Friday, August 31, 2012

Airport

So I left off when we were heading to the airport after our day of sight seeing. After our driver had taken us all around Kiev, we headed to the airport that afternoon-to see my most favorite faces in the whole world. 

My hubby waited outside (where we were instructed to wait) but I impatiently waited inside-right outside the door to customs-to see the faces I had been missing for the past several days. After what seemed like forever (but was probably only 30 minutes) they walked through the doors! 2.0 saw me and I grabbed his hand and held on as the chaperon and one of our in country host coordinators maneuvered 12 children (from the Seattle flight) outside. 2.0 was very concerned that Papa was not there, so I ran to get him-where I had left him-as he tried to make his way over to his boys with 2 suitcases (1 a big mama suitcase at that), a backpack, and 2 grocery bags full of stuff. (He was not pleased...lol) 
S and V both were in their own little worlds at first- (All the kids were exhausted).




We gave all 3 boys Shevchenko jerseys that we had bought in Kiev. :) 

We took one last family picture.

S snapped a few pictures with my camera before we had to say goodbye. 



Then came the time to say goodbye to S and 2.0. :( And no, they didn't have to drag me away kicking and screaming....but that's what I felt like doing in reality. After giving them many many goodbye hugs, where I could see S was just barely holding it together, and 2.0 was holding on to me crying-and I was crying of course-we had to get on our van and head out to the orphanage. However, I do know they were in good hands and they made it back safe and sound to their respective orphanages. 

We then had a lovely 8 hour drive over some really interesting road conditions-traffic, potholes, hot van, etc etc. It was the most miserable van ride of my life. (And that counts the really "wonderful" ride we had driving across the Dominican Republic a few years ago) We finally arrived at V's orphanage at 2 am and dropped the kids off. (9 of the kids from the Seattle flight were from that orphanage). All the kids seemed relatively happy and relieved to be back (they may have just been happy the van ride was over though). We dropped off another host mom and her hotel and then finally made it to our apartment sometime after 3 am. 

Our appt

I skimmed over a very important topic! Our referral appointment! The day after we arrived in K.iev we had our appointment to "look at children's files" at 11:00 am. Our driver picked us up at 9:30am and we arrived in plenty of time to wait (somewhat nervously) for our appointment (for about 30 minutes). We met a very nice Ukr couple that now live in California, that were there hoping to get a referral for a child under 7.

I snapped this picture while we waited. This is St. Andrews Church which is right outside the office that handles the adoptions.

Our facilitator was sick (and in the hospital) so another facilitator stepped in to help out the representative that was there. It was really (really) nice to see-after all you hear and read about backstabbing in the country-some of it is definitely not true as there was a wonderful level of participation and professionalism between our two in- country agencies. 

They were running a bit late inside the building, so we finally were ushered in about 11:15-11:20. We were taken to a back office where we waited for a few minutes. Then a very nice woman came in and asked a few questions of the facilitator, confirmed we were a host family and that we had just hosted this boy, and then left to go find his file. Something took awhile, and they had to call the director once to clear something up, but they brought out the file for "V" and his brother "A". They asked which one we would like to view first and we said we didn't care since we understood that siblings of course come together in this country. :) They went over a bit of their history and their respective medical diagnosis. No real surprises for history, with a bit of a surprise when they talked about "A's" medical. Nothing too surprising though in reality. 

We confirmed we wanted to accept the referral and that was that! Very easy and smooth. We were told we would pick up the paperwork the next day and then we left. Outside we met Kristen and her hubby. We had been chatting for awhile online and I was hoping that we could hang out in Kiev-but it just didn't work out that way, to my disappointment. 
Their appointment was right after ours, and you can read all about their journey to Marat on her blog as well! 

Tuesday, August 28, 2012

SO SO BEHIND!

I'm so behind in posting updates! They are going to be out of order since I still haven't posted summer updates for hosting!

The last few days before our trip were spent in a flurry trying to get everything together. It was very stressful as there was not much time to bond and spend with the boys before saying goodbye. :(

The night before we were set to leave for UA my hubby had to work all night. (He literally showed up at the house in the morning and we left for the airport). So I got the fun of packing for our trip, and also packing up the boys-since they had almost 2 days left in America and were going to stay with another host family. It was very emotional and stressful for me packing them up. I had to decide what clothes, toys, etc for them to bring back. It was easier to pack up "V" since I knew we didn't want to send too much back considering we would be bringing him home in roughly 4-6 weeks....

I slept about 45 minutes that night-as I spent most of the night packing and preparing.

Our friend took us and the boys to the airport and dropped us off. It was very emotional saying goodbye to S and 2.0, as we knew we would TRY to see them when they came in a few days later, but there would be no guarantees. S was a lot more stoic this time (than during winter), but 2.0 had a harder time letting go. (He had also cried himself to sleep the night before). He is definitely a "mama's boy" and I love it. He is attached to my hip.

(The boys had a fabulous time with our friends though!-we were able to skype with them the night before they left and they seemed in very good spirits. S was so excited to tell me about spending the night at their friend's house.)

Our trip went very well. We had a direct flight from Seattle to Frankfurt, Germany-then from there on to UA. No delays, no lost luggage, and mostly smooth flights. Definitely some favor from God there! (I hate flying and really am rather terrified of it) The only negative was that I was unable to sleep-so I arrived in Kiev going on almost 2 days of no sleep. I did spend much of the day near tears-from the emotions of everything and from leaving the boys though. I was also facing a lot of fears and doubts in the day before we left and the day we left. It was very sudden and unexpected, and maybe I will do a post on that another time.

Our first 2 nights in Kiev-we stayed with a pastor and his wife and their 2 children-they were the pastors of a friend (that now lives in California). They were wonderful, very sweet people and it enabled us to really see how Ukrainians live. They let us stay with them free of charge and even cooked us a few Ukrainian meals. Really really wonderful people.

The family we were staying with. did not live near the city center, so we did not sight see until our last day in Kiev. It is really an amazing and beautiful city! Our driver took us around to a bunch of sights, and did his best to explain with his limited English. We had a terrific time and ate some great food!













Later that day we headed to the airport! More about that soon!

Monday, August 20, 2012

Ready or not....

I have been terrified all night long...thinking about all the things to come in the next few hours, days, and weeks, worrying about bonding between us and the brothers......just letting the worry take me over. A friend has encouraged me to meditate on 2 scriptures so that is what I am going to do today.


‘Do not fear, for I am with you;
Do not anxiously look about you, for I am your God.
I will strengthen you, surely I will help you,
Surely I will uphold you with My righteous right hand.’ Isaiah 41:10


'For God has not given us a spirit of fear, but of power and of love and of a sound mind.' 2 Timothy 1:7



Please keep us in your prayers!

Wednesday, August 15, 2012

Big big news!

So I have been completely awful about updating everything from this summer. I have this horrible habit of completely disappearing once the kids are here for hosting.

I will do the important update right now and then I hope to get some posts with the hosting recaps in the next few days....

So on Monday we received an e-mail that our appt is NEXT WEDNESDAY. Holy cow Batman! It's literally about 2 weeks sooner than we were expecting so we are feeling very unprepared.

We will be leaving on Monday so we will lose a few days with our boys. :( Because of all the craziness of the having the boys here and not having time to fundraise, the appt coming sooner than planned, and the lack of any other funds coming in, we are DESPERATE for funds by Monday. We are also running around like crazy getting everything that needs to be taken care of at home to leave (house sitter, plane tix (booked), boys taken care of, buying a dryer so we can have clean clothes!, etc etc)

If you want to donate to cover first trip expenses here are some of them written out:
Train Fare: train ride to and from the region- $100-$200 (this could be more or less)
Lodging for 1 night: $50-60
x 21 days for first trip= $1260 (We will be there probably 21 days for the first trip)
Misc in-region costs estimate: $1500
Return plane tix: $1600

If donated before Monday 8/20-you can donate directly to Angels Haven Outreach (for a tax break) by sending a check to Angels Haven 818 Grayson Road Suite #200 Pleasant Hill, California 94523 or their paypal at:
Paypal link will come up when you click the "donate" icon on this page.

After that you can donate directly to us at our chipin (on the right hand side of the blog) (or e-mail me and I can send you an address to mail a check to).

Every single bit will help!!! We are still quite a bit short for all of our costs!

Or you can donate to cover some of our 2nd trip expenses: (roughly 10 days after we get back from 1st trip Matt will go back for 2nd trip) 
Air fare (Matt’s plus the boys return tix): $2500
Lodging for 2nd trip: $720 (estimate 10-15 days)
Orphanage Donation: $2000
Food for 10-15 days:
Visas: $600
Passports: $1200