23 hours of traveling...

We have made into the Ukraine…after 23 hours of traveling!!

Sorry we haven’t had hardly any chance to update about our trip. Internet access has been slim (we mean very slim) which makes it very difficult to communicate by email or blog at all. We have been very busy with one thing or another, but we did want to give you a brief rundown of some of the things have happened, so here goes…

Sunday and Monday (September 9^th and 10^th) – All of our flights went really well. Caleb was a real trouper and he did great. The most frustrating thing for him was taking his shoes on and off for security (3 different airports, 3 different times). He really did a great job and really has been excited to be here.

This is a picture of Mama and Caleb playing on the airplane while Papa was sleeping.

Going through customs in Kiev was fairly typical. It took a while, but we made it through fine. Our translator, Gene, was there to meet us. He took us straight to our apartment and we were able to rest. We had a small store across the street from our apartment where we could buy water and snacks. We bought a frozen pizza (fully cooked) and some juice and some M&M’s. It’s always good to have a taste of home when you’re in a country that you are not very familiar with. We tried to cook the pizza in the oven, but had no luck. We finally decided to warm the pizza in the microwave. After it was warmed up, we decided that it was just to “flimsy” so we browned the bottom of the pizza in a skillet. We have never cooked pizza in a skillet, but figured that we don’t have much to lose. It really helped the pizza. It probably wasn’t one of our finer cooking moments, but we have definitely seen worse.

This is a picture of all of us before we ate our “cooked pizza”.

Tuesday (September 11^th) – Today we met at the Ministry of Youth, Family and Sports. Our meeting was at 11:00. There we were given a referral and told a few things about the child. We went ahead and chose to go and visit the child. After the very eventful morning, we went back to the apartment and decided to try to find a good place for lunch. We walked about 20 minutes toward the city center and found the TGI Friday’s we were told about. It took us a while to find it, and we had to ask directions, but we were able to find a girl in a make-up store (clinique, estee lauder, etc.) that knew English and she told us where to go. We ate there and then walked back to our apartment – stopping at McDonald’s along the way for an ice cream. We later went back to the apartment and got ready for the next big day.

We will try to update more later. Hopefully our schedule will become more routine from now on. We are having a great trip and pray that it continues to go well. Thank you all for your continued prayers.