Tuesday, November 11, 2008

Happy to Be Home!

We arrived safe and sound to our home late Thursday night (11/6). All the details regarding Cole's passport, VISA and medical exam came together well last week and we were able to easily change our flight to return home on Thursday instead of Friday. Once again we saw the Lord's guidance and help each step of the way.

We had a very meaningful going away party for Coleman and his group at the orphanage last Monday evening, 11/3. It was such time well spent. A time that we looked forward to with eager anticipation. A very emotional time for Kelly. Cole seemed extremely excited when we came, especially seeing Papa. We were permitted to take lots of photos and video of his living area and children in his group, which meant so much to us and will be such a keepsake for all of us. When it was time to leave, there was no looking back for Cole! Kelly actually had to ask him to give hugs to his friends from his group!

We are thrilled to be home and all together as family! Cole and Mallory did great on our flights home. We expected Cole to want to be up and about for a lot of the trip, but he was very content to play with the things we brought for him, eat and sleep. He didn't get all that sick from the motion either, until about a minute or two from landing on American soil!

Friday, Saturday and Sunday we just spent together as family. The adjustment seems to be going well to our new normal way of life. It is so neat to see how the girls interact with Coleman and vice versa. Madison and Mallory have been very helpful with their new brother which we really appreciate. Cole is getting up bright and early in the AM (yikes!) - much earlier than he did at the orphanage, so we don't know if he's just excited and curious or if it's his body adjusting to US time. He also took two naps since he's been home which is not common for a six year old!

It has been so neat to see Cole soaking things up. He loves riding in the car, although he still gets sick from the motion. He counts the "machinas" as they go down the road. It's amazing how he can count to ten in English already as "Papa" helped him to learn this. He LOVES putting together puzzles and is really good at doing so. We've taught him to say "I'm sorry" when necessary; and on Sunday we were all outside together and he came running to tell us something about Mallory. She was crying because of something that happened and Cole was very concerned about this. We were talking to the girls about what happened and Cole said, "I'm sorry". It was so cute! It was also very encouraging to see him remember the correct English words, use them in the right context and also it showed his heart attitude about something not being right with a situation. The only incorrect piece was that he didn't do anything wrong! He has been a joy to have around us! We love him so much and are so thankful that the Lord gave him to be a part of our family . . . and He had that in His providence from the beginning of time. It's very cool to think about the Lord's plan over the details of all of our lives.

We celebrated Coleman's birthday (10/14) on Saturday and gave him a new bike for his gift. We had a fun time together. He'll need to work his way into learning how to ride the bike. Can you believe all the things we take for granted like how to pedal a bike? We were showing him how to pedal and it took both of us to try and help him get the concept of pushing with both of his feet. Today I had him ride the tricycle which worked a bit better for him.

Cole continues to show his beautiful smile a lot and to be a seemingly happy child. He's very affectionate giving us lots of hugs and kisses which we love to receive! One day at the orphanage Alla asked him to give us a kiss which he didn't really seem to know how to do. She reflected on how he probably never learned how to kiss - how sad. We're sure glad to see he knows how to now!

Madison did amazingly well with Kelly's parents while we were in Ukraine. The bonding time between her and her grandparents will be a special part of what she carries with her. We're so proud of her and happy to be reunited with her. Mallory traveled incredibly well with us and grew and developed in so many wonderful ways. The time that just the three of us had together was such a special bonding time for us that we never had, given that Mallory was not the first born. It was so good for our relationship as husband and wife too to have all this uninterrupted time together. It is neat to see how the Lord has worked in all of the details of our journey.

Thursday, October 30, 2008

Productive Week

We have had an incredibly productive week! Monday, Tuesday and Wednesday involved lots of running and taking care of necessary paperwork. Alla flew through the details and with God's grace things came together very well. Tuesday was a rather hectic day as we started out around 6am traveling over two hours one way to the district office of the village where Cole was born to obtain his original birth certificate and then have it changed with his new family information. The woman helping to process this paperwork was filled with lots of well-wishes for our family - it was neat to hear what she had to say to us. Back on the road again we went to government offices in Simferopol to register Coleman's new birth certificate, change his ID number to his new family name and hopefully make it to the passport office by 5pm. It was a close call as we got to the office just past five, but the right person that Alla needed to speak with was still in; and we found out what we needed to do to take care of Cole's passport in hopefully a timely fashion. We hope to have this document back to us on Monday so that we can then fly back up to Kiev to take care of applying for Cole's VISA and take him for his medical examination . . . and hopefully HOME on Friday!

We were so excited to take Cole in the car with us on Wednesday to get his photo taken for his passport, VISA and medical examination. It was such a joy to see the expression on his face as he looked around and was seemingly excited to be with us. As silly as it sounds, we were so looking forward to this time with him. We needed to pull over twice as he indicated that he was feeling bad - but no throwing up thankfully. While we were in the car he said without being prodded or asked, something like 'I know I'm going to America. I'm sure I am.' It was music to our ears to hear him say such words!

We asked Alla for an opportunity to ask questions of staff from the orphanage about Cole's schedule, behavior, development and progress, food, personality traits, how they comfort him, fears, artwork/schoolwork to take with us, etc. We spoke with a psychologist and one of his teachers who were very helpful in answering our many questions. We value this additional information we were able to obtain. We want to put the pieces together of his past as much as we are able to do so for his benefit and ours.

Today we also video recorded the path we have taken many, many days now from our apartment to the orphanage as we pick Coleman up to play. It will be neat to look back on this.

Mallory and Coleman have been rather playful together this week and it's been so good to see their relationship developing more and more. Mallory took his hand and wanted to walk together down the path with him today. It will be great when we can get home and move into our new normal way of life together as a family.

Sunday, October 26, 2008

10-Day Wait About to End - 10/26

Our 10-day wait period ends today (yeah!), Alla returns tomorrow and we put on roller blades to get lots of paperwork/details taken care of. We look forward to the adoption process moving to completion. We are hoping and praying to be able to return home on or by 11/7. We were able to get Steve's flight changed easily to 11/7 and to secure a seat for Cole. What an answer to prayer.

On Friday we took our new friend Dasha out for a late lunch which was so enjoyable. It was fun getting to know each other. Her knowledge of history is amazing and she taught us so much about the country of Ukraine and its people. After lunch our driver took us to a local botanical garden that Dasha wanted to show us and we enjoyed a time of walking and talking through the beautifully landscaped and manicured garden. This was the place to be. Lots of locals were there and a wedding to boot. We've seen a number of woman standing/walking arm in arm here, something normal to their culture. It brings tears to my (Kelly's) eyes as I think about how we were walking along and Dasha linked her arm in mine; such a gesture of kind friendship. We were given opportunity to talk with her too about the Lord which was so meaningful.

We played with Coleman outside at the orphanage on Friday. It was so much fun! We noticed an older gentleman playing with one of the young girls from the orphanage and assumed it was a relative visiting her. It ended up being her grandfather whose name is Eugene. I (Kelly) had smiled at him and he called out to me something like "Ah, an American smile. What a dream. Thank you!" It ended up that he knew English rather well and we had a great time of talking with him. He was very pro American and seemed wistful about us being American. He had very strong political viewpoints about Ukraine, Communism and was a most interesting man to talk with. We're thankful for our interaction with him.

Each day we feel closer and closer to Cole. We feel lost at times when he speaks a string of Russian sentences to us and looks up at us for a response. I mistakingly one day said 'what?' to him after this occurance, but I didn't mean 'what?'. I meant 'what are you saying?????' ! We'll get through the language barrier, little by little. We feel we've been able to interact rather well with him despite our limited understanding of each other's language. You can't contain love! Our knowledge of the Russian language has certainly increased while we've been here and has been useful in getting Coleman to listen and respond to us.

We look forward to taking him home and beginning our life together on American soil, although it has been incredibly beneficial for us to spend extended time in his country of origin. As we think about the plane ride home, we're talking about things for him to do. If anyone has any creative ideas, please share them with us.

Wednesday, October 22, 2008

Still in the Waiting Game - 10/22

Yesterday, we ventured out without Alla, although we set up everything through her with our driver to go the McDonald's and to the Foxmart to go shopping - whoo-hoo! I wish we would have had photos of Kelly out of the car at the drive-thru pointing to the food options at McDonald's attempting to have the employee understand her. It was such a funny process! We didn't find much at the Foxmart, but it was a change of scenery.

We've been trying to find a Ukrainian ballet to attend, knowing that Mallory would love it and it would certainly be a great performance. No success at this point and something we would likely be able to find in Kiev, although we probably won't be there long enough at the end of our trip to attend one.

We've had more great visits with Coleman, enjoying our time together. We feel that we are bonding more each day which is such a blessing. Each day we take him snacks and it is almost unbelievable how fast he eats what we bring and how much he eats. He also seems sad now when we leave, which is bittersweet.

Mallory is doing great and is such a trooper. Although we miss Madison so much, the upside is that we have extended time together with just Mallory which is good for our relationship with her. She is very easy going and goes with the flow. We're enjoying our time together. She just asked today if we can go to Disney again and if we could take Madison with us. How cute! Needless to say, her sister is still at the forefront of her mind.

We met a new friend on Monday at the internet cafe. Her name is Dasha and she is currently attending Cadet School at the Crimea Law Institute of Odessa National University. She is so sweet and kind to us. Her grasp of English both verbally and in written form is amazing. She seems so bright and full of life. She asked Kelly if she could read which was so funny! She asked Kelly to read and proof some of her poems she wrote. We might be going tomorrow to see one of her vocal performances at Cadet school. We look forward to sharing with her our hope in the Lord. We are thankful to have a new Ukrainian friend.

We're excited about the exercise program we've begun in Ukraine. It's so funny the things you'll do to pass time, although we have wanted for a long time to get back to regular exercise and what better time to do it than now! We're trying to exercise for about a half an hour most evenings. Let's see if we keep it up when we get home!

Sunday, October 19, 2008

Back in Ukraine - Sunday, October 19

Steve, Mallory and I made it back safe and sound to Ukraine on Wednesday, October 15. We miss Madison so much as she is home with Nannie and Grandpa, and continuing on with school. We ended up back at the same apartment we had prior to leaving Ukraine. The familiarity is nice. It is great to see Alla again too, as she's become very special to us.

It was wonderful to see Coleman again and spend time with him at the orphanage. He was excited to see us too. The language barrier doesn't block the expression of excitement! Alla mentioned, and Steve and I believe too that Coleman seems different now; that our interaction together has changed, for the better even so. It's neat to see that Alla noticed this as someone looking on. We felt that our times together on our first trip were good, but that we're bonding even more so now. One of the staff at the orphanage told Alla that Cole was found at times looking at the door with sadness on his face, as if he was missing us. Although we would not have wanted him to be sad, we were glad to hear that it seemed he missed us. Alla was unbelievably kind as, while we were home in the US, she took candy and a toy to Coleman and said they were from his Daddy and Mama; and left another set of candy and a toy for a staff person to give to him from us on another day. What thoughtfulness! (We feel that she has 'taken care' of us in so many ways.)

We found that Coleman likes doing puzzles and is quite good at them. He also enjoys building things and it's neat to see what he creates. We bought him some other toys and are looking forward to giving them to him. We have seen time and again his willingness to share the food we bring him with other adults and children with whom we are sharing our play space. Alla even mentioned how 'he's not a greedy boy' which we're so very pleased to see. It is a HUGE deal for a child coming from orphanage life to share their food with someone else. Alla has given us some great suggestions and one of them was when we are at home to always leave some healthy snacks out where Coleman can, whenever he wants to, get something to eat. I'm sure our girls will love the continuous access to snacks enjoyable as well!

We talked about getting Cole's haircut when he would be with us, but no need to do that now. The orphanage took care of that along with what seems like all the other boys! Steve said it's probably a whole day event when they decide everyones' hair is getting cut!

We have some great photos and want to share them with you, but need to find a way to upload them in the internet cafe without putting our personal photos on these public computers. Hopefully, we'll soon be able to share our son's contagious smile with those who haven't seen our photo album at home; and for those who have, you'll see some new photos.

Our court date was on Thursday, October 18 and things went really well. It was about a 15 or 20 minute in courtroom process. When the judge said, 'Eberly, Coleman Viktor' that's when I (Kelly) teared up just to hear his named announced officially. Coleman is officially our son now which is very exciting!

Alla is now in Kiev and will return to us next Sunday. This is typical for your translator to leave during the 10-day wait period. She's got things all set up for us with our driver to take us to the orphanage, etc.

We are now three days into our 10-day waiting period and boy are we waiting. Things are going really well on our second trip, but we are feeling ready to go home already! Yesterday was a tougher day with homesickness, but after talking to family at home, it felt much better. Mallory says many, many times each day that she misses Madison. We knew she'd miss her, but we didn't know her feelings would be so strong and with such longing. One of our friends mentioned in an email how the Lord is 'El Roi', the God who sees. The same God that sees Madison at home, sees us in Ukraine and is caring for all of us. We've found such comfort in these words of encouragement.

God is so good and we feel His love all around. We are still in amazement as to how He has led us to our son and cared for all of the details surrounding our trips. Thanks SO VERY much to all of you that have helped us in so many ways - praying & words of encouragement, helping with logistics, giving toys, books, clothing to Coleman, offering to care for our children, letting us borrow things for our trip, sending emails half way around the world, etc. We have felt such love. We miss you all and love you so much!

Wednesday, October 1, 2008

At Home - 10/1

Steve was able to make flight arrangements and we arrived home around 6am on Tuesday, 9/30. Monday into Tuesday we traveled from Simferopol to Kiev, flew from Kiev to London and then to JFK in New York, rented a car and drove home. Poor Steve, I don't know how he stayed awake to drive, except that Kelly made a few attempts at scaring him to get his heart racing. Yesterday was spent sleeping, readjusting, unpacking and visiting with family. It was so good to spend time with them.

The girls said they did not want to come home as we were discussing about leaving Ukraine. Kelly also had tears in her eyes as we were saying good-bye to our translator and driver, but was ready to come home. Steve too was ready to depart. Although our trip was great in many ways, there is no place like home. Once home, we all said how glad we were to be here. If you walked in our house yesterday, you would have thought it looked like Christmas with the girls toys strewn out around the house!

Our next flight is slated for October 14, with our court date scheduled for October 16 at 2pm. After court, our adoption will be considered final and then we may post photos of Cole which we are excited to do!

Originally, we planned for our trip to be longer during the first phase in Ukraine, but with the inspector on vacation and then choosing to come home sooner, our second trip will now be the longer portion. We are using the round trip portion of our flight home yesterday to return on 10/14 and have purchased RT tickets for the girls too, in the event that they will return with us for a portion of the second part of the trip. We'll need to make some decisions about that. The round trip portion of our original tickets will be used for our final trip home from Ukraine.

We'll need to get our spare bedroom transformed into a little boy's room which should be a lot of fun doing. Steve has some sports theme ideas floating around in his head!

We have reflected on the prayer requests we had and the answers to prayer the Lord has provided to us on this trip. We will always remember that Tuesday morning in our apartment in Simferopol, with tears in our eyes as we discussed the ways the Lord had confirmed things to us and the manner in which He clarified things that weren't originally clear to us. He is amazing.

Thanks again to all of you who have been praying for and encouraging us along this journey. Your love, kindness and support has fueled us up along the way. We love you all.

Saturday, September 27, 2008

Stressful Saturday - 9/27

We are having a very stressful afternoon and evening in attempting to change our flight home. One of the local inspectors in Simferopol who needs to sign off on some of our paperwork is on vacation. Our court date is slated for 10/17 or so and we feel there's no real need for us to remain in the country for the next 2.5 weeks so we've decided to come home during this time. Our current tickets won't allow us to depart until 10/6, our date we originally planned to come home. We attempted to change them today without any success since there aren't any seats available until 10/14 unless we just keep our original flight of 10/6. So, we've been making calls, using the internet, going to the train station and airport and local travel agent. We have a tentative flight that we're likely going to book for Tuesday, 9/30 tomorrow when the travel agency opens again. Whew . . . what a day!!

In Yalta-9/25

Today our driver and translator took us to Yalta. It needed to be confirmed that Cole's younger (earlier I had mistakingling written that it was older) brother was indeed adopted by a Ukrainian couple. Alla took care of all the details at the orphanage in Yalta and then we took most of the day for sight seeing. We visited a beautiful 100+ year old Russian Orthodox cathederal, played in and collected neat stones from the Black Sea which is a beautiful resort area, went to a fun and interesting zoo where we could actually feed most of the animals and purchased some souveniers. It was a great day with lots of fresh air and a change of scenery.
Our trip has not been as challenging as we had anticipated and we are so thankful for this. We have felt at times that it has been emotionally taxing with lots to take in and process. We have seen the Lord work in incredible ways and we are so grateful to Him. He has truly been our compass.

We feel that our time here has gone so fast, but also that we've experienced so much during that time. Surprisingly today when Steve asked the girls if they miss home, they each said 'a little'. It's so good they're not feeling homesick. A few days ago, we both were talking about how we felt a little homesick. We have a new appreciation for life at home.

Alla continues to be a tremendous help to us. It is amazing how she's on the detail. She's a clear direct communicator and we so appreciate that. We have developed a good relationship with her and she and our girls get along great.

In Simferopol-9/24

Well, we hoped to have posted prior to this, but have had limited internet access. We've had a good experience in Simferopol visiting the orphanage and spending time with the little boy we've come to meet. The orphanage is well run and organized; and the director, doctor and teacher who we have had a decent amount of interaction with seem knowledgable, caring and very involved. Each day in Simferopol has included either one or two visits to the orphanage to play. This has given our family a good time of interaction with this dear boy getting to know him and vice versa.
On Monday, we flew Dr. Yuri here to assess/examine him. This doctor has the ability to quickly develop a good rapport with the children he works with (the gift of candy at the beginning of his assessment doesn't hurt!). Dr. Yuri spent about and hour with him evaluating his development in many different ways and we were able to observe, which was helpful for us to see. While our translator played with our girls, Dr. Yuri spent a good bit of time providing his conclusions to us. His conclusions were filled with wisdom and hope, were candid and extremely helpful. We clearly felt the Lord speaking to us through things Dr. Yuri presented to us. One thing he said to us in his heavy Russian accent was 'you'll have work ahead of you, but I believe your work will be rewarded'. This comment was so very meaningful to us because this is one of the main reasons we felt lead to adopt and specifically a child from an orphanage, that we might with God's help bring hope to someone that otherwise might not have it.
So . . . after time spent together, prayer and discussion we decided late Monday night/early Tuesday that we would adopt Viktor whom we will call Coleman Viktor Eberly. We told the director of the orphanage today of our intentions to adopt him. We are so excited that he will become part of our family! Of course, not before another round of paperwork, but he is worth all of that! And he's already become a part of our family in our hearts. We can't count how many times the girls either asked if we could adopt him or said they wanted to adopt him. The orphanage director too was happy that we were adopting him and said how she thought Madison and Mallory would be a big help to Cole. We know that we too will learn many things through him.
Cole has been described by those in authority at the orphanage as kind and not aggressive on various occasions to us. He is extremely smiley - his smile is beautiful. He is so cute and playful. We've found that when we're using the correct Russian words/phrases with him, he usually responds to our directives which is encouraging. It was a new experience for him to drink water from a water bottle and when we walked him back to his group, we were filled with joy to see him share his water with what seemed like as many friends as he could find to share it with before it ran out. It showed us another glimpse of his heart as we're getting to know him. We'd like to post pictures, but cannot do so until later in the process.
Madison and Mallory have been amazing on this trip! We have had continued confirmation that it was the best decision to bring them with us. They've done a great job at adjusting to a foreign country and are enjoying the trip. We've been able to spend a lot of quality time together as a family and move together into being a family of five. As we wanted, we believe their world perspective is broadening in ways that our words could have never impacted them. I think they'd even say the same thing that we've been busier than we had anticipated on this trip.
We're now in our third apartment since arriving in Kiev and we believe this will be our last 'home' on this side of the trip. This apartment is small, just what we need and looks as if it was recently remodeled. We originally were told that we wouldn't have a washer, but we have one which is such a bonus! Doing laundry here has certainly been an event! We have a photo of Kelly hanging laundry out of our 9th story apartment which we'd like to post along with many others when we get a chance to do so. Our translator today talked with the manager at the internet cafe because we wanted to know if we could download our photos to our laptop and then just transfer what we needed from the laptop to our blog at the cafe. He'll hopefully be able to help us do that. We don't want to download all of our personal photos onto some publically used computer and since we don't have internet in our apartment, we must take care of such business at the cafe.
Here are some things we think are interesting or humorous in this part of the world:
- you must pay for the number of plastic bags you need at the grocery store;
- the lovely elderly lady and her doctor's office like scale strategically placed on the sidewalk for anyone that just might want to know his/her current weight - what an entreprenural;
- lots of great history - one example, it has been so interesting to talk with our translator who lived under the former Soviet Union regime and hear her perspective on the pros and cons;
- many, many wild dogs (not necessarily dangerous) and cats roaming all over;
- lots of high heals;
- lots of dirt;
- people who are helpful when you need it;
- various interesting ways to go to the bathroom;
- hot and cold faucets are switched around from the US-Kelly hung tough as she took her first Ukrainian shower in completely cold water;
- as our translator Alla says, kids must be healthy, clean and full as she strongly urges our girls to take one more bite or spoonful and then another bite . . . ;
- the ease with which you can lose electricity in your apartment;
- locks all over, locks everywhere it seems like (there are two doors at our apt. entrance with locks on both of them.

Wednesday, September 17, 2008

In Kiev

We cannot express how we've seen God's hand in our trip thus far. Our trip to Kiev was amazingly smooth, the flights were great and our girls did incredibly well. We spent our first full day here sleeping in (Madison pulled the record with sleeping about 16 hours!), playing together, doing schoolwork, going to the grocery store, meeting with Dr. Yuri, a Ukrainian doctor to review medical diagnosis and eating at none other than McDonalds. I'd like to think we'd get a little more adventurous with the food, but I'm not sure!

Kiev in many ways is like a European New York City. We've enjoyed our time walking about the city, taking photos (hope to post later) and taking the girls to the park. Our apartment in Kiev is nice and simple . . . just what we need. We were pleased to find that it has a washing machine and internet.

Our translator, Alla is a mover and shaker. The woman knows what she's doing and gets the job done. We feel that we are truly able to trust her and her judgment; and she seems to have a lot of influence in the right places.

We are all doing really well and enjoying our trip thus far. We have all eased into this temporary new way of life smoothly and are enjoying our time together. Madison and Mallory are really having a good time and doing a great job of listening and obeying. We are thrilled that they are on this trip with us and believe they are learning a lot in the process. Up to this point, things have been smoother than we had anticipated with everything.

AND NOW, about our appointment at the SDA. We had a very successful appointment this morning. We along with another Italian family had the first two 9am appointments of the day. We had specifically prayed that the Lord would guide which files would be shown to us and that it would be very clear as to who we should go meet. After telling the SDA staff person a little about our family and showing a photo album to her, we were shown a file of a boy about 4 years old with cleft palate. He aleady had one surgery, but would need further surgery. He was adorable and we were interested in considering him. Our translator quietly told us that his orphanage is in a region that is very complex and discouraged us from going there. We were then shown a file of a little boy who is five, turning six next month. He has nothing in his file in the way of diagnosis except a type of delay which is typical of children in orphanages and no surprise to us. His file also said he has issues with his adonoids (no big deal). We were so happy to be shown his file! He has an older brother who was adopted by a Ukrainian family. The other files then shown to us were of children who were either very sick or of sibling groups beyond our age range. Needless to say, we are pumped up about meeting this dear boy! We will travel on Friday to the Crimea region (very southern part of Ukraine) to Simferopol to meet him at his orphanage. We will travel by plane since the train ride is about 12 hours, although we might end up traveling back to Ukraine by train just because of the expense.

We asked the Lord for clarification as to who we should visit and we thank Him for making it crystal clear that we should meet this five year old boy. We had no question in our appointment as to whether we should do this or do that - His will for us at this leg of the journey is very clear to us and we just put one foot in front of the other and take the next good step that He's leading us to take. We hope and pray for a good meeting with him on Friday and then we'll go from there. If that goes well, we will have Dr. Yuri exam and assess him for his input.

Lastly, a few months back we felt lead to have an addendum done to our homestudy that changed our age range from 0-4 years old to 0-6 years old. How thankful we are that this was done. If we end up adopting this boy, he falls right in our updated age range and the addendum saves us a lot of hassle and headache on our end over in Ukraine.

Thanks to all for your support and prayers along the way. We appreciate and love you all! Thanks too for your emails and comments to our blog - we are able to read them - and they make the world seem much smaller.

Monday, August 18, 2008

Here we go . . . !

This is our first post regarding our adoption journey; however, the journey began many years ago. We both believe the Lord called us to adopt internationally even prior to being married. We have done much praying regarding this adventure, researched many different options and believe God has lead us to adopt from Ukraine. We officially began this leg of the journey approximately two years ago and after a crazy amount of paperwork, waiting and more updating of paperwork, we received the great news that our appointment at the SDA (the official adoption governing body in Ukraine) is slated for Wednesday, September 17th. We leave for Ukraine on Sunday, September 14th and are planning to take our two wonderful daughters, Madison (7) and Mallory (5) with us. We are excited to see what the Lord has planned for our family, knowing He goes before us every step of the way.