Update

Rob wrote this yesterday - today he's in Svalyava WITH our facilitator. PTL! (our facilitator passed her kidney stone WHILE on the phone with Rob (awkward) - maybe he'll blog about that one later...)

Barring any more surprises, I'll be traveling to Svalyava tonight. The only question is whether or not our facilitator will join me. Either way, I'm going. If her kidney stones are under control, then she's going, too. Otherwise, I need to be prepared for an interesting time:
If our facilitator isn't able to travel with me, then Pasha will pick me up at the train station, take me to the court, the orphanage, the photo studio, and then to cities with Tolienesque names like "Ukghorod" and "Perechyn." While at all the appropriate offices, Pasha will call Helen (our facilitator) and read the forms to her. Then Helen will tell me what information she needs from me, which she will then translate to Pasha. That much is doable.
But this process has required more than just paperwork, it's needed a certain amount of finesse that can't be done over the phone. Helen needs to talk to the right people to get things working smoothly, and I don't think she'll be able to do that from Kiev.
So I'm all packed up again (mostly) and am loading up my ipod with episodes of Battlestar Galactica, a show I just started watching (thanks Nate!), and I'm going to have some pizza and ice cream before I go. I do love pierogies, potatoes, and borscht, but a man has his needs...

Prayer Requests (and some things for which we're thankful)

By way of prayer requests, here is an update:

April has been having some problems sleeping lately, and last night she had three separate nightmares that really upset her- please pray that God would calm and protect her.

On Sunday, we'll be traveling overnight to meet a little girl that we may end up adopting. Pray for us as we handle the usual risks of travel, and pray for April's health (and for baby #2).

Also, we've been hitting a lot of red tape- officials with ulterior motives, indifferent bureaucrats, etc. Pray for patience and wisdom as we (and our wonderful facilitator, Helen) work with these people.

Pray also for wisdom as we meet with this little girl. She is a little older than we had expected, and we're not sure how to make this decision. We need to be able to know that we will be able to meet her special needs while living overseas. We hope that we will know right away that this is the girl God has prepared for us.

If we do go forward, timing will become an issue. We're running into the New Year holiday as well as the Christmas Holiday (which is Jan 7th-9th), so getting all the paperwork we need and setting up the court date will take longer than usual :-/ We'll probably be here for another 3-4 weeks.

And here are a few things we are thankful for:
-Wonderful brothers and sisters in Kiev who have welcomed us, hosted us, and served us, though we were strangers only one week ago.
-Five cups of hot tea a day to keep us warm!
-No health problems so far.
-Rob has been able to find enough to eat, despite his allergies (Pierogies- yay!). Although at one buffet-style restaurant, we asked which foods had eggs, and an excited server replied, "Everything!"
-Our helpful facilitator, who has been working hard on our behalf.
-Some of the most incredible snowflakes we have ever seen. Huge! And they hold their shape for a few minutes after they land on you, so you can observe their amazing detail. Rob thinks it's like God saying a quiet hello.
-Being able to spend 24 hours a day together (April made me write that...)
-The hope that this adoption just might work out after all...

Sigh...More News

Well, as if there hasn't been enough drama concerning our adoption, just yesterday we were made aware of this bit of news. Basically, it says that the Ukraine Parliament is voting next week on a bill that would stop all adoptions coming from the US (and a few other countries). How quickly it would take effect and exactly who it would affect is not clear yet. If we've already chosen a child and gone before a judge once it is passed, then we MIGHT be OK. At this point, nobody seems to know anything for sure.

So if we are matched with a child on Thursday, we would get the papers on Friday and be able to visit her on Monday. If we proceed with adopting that child, then we would get a court date for a few days later, which would be right about the same time the bill goes up for debate. Yikes.

But you can bet that for the first time in my life, I will be closely following the actions of the Ukrainian parliament...

In other news, we are staying warm and experiencing a bit of the culture. So far, our fingers have been too cold to pull out the cameras, but we plan to hit the scenic areas tomorrow morning. And there are pierogies everywhere. Yum!

How I Spent My Evening (Rob's thoughts food)

It's been a while since we posted here- it's just been a very busy few weeks. So tonight it was nice to be able to relax, catch up on some e-mails, and make tortillas.

When I first moved to East Asia, I had pretty much resigned myself to living without some of my favorite foods, or else spending exorbitant amounts of money to get them ($12 for a box of Capt'n Crunch, anyone?). My wife, however, doesn't give up so easily.

So in the past year, we have (for example) made our own sour cream, egg-free pancakes, Auntie Anne's pretzels, homemade bagels, granola, and Catalina salad dressing. We've even pitted our own olives. And now we make our own flour tortillas. It's a lot of work, but if you've had April's chicken fajitas, you'd understand why I think it's worth it to spend a few hours mixing, rolling, frying, and cleaning.

It's a little exciting to imagine what hard to find culinary treasures we may add to our list in the coming year. English muffins? Doughnuts? Granola Bars?

I do know for sure what's next on my list- homemade pierogies!