A Jesus filled Sunday

Ryan and I had such an amazing sunday just what we needed to lift our spirits and see first hand how God is working in this country! Barbara, our amazing social worker, told us that if we had time, and we all know we did, to get in contact with the Mission Music Kiev. With some help from Barbara we were able to get in contact with them and what a blessing. we called and introduced ourselves and they were instantly warming! they invited us to church and expected us to stay for dinner, felt like family!! this wonderful family consist of Matt and Tricia and their three children. the family of five just moved here from the states about three months ago. Matt is in the process of "taking" over the mission from his father and mother Roger and Diane McMurrin. in short they work with orphans and widows. They are living the James 1:27 life!!!! they also started the Kiev Symphony Orchestra and Chorus, when you get a chance please checkout their website www.musicmissionkiev.org, they have a cool program were you can support the widows, in away adopting them!! The church service was Beautiful with a full Orchestra and Chorus nothing that I had ever experience before. after church we enjoyed dinner and just sat and talked. we were able to meet another family that is visiting (they have family roots here) Uta and Katrina a mother and daughter, they will be visiting for 6 weeks, just wonderful, we will be going to dinner with them tonight! God is good!

there are things here that we love one being that they have the best flavors of chips in the world, not fare really why can't we have bacon flavored potato chip, there is even crab flavored. best of all the grocery stores are mainly packed with beer and chocolate can't go wrong there! the milk is even yummier than home.

this a a picture of our milk, we were not sure if it was milk at first, it is in a bag..... but it is yummy.

We are getting to a more normal schedule, last night was the first night I slept all night, felt good. we are going to the monastery caves today and see what else comes up. We will be moving tomorrow to a cheaper apartment a studio apartment, our apartment now is pretty big we really don't need the space, and the new one has a washing machine so we can wash our cloths, finally. we are getting excited!!!
we miss you all very very much and of course we are excited to bring Bear home, see you all soon!!!

oops quick fix from earlier

We were wrong the statue is not of St. Andrew however it is of Volodoymyr the Baptizer he inherited the Kyivan-Rus (Kiev) empire from his grandmother and he wanted to unite the empire under one faith in 988. He united his Empire under the Orthodox Christianity unlike the questions that arise with Constantine faith and whether he did it for a stronger empire or because he truly believed, Volodoymyr the Baptizer believed!!! He led by example and soon his patrons fallowed. His statue was erected in 1853. I tell you there is just so much to learn, I love it!!!!!

Beautiful and perfect day

today was beautiful, we are still not sleeping well but we were able to get on a somewhat normal schedule. We spent the whole day in the park next to the Dnieper river that splits East and West Kiev. the park is beautiful the trees are covered with moss and the walk ways are cobblestone and wined through the hilly park. Kiev is hillier than we imagined. The weather was beautiful today it was cold but it was much milder than it has been, there was even a wedding going on in the park. Everyone is a lot more laid back then they seem to be in the city.  we walked a good 2 1/2 miles today it was great to get out and explore and breath the fresh air. there is tons to see in the park even a statue of what appears to be Saint Andrew. Ryan posted a picture of St. Andrews in a early post but here it is again with the picture of the statue.

The story is told that St. Andrew came to this location when it was only a hill and erected a cross where he prophesied that this would be the foundation for a great christian city, in later years Kiev became the center of the eastern orthodox faith. it has been so much fun to come home and research this stuff!!! as it stands now the church is undergoing foundation repair, the statue was in the park in a different part of the city however you can tell how important that history is to the people here....

during the walk we came across this bridge that was quite curious, it was covered in pad locks and pieces of fabric tied in knots, we came to the conclusion that it had to do something with marriage or love and we were right. It is so cool that something like that is universal, as the Beatles put it "All you need is love" it cool to see love in every language is the same!! as soon as we got home we looked it up it is the "the lover's bridge" if you kiss your loved one on this bridge your hearts will be forever locked together. I, of course am in search of a lock and you can bet we will be back there to share a kiss :)!!!!

And of course we had to find the football (soccer) stadium Ryan always gets a kick out of that!! We ended our walk by seeing parliament and finally getting dinner were we ate what I think was traditional Ukrainian food. I had trout wrapped in some kind of dough with barley as my side and Ryan had pancakes that were more like crepes with meat they were sooo good the trout on the other hand was not my favorite but I tried. I did get a bloody marry and that was a mistake I should have known better it was vodka and Ryan says vermouth with a splash of tomato juice it was strong, quite funny really. here is a picture of parliament. they are in the middle of election so it is cool to see.

We love you sooo much let you know when we can travel as soon as we know. thanks for the support!!

Patience and Jet Lag Still

Hi everyone,

We are still here in Kiev and are waiting and waiting.  Our situation is still the same which is good and bad.  Good because the quarantine period has not been extended, bad because we still have to wait until at least the 23rd to get our paperwork and head to see Ogey.  So right now we are just relaxing and doing some sight seeing around Kiev.  But we are still fighting jet lag like crazy.  It is getting better but still sleeping patterns and amount of sleep at any given time has been a really hard adaptation for us. But we are trying to just relax and take it easy. So here are a few place that we have been in the last couple days.

 

So there are three different churches St. Sophia which is the green and white church with the gold domes and the lighter blue bell tower. It was founded in 1037 although it has been refurbished and reconstructed and almost completely destroyed on several occasions, so pretty cool to see a structure that old. The darker blue church is St. Michael  it was originally built around 1050 and survived until 1934 when most of the mosaics were removed and the structure was destroyed.  It was then rebuilt in a similar style to the original in 1999 and fully finished in 2000.  The other church with the darker blue domes and the sign on the gates is St. Andrew church it was constructed in 1754 and has had foundation issues which are currently being worked on again and right now the church is closed.  The yellow building is just an example of what some of the city looks like.  Very colorful and of unique architecture.  Our plans for now are just to continue to look at all of the history that is around us here take pictures and rest.  We are just trying to be patient and use our time here the best that we can.  More will follow.  Several people have asked if we have a picture of Ogey as of now we do not. We are not sure when we will be able to get a picture of him but when we do we will share it with you as soon as possible.  Just know that we are well and just hoping that the quarantine will be lifted soon.  Thank you for all the support it means a lot to us.  Talk to you soon.

Jet lag

Ryan and I have really done nothing but sleep we are experiencing jet lag like no other and I hate it. I want to go explore and see what Kiev has to hold but I have been sleeping very weird hours so we decided to set our alarms and try to get on somewhat of a normal schedule, so we will see. guess I just wanted everyone to know that we are still waiting and alive just tired. it means so much to us all the wonderful support we have received. thank you, than you, thank you. and to those families readying our blog waiting to travel, we support you as well and are sooo very excited for you. let us know if you have any questions we will answer them all!!!! we love everyone and just hope this waiting is over soon!!!

What a day

Today we met out son... how amazing is it to say that we met the little man that will be blessing us in years to come. it might have only been a picture but we still got to see him put a face to our sweet Bear!! We woke up this morning at 3 AM we where just excited, nervous, anxious, well every feeling one could have we had it. our appointment was at 9AM so needless to say we really didn't get much sleep. We spent the next 4 hour or at least I did thinking and thinking. At 8:30 Valentin arrived to take us to the SDA (I think it is safe to say I love him he is amazing he just brings this sense of comfort) we waited for sometime outside before we waited inside and today it was cold, but no big deal. the SDA is nothing like I imagined but it was perfect the walls were blue and the building was quite old. Valentin went with us into the psychologist office, she was beautiful and kind she asked us a few things about our family and wanted to know why we wanted to adopt special needs, this is very rare most adoptive parent want healthy kids, but what is hard for me is how we as american define healthy, anyway, after a short talk she got right to it and said that this young boy she had been trying very hard to find a family for him. His birthday is December 14 (the day we come home, thought that was funny, Happy Birthday welcome home) he is sooooo cute he will be 2 or 3 we can't remember there was so much happening at once, he has a missing left arm below the elbow and is crossed eyed but he is healthy. they called the orphanage and he is very active participate in all the activities, he is not talking much but is a very happy boy. Our minds were made up at this point but we decided to see a few more all boys the other one we fell in love with was a sweet little boy that had TB and because of that he had holes in his brain and he had heart problems. This was by far the hardest decision that we have ever made, my heart was breaking and I was crying Valentin was so supportive and the Psychologist said that our minds were made up the moment we saw the first boy but I was feeling so bad, you know I want to take them all. Valentin told us there are so many orphans we can not take them all but we can change this little boys life. so we picked the little boy with the missing arm, his name is Ogey he had those cut deep set eyes and a fat little face. I feel happy but at the same time the other little boy with the TB will forever be in my heart and in my prayers. it is a strange mixture of emotions we are excited to finally put a face to our sweet Bear but I am so sad that we had to say no to the other boy. We feel very confident in our decision and are very excited to meet him he is in the East so as soon as we get the ok and the quarantine has lifted we will be traveling to go meet Ogey or Bear as we all know him by :) so now we wait. We were able to get some groceries and we got a cell phone so we can communicate with Valentin we are starting to feel more comfortable here we still miss home but we feel better a new sense of renewal we are ready to meet Bear in person. please pray that the quarantine is lifted soon and we see our Ogey. love you all!!!!!

Finally time to Breath

here we are in the Frankfurt Airport not the best time ever. they are in the middle of construction so it took us 2 hours to find the USO no complaints we at least got to rest a bit.

So now we are all set at least we hope, we went on an adventure to find groceries and an adaptor for the 220 outlet. not as easy as we thought but an adventure. I hate that there is such a langues difference I wish I could comunicate better!!! we ate borscht for dinner pretty good seeing as we were not sure what we were ordring but isn't that half the fun? we are in Kiev right across the street from independence square, there is a really nice underground mall here and they have the cutest boots in the world I might just have to buy a pair before we leave.

here is the view from our balcony, I would have taken it during the day but we slept for 13 hours when we got here, we slept the whole day ;) oh well we were really tired, and soon we will be getting less sleep with a new bugger on the way!! to be honest it is really nice here you can tell that there is tons of history. I think the thing we are struggling with the most is that we really miss home and miss our family.  right before we went to sleep Ryan said "I want to go home" you could tell in his voice that this was hard and it is we have such a huge support system and not having it near us is really hard. I want so bad to see my mommy!! but we are strong soon it will be better when meet our Bear on Monday at 9. please keeps us in your thoughts and prayers we need it. we love you all sooooooo very much and really can't wait to come home. I'll write more tomorrow.