Finally, outdoor playtime!

It was in the 60's and sunny. Look how the orphanage makes them bundle up to go outside!

Too hot! We took their coats off and found 4 more layers of clothing!

Bila Tserkva

We have been staying in the town of Bila Tserkva, 1 hour south of Kiev. Bila Tserkva translates to "white church". The citizens come to hear the pipe organ every weekend.

Touring Bila Tserkva

WWII was considered the "fight for the Motherland". There are several monuments throughout the city and the countryside.

Bila Tserkva's park

Tola took us on a tour of Bila Tserkva's famous park, which includes ponds, waterfalls, giant trees, and old ruins of the Polish settlements. We've just realized that it is across the river from our hotel -- we can walk there in 20 minutes.

Elijah is ready to go home

Elijah has been asking when we are going home. He gave us pictures today with our home, airplane to USA, and our cars.

He asks if we are ready to go now. The 10 day waiting period will be difficult for us all.

Father of 5 !!!

I cannot believe that I am a father of 5! This is very exciting and I want to introduce my 5 kids.


Here I am pictured with my oldest daughter - Jillian - 16. She is an excellent student. She gets fantastic grades and I expect she will be doing something extraordinary in college - maybe medical school. She is also in the school marching band - she plays the clarinet - and was voted best freshman marcher last year! She is learning to drive and will get her license soon. Jillian is very independent and mature for her age.

This is my oldest son - Nick - 14. He is also a great student and probably will do something big in college. He loves to play soccer and is enjoying his travel team. He and I are gun enthusiasts and go shooting together. He has a very caring heart and watches out for everyone in the family.

This is my middle son - Elijah -8. He also loves to play soccer. He has a quiet spirit and has been to Spain on a summer trip. He speaks Spanish and Ukrainian. He climbs on my back to piggy-back rides every chance he gets!

This is my youngest daughter - Annaleise - 6. She has a strong personality and is quick to tell me "no." She is a rough tumbler and loves to play wrestle with me. She also is going to be mommy's girl - she runs past me to get to mom!

This is my youngest - Jeremy 5. He is so friendly and loving. He loves to run into my arms and squeeze my neck as hard as he can. He has been very quick in learning English.

It's Official!

The judge granted us custody of Elijah, Annaleise and Jeremiah! We can pick up the court decree and the kids after 10 days.
We met in the judge’s office with the inspector, two witnesses, and the orphanage representative. We both stood before the judge at separate times and answered various questions. The judge enjoyed looking at our photos from home and thought that we would offer the children a good home. He asked us not to forget Bila Tserkva and to please send photos back to everyone so that they know the children are having a wonderful life. The judge was very pleasant and had a good sense of humor. The entire hearing took 20 minutes.
Thank you for all of your prayers! Someday we will share the story of how we desperately needed them today! This has been a faith journey, and God has continued to bless us when times seemed dark.

Snack time!

The kids love to eat fruit! We hope this continues once we reach USA! They have excellent manners and respond quickly with "please" and "thank-you". They must not drink a lot of juice. When we bring orange juice, they drink it fast and say "num-num"! We also brought alphabet crackers, which they love to share with their friends. I don't think the workers appreciated the Americans today -- Annaleise and Jeremiah caused chaos in the classroom by passing out crackers!

Elijah

Rick plays soccer with Elijah and the boys. I sit on the sidelines, take pictures and speak Spanish with the girls. When we get to the campus, all the kids yell "Hola!" There are a few who appear fluent. This orphanage displays many trophies they have received for volleyball and soccer. The kids have some great skills and love to challenge Rick one-on-one.

Happy Birthday Rick!

Rick turned 39 in the Ukraine! We celebrated with cake and party favors. Oh, and mystery meat for dinner!

James, Penny, and I sang happy birthday to Rick in the cafeteria. When we finished, an older gentleman came over to see what we were celebrating. As usual, we point and play charades to get our message across. He wanted to celebrate by sharing some vodka. (Side note: thousands of Ukrainians die every year from poisonous bootleg vodka. It is strongly advised not to drink vodka from any small market).

Rick said "Nyeet" several times, but the man wasn't getting the message. We had to be forcefully polite to get out!

Ah, a birthday to remember!

Ukraine Adoption

We want to share our hearts with you for just a moment. This adoption process has the potential of changing more lives than we can imagine. The seven people in our family will be forever impacted by this journey. What we also hope is that some of you who are following are also impacted. Years ago, we never thought that we would be at this place in our life. This has been spiritually rewarding beyond our imagination. We started this blog to stay in touch with our family and friends and to share our experience with you, but we also pray that someone may hear our story and be moved to offer one or more of these beautiful Ukrainian children a loving home. Here’s what it takes: a loving family who has room to love one more. We have met and heard of Americans who have overcome significant obstacles to make adoption a reality, don’t think you can’t do it if your heart is touched by this.

We spend many hours with these children. They are looking for a mom and dad. One boy went away for 2 weeks of summer camp and returned to the orphanage asking if a mom or dad had come for him yet. The younger children call us mamma and papa and beg for our attention. The older children run to our car to speak with us and play soccer. Visit BBAS.org and get started and let God work out the details.

Updates

The kids are learning to pick out mamma, papa, Jillian, and Nick in the photo album.

It's still raining here -- 10 days in a row!

We are still served mystery meat at least once a day! Our diet includes at least one bag of potato chips and 4 cookies a day.

We're excited about court on Friday.

We have heat in our room again. This is a big deal for us -- for 4 days, at 45 degrees, we had no heat.

Looks like we have about 20 days left -- we're counting down!

We greatly appreciate all of the postings and emails. We are terribly homesick and are uplifted with each comment.

On our way home from the orphanage, we drove by a wedding. Tola stopped to let us take some pictures. There are actually 3 brides and 3 grooms outside of the church. Notice the traditional wedding bread: korovay.

Jeremiah is learning English quickly. We have some great video of him saying "I love you".

Annaleise loves her hair ribbons!

Elijah loves his new race track. He made sure to show all of his friends what his new momma and papa brought for him. He and Rick are really bonding, you can tell he really wants a father. While showing him our photo album, he asks when he and his brother and sister can come home with us.

We can only spend 1 hour a day with him, but we really enjoy the time we have together. The taxi ride is 25 minutes one way (traveling 90 mph). We pray the entire drive that we make it home safe. We can't help but notice a lot of gravestones and flowers on the side of the road marking automobile deaths. This whole country drives this way!

COURT DATE SET

Great news! Our court date has been set for Friday, September 26, at 9 a.m. We have a mandatory 10-day wait after court, and then the adoption will be final. We will then go through American immigration which could take 3-5 days. We still plan to be home as scheduled!

Keep praying -- we're not out of the woods yet. We're surprised by the many twists and turns that happen daily.

Woohoo! Our coordinator, Yevgeny, has been working hard to get our paperwork signed and we received all paperwork from both regions yesterday! This means that he can now submit to the SDA in Kiev. The next step is court. It is standard for SDA to take 5 days to review the paperwork before assigning a court date. Please pray that this process will move quickly!

Here are some pictures of the inside/outside of Annaleise's and Jeremiah's orphanage. The caretakers are very friendly to us and the children are very well taken care of. The outside pictures were taken last week when it was still warm. This week it has been cloudy and rainy every day with average temps in the high 40's to low 50's. We hear it is supposed to warm up to 60's next week. We can't wait! Rick's head is very cold and we cannot find a hat -- everyone tells us to check back in 2 weeks. We had a blessing last night with heat in our room. We weren't expecting heat until mid-October!

There are no dog confinement laws here and dogs are running about everywhere! Also, farm animals may be kept wherever you wish to keep them including in the city limits. Here is a picture of a rooster walking alongside the roadway on the way to the market. This roadway is a side street but has regular traffic to the hotel. It is also common to see people walking their cows or horses down the streets alongside heavy traffic. We keep wanting to get a picture of this and will post it when we do.

Our facilitator explained that capitalism is relatively new to Ukraine and many small businesses have flourished. Here is a picture of the small store close to our hotel. It appears to us to be attached to someone's house. We walk down to get quick items chips, soda, and candy bars.

Surplus military vehicles are a common sight. This is about a 1960's dump truck that is now used in a construction business.

Outside our hotel is a small Orthodox church. Every Sunday morning around 7:30 one of the older ladies rings these yellow bells with a hammer. We can see the older women working in the fields in the evenings and they have a beautiful garden. You can see in one of the pictures 2 of the ladies sawing wood for a fire.

Because it has been so cold, we stay inside. The kids don't mind -- Pappa is their favorite jungle gym!

Momma helps Annaleise with lipgloss. Jeremiah is very interested, so pappa gave him some chapstick.