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....