Merry Christmas

Hey everyone, Lori here. Thanks for your continued love and support over the miles. We feel very loved. :-)

Well, unfortunately, we don't get to see Cole till Monday at the earliest. He has a 40 degree temperature (36 is our 98.6), so he's pretty much out of it and sleeping all of the time in the infirmary. Yes, it's killing me. I don't know how much they're with him, how much they talk to him and calm his fears of being sick, but true or not, I pretty much feel already that I'd do it better. How's that for a mom!

We didn't find out till yesterday morning (Sat.)about an hour after we'd expected Nataliya to arrive to pick us up to go visit him. She'd been gone for two days and had promised to call Friday to check on him for us but we didn't hear from her and we'd run out of minutes on our phone, so we just expected that she'd be there at the normal time, 9:30, to go visit him. She didn't come, so at 10:15, we headed out the door to find a phone card kiosk to get more minutes to call her and see what was going on.

We headed up the hill and found a kiosk near our supermarket. It's a small kiosk that looks like a cell phone, and as we approach it, I hand Trevor the little note that says something to the effect of 50 minute phone card please. He looks at it, then at the kiosk, and is like "how do I do this?" "You give it to the man inside." "There's a man inside?" "Yes, look. There's a man inside." "A man inside? I thought it was automated." "No, there's a man inside." It was really funny. Especially since 1) it does look pretty much like a cool vending machine, and 2) I'd had the exact same conversation with Nataliya two days before when she took me across the street from McDonald's for a phone card.

While we were near the supermarket, we decided might as well run in for some staples like water and cookies, so Trevor ran in and Emma and I loaded the minutes onto the card and called Nataliya. On the second try, we connected, and I'd woken her up. She's taken the 5:00 train over night and got in about 5:00 a.m., but had not gotten any sleep because she was in a sleeper cab with a lady with a newborn, and the baby had screamed all night. Fun fun. (Probably will be us on the way home, just with a two year old...). Now we hadn't talked in a couple of days, since Thursday, and we'd expected her at 9:30, so this is where she tells me that he's still sick and we can't see him for another two days. It was a tough conversation, and I did my best not to cry when I got off the phone, but Emma inquired as to the status, and when I told her, she shed the tears for both of us. This continues to be hard.

But thankfully, the day was saved by plans we'd made with a nice family in the same sort of situation, the Penners. They got here about 5 days before we did and have their court date the same day we do, Tuesday the 26th, but in the afternoon. Imagine their frustration that they've been here 5 days longer and we have our appointment before they do. We'd arranged to meet them around lunch time, after they'd visited their Nadya, at the Chuck E. Cheese kind of place. They have two boys, 3 and 6, and the 3 kids had a blast in the bouncing room and the mega-playland thing with slides and ball pits and tunnels galore. It really it pretty cool. There are all sorts of video games, and bumper cars, and even a bull to ride, although we haven't seen anyone ride it yet. If I get Trevor on it, I'll be sure to post the photos of him flying through the air!

So the kids played, and then we got pizza. So far, I've been super impressed with Ukrainian pizza. While it's different that American pizza, I'd call it just as good, as FAR superior to any Italian pizza I've had, but they didn't actually invent it, if I recall correctly, so it's not really an Italian deal in the first place.

After a while, it was time for the Penners to head back to the orphanage for the afternoon visit with Nadya, and we all headed down to catch a taxi. Their translator had not come because, after being gone all week working with other families and leaving them on their own for the most part, he'd gotten back and stayed up all night playing computer games and was too tired to come with them today. So they were on their own again. (Yes, can we even express how much we appreciate Nataliya and what an amazing job she does!!!!) It was a Saturday afternoon, right before their holidays as well, at one of the biggest mall kinds of places in the city. Needless to say, the two taxis that Nataliya had called for us kept getting taken before we'd gotten into them. It was a mad house. We finally got one and shoved the Penners into it so that they could get over to see Nadya, since we didn't have anywhere we really needed to go. Half an hour later, we were able to get one. Had the weather still been nice, it would have been no big deal, but we were freezing. Trevor had last posted that it was "unseasonably warm, with no snow" in his last post, so of course we woke up the next morning to blustery cold and the ground covered in snow. :-) So we were cold, and we headed over to our favorite coffee shop, the Coffee Club, where they have great coffee AND speak English, with menus even in English. Nataliya was super chatty (did she maybe miss us?), and we had a great time getting to know her some more, hearing about her adventures traveling the globe, and we invited her, if she ever makes it to the states to come and visit us. She lit up when we said that, and that made us feel good. If she does visit the US, I think she'll come see us. :-)

We also asked about court this week. Does the judge even have the power to waive the 10 day waiting period? Answer: NO. He cannot. Which leaves us here till about the 9th of January. That won't work for Trevor; he simply has to get back to be ready for a January 21 launch of Journey to the public. Not really negotiable. We've worked so hard over the last two years that this just can't mess that up. So that leaves two options: Emma and I (or just I) stay and wait it out, or we all 3 go home on Dec. 30, when our plane tickets are for (since we didn't have any idea what to make our return tickets for and we knew Trevor needed to get back). We talked it through with Nataliya, and she said that if just I would come back on like Jan. 7, a Sunday, we could take the overnight train to Donetzk and be there Monday, do the necessary paperwork, be on a train back to Kiev on Tuesday with Cole, have the embassy doctor visit and get his passport in the next couple of days and be on a plane back home that Friday, the 12th. So right now, unless God does something only He can do because getting him yet this week is impossible, we'll all three be coming home on Saturday.

Yes, it's hard to leave him for that time, but we don't get to see him anyway at this point with him being sick, and no matter how much we see him before, the adjustment of being together and him being off his schedule will be a huge adjustment. We've spent some really great time together and have bonded well, so we really don't feel it will negatively impact his life long term. Most adoptions, you go and meet them, do paperwork and then leave. So this will probably end up being no different. It beats spending 5 weeks here.

In response to some of your posts:

We are 7 hours ahead of you guys, and our appt. for the court hearing is Tuesday at 10:00 a.m. That's Tuesday morning at 3:00 a.m. for those of you in Eastern time, and 2:00 a.m. if you're in Central. Feel free to pray for us before you go to bed, and thanks so much EVERYONE for all your prayers. We definitely feel them. Things may not be ideal for us, but we're really doing great and enjoying ourselves for the most part. We feel a lot more comfortable now and have enjoyed relaxing, watching movies together, reading, and just enjoying being together. We have lots of laughs and cuddles.

Laundry is going well. :-) I keep washing because it keeps coming. My friend Marcia, who lived a few years in Bulgaria, mentioned that we got the "foreigner rate," and I'm sure she's right. Oh well. Makes for a great story!

We haven't ventured into any Orthodox churches yet. It's taken us so long to get comfortable here that it just wasn't really something we'd considered, but if we could have found a Baptist church with an American pastor, we might have considered it. Both Yuri, our facilitator back in Kiev, and then the other translator here with the Penners, learned English that way, by growing up going to church with an American pastor. Pretty cool.

Someone had asked about pictures...We're not allowed to post them on the blog yet becuase it's a public site--can't do that till he's ours, so we sent some back to both Ryan to send to the Journey folks and then to Priscilla who I believe sent them out to the St. Paul's folks I think. So that's where people have been seeing them.

Oh! I almost forgot! In case anyone wants to call us, here's our number (hint hint parents! or anyone else who wants to call!): 011 3 8066 428 0189. I have no idea what it costs to call Ukraine, but if you want to give us a call and say hi, please feel free. :-)

And last but not least, dear friends, have a wonderful, merry, and blessed Christmas. It's extremely understated here, even when they do have it on Jan. 7, so this week here is nothing but preparations for the New Year's celebration (fireworks and the tent and pony show), but as we think of you and all that you'll be doing over the next few days wherever you're off to, we are reminded of all of the blessings in our life--you, our dear friends; the blessing of family; and the gift of an amazing God of love who reached out to us because we couldn't reach back to him. May your hearts be filled with love, wonder, mystery, and the joy of knowing God loves you, just as you are.

Merry Christmas, dear friends. Merry Christmas.