we are looking for Grants schoolwork to do because we can't sleep. I said, "FOR THE LOVE..PEOPLE CAN WE NOT JUST CLOSE OUR EYES" They thought that was extremely funny and then we were up again most of the night.

I havent had a chance to reply to comments because of the time limit, but I want to tell you that we read each and everyone. I was tearing up in the internet cafe reading them all. It is very encouraging to hear from each of you...friends, family, the ones that we have met in Ukraine, and the ones we are just meeting on the blog!
Reply to some comments:

Mom~ we are glad Max is doing well...Grant looks at his pic everyday...he really misses him! No more teeth loose :) How is Tiff? Has she driven by herself yet?

Dad~ I know what you mean about getting teary eyed...except for mine has to be in public :) Thanks for all the encouragement and prayers.

Niki~ I hope you are feeling better!

Christy G (AKA Miss Jackson and Flonase) We have gotten all the inside jokes LOL, just havent been able to reply to them until now...tell Bryan that MC Frogger thought about buying him some crab chips and re living Myrtle Beach, haha! Luv- Tamiflu

For all the post from ones that have adopted and are in the process with us...we can't tell ya how great it is to hear from you!

Thanks again for each person that prayed at the time of our appointment even though it was in the middle of the night for you!

Also, wanted you to know that Jason is reading each comment too, but would rather me post, so what I post is on behalf of both of us :)

Once we are in the new region...I will post as soon as I can find internet access and try to send more pics next time. Not sure what the conditions will be there. Love~ Mel

SDA Appointment

We had our appointment today! It was very emotionally draining, but we left with peace about the referral that was chosen. We were shown files of several children with pretty severe health issues and had a decision of whether we were going to accept one of the files chosen. Just so you know, the medical information on the files are pretty vague, with basically just the diagnosises and then you find out the details of it when you visit the orphanage. Jason and I made a decision to accept one of the referrals to visit. She is an almost 3 yr old little girl and we feel good about the decision. There are a few health issues in question for her and we will have a doctor that will be traveling with us to confirm any diagnosises. We will be traveling to the Donetsk Region where her orphanage is by train tomorrow night with the doctor and nanny that will keep Grant for us on the first orphanage day. The train ride is supposed to be approximately 10 hrs overnight. Thank you for all your prayers...we definitely sensed that God was with us during the appointment. Jason and I made a quick decision together in complete unity. There were a few things that seemed to be signs to us of things that only we had talked about previously and they were mentioned on her referral and this made her referral stand out above the rest to us. This is exactly what we had prayed for and this gave us peace about visiting her. We do not know what is ahead, but are confident that God is faithful and has us on this journey for a reason! I will try to post tomorrow before we leave out again. Guess, I will be re organizing and packing again :)

By the way, Grant is STILL on Alabama time...actually, we all woke up at 1:00 a.m. and could not sleep for anything and carried on conversation and laughed like it was daytime. Lord help us!!!

Well, we are about to go out with our facilitator and another couple that is adopting that we just met. They live in Birmingham.
Talk soon!
Mel

Hello from Ukraine

The pics are of
the clouds outside the plane
Inside our flat
The building we are staying in..took pic looking out the window...we are staying on the top floor
Luggage for up to 6 wks :)

Well, I am going to try to post again and attempt some pics and hopefully it won't erase this time...

Like I said before we have made it here and are starting to get over the jet lag. Yesterday, was a pretty hard day as we were VERY mixed up from the time change and from the skipping one night of sleep on the plane. Also, while the plane was landing, Grant is mixed up the most and is still living TOTALLY on Alabama time. He didnt go to sleep last night until 3:00 a.m. and let us know at 1:00 a.m. that it was time for supper (this would have been 5:00 Alabama time). He tried to sleep, but just ended up sitting up in bed staring at the walls waiting for someone to talk to. Then, he slept during the day. He has been in a great mood when he is awake though. We are praying that we will get use to the time change soon!

We have met so many neat people. This is the coolest though...while we were in the Atlanta airport waiting to board the plane, we found out the people beside us live in Prattville, AL like us and were traveling to Ukraine on all our same flights. They are doing missions work at a University here. We got the name of the region they will be in and will see if maybe the orphanage is there. We exchanged info with them before leaving for the final time. Also, for my uncle and aunt, Doug and Eleanor, in the Ukraine airport, we met friends of yours that go to First Baptist with you. It was Mike and Judy Nuss. That was really cool too! Also, for all of Hillsong lovers, we met a bunch of people at the internet cafe that go to Hillsong Church in Kiev (HOW AWESOME IS THAT!) They invited us to go and gave us their numbers if we needed anything. So, hopefully, when we come back through kiev, we will be able to go to Hillsong Kiev. Trish R. I wish you were here to go!
Also, one thing I found funny on the plane was when it turned nightime and everyone around us was asleep. I turned around to check on Grant (because I was sitting in front of them) and he was the only one awake and had found some ear phones and was watching the plane movie wide awake (It was "The Bee Movie". He never fell asleep until about an hour before we landed.

There is so much I would like to tell you, but I know that I am catching up on a few days here. We have been walking around downtown Kiev today and about an hour yesterday. Yesterday, our facilitator showed us where the supermarket was in case we needed to buy any food. Today, Jason tried to go by himself and there are a few things in English, but mostly have to figure out by looking at pics. He accidentally brought back carbinated bottled water and spit that out rather quickly. He wanted to make sure that I told ya'll that when he was looking for potato chips, he found Lays in flavor of crab and wild onion, no regular, but he did find Pringles. Tonight, we went to church with our facilitator and had a great time. Our facilitator explained about our appointment and they prayed such a sweet prayer for us. Then, we were excited when we recognized the last worship song was "Lord Reign in Me", but sang in Ukrainian...it was beautiful! Our facilitator has a daughter that is Grant's age, so they really enjoyed playing together at the church.

Well, tomorrow is the BIG SDA (adoption center) appointment at 9:00 a.m. If all goes well, we will receive a referral of a child to visit and then we will travel to their orphanage somewhere in Ukraine. When they show you a file of a child, you usually are looking at their infant picture and they explain some medical issues to you, but from what we understand the medical files may not always be accurate. The process is that you visit the child and then make a decision about adopting them. If there is a reason that you cannot, like maybe the child is so sick that it would not benefit them to leave the orphanage, then you go back to Kiev and wait on a 2nd referral, but we do not forsee having to do that. Please be in prayer for this process tomorrow.

Before I sign off, I want to share a few photos that we have so far....

Made it to Ukraine!!!

Hi everyone~ We have made it to Ukraine!!! Sorry, we were not able to post yesterday. We did not have internet access and werent sure where to find it. I typed up a post for today and it just got erased and our facilitator is on his way to pick us up, so I will come back to the internet cafe tonight and post all the info and pics again. Talk to ya soon!
Mel

Made it to Atlanta!

Hi everyone~ We have arrived safely in Atlanta. I wanted to be able to post before we left, but there was no time. We are actually exhausted from all the things to do before we left, but I wanted to send a quick post before we went to bed. We had a great dinner tonight at The Cheesecake Factory with my brother, Jacob and Grant is SUPER PUMPED about going on his first flight tomorrow! And...while we were packing before we left, Grant discovered he had his first wobbly tooth. So, the tooth fairy may be traveling to Ukraine, but like I told Grant for all we know that may be her home base, haha! We will miss everyone! I will try to post and send a few pics when we arrive in Ukraine on the 15th.
G-nite!
Mel

March 9th

Thanks to everyone for all the prayers, encouraging comments and emails! I received emails that some of you were having trouble leaving comments and I wish I knew more about trouble shooting, but I can tell ya that one of my sisters was also not being able to leave a message the first time and she went back through the registration part the 2nd time and for some reason it started working. If anyone has any other blogger trouble shooting info for this, we would appreciate it.

We are in the final preperations before leaving and I just get so excited at the thought of the day that we head out to Atlanta! Yesterday, as I was driving the thought came to me that there is a child somewhere in Ukraine going on with daily activities with no idea that there is a mommy, daddy, and brother packing right now to come and get him/her. I also thought of how many times each of us as we are going through our daily activites that God who knows everything must look down at us with excitement because He knows something wonderful that is going to happen in our lives that we are not even aware of yet. Just a thought!

We have had several questions regarding the adoption over time and I thought that while we are waiting to leave, I would try to familiarize you with the Ukraine adoption process in the easiest terms possible. So in a nutshell....

Our agency and others that have adopted from Ukraine will tell you that a Ukrainian adoption is a HUGE walk of faith more than any other country. They say this basically because of the unpredictability of the adoption process there and the constant changes. Also, because in most countries you receive a referral for a child and before you leave you have their medical information and pictures, but in Ukraine, you are not given any referral until the day of your appointment in Ukraine. For example, referral that we receive the day of our appointment will be of a child that became registered to become available for adoption on that day. If the appointment goes well, then you leave with a referral of a child to visit and hopefully, travel to the region of their orphanage in Ukraine within a couple of days. It has been a huge walk of faith even already, but we have kept sight of our calling and strongly feel that we are in the will of the Lord in this process. We have a WONDERFUL adoption agency that I can't say enough about, an AWESOME social worker here, and when in Ukraine we will be traveling with a team of facilitators/translators, a Pediatrician that will evaluate our child on our initial visit, and a sweet nanny for Grant for the 3 appointments that he cannot be with us on. What a blessing!!!

Questions that we have been asked by friends and family:
Q. Are you getting a boy or a girl? Good question...we will find out :)

Q. How old will the child be? Another good question...we will find out :) The youngest available in Ukraine is 14 mos, but this is very rare to get a referral for the youngest right now (All things are possible, though :)

Q. How long will you be in Ukraine? more than likely, somewhere between 2-6 weeks- there are several parts to this process...visiting the child, paperwork, court, child medicals, visa for the child- it just depends on how quickly all of this moves along.

Q. I have had a lot of questions about Grant and if he is excited- Let me just tell you, he talks about it constantly and just today he is having a hard time being still for very long because of his excitement. He has so many fun questions and statements about the trip...I will try to share some funny ones with you as we go along.

Talk soon!
Melanie

First Post

Welcome to our blog! We are counting down the days until we fly to Ukraine and finally bring home our new child! It seems that there is still soooo much to do to get ready to leave, but I am sure that it will get done :) We will be in Ukraine for 2-6 weeks and thankfully our home back here will be well taken care of while we are gone. This blog will be our primary way of communication while we are gone. We will post as often as we are able and we would love to hear from those of you who are following our journey as well. It is very easy to write back...just click on the word comment in blue at the bottom of the post for that day.
We will be driving to Atlanta on Thursday afternoon, March 13th and get a little dinner and then get some sleep early for the adventure ahead. Our flight leaves out on March 14th at noon and we will fly to New York and then to Ukraine. The crazy thing is that we will leave Atlanta at noon and arrive in Ukraine (if everything goes as planned) at what would be our bedtime, except with the time change in Ukraine it will be morning time there. Yep...we skip a night!!! Hence...catching the zzzzz's early on the night before. Of course, this is our plans, but we all know that we will probably be bouncing off the walls with excitement and not get a wink of sleep until April, haha!
Post again soon~
Mel