Meeting the Babushka

Monday, we were kind of bummed about having to go another whole week without seeing the boy. We had walked several miles in the morning just trying to kill some time and find some cool stuff to get see and take pictures of. We were able to get a couple of pictures of the trolley buses that run in the city where we are staying. It is actually a pretty cool system, they have regular buses that are electric and run off of the overhead power lines and then there are trolley buses that run in the downtown area. The trolleys run strictly on tracks. Public transportation is huge here since cars are VERY expensive. For example, a Honda Accord that might be 20K in the US is probably over 30K here.

While we were walking back, we found a cool looking little pizza place. We were kind of nervous about going in because we haven’t eaten out on our own yet (except McDonald’s in Kyiv). Jennifer successfully ordered us a pizza with cheese and tomatoes and two drinks and the total came to less than $5!!!









We ran by the supermarket to pick up a couple of things and came back and settled in to read and then watch some DVD’s. We were right in the middle of Polar Express when out facilitator called and said that the boy’s grandmother wanted to meet us! We were very excited about that because she wants to share some baby photos etc of him that we will be very happy to get. She also said that the director of the orphanage had said it was ok to visit the boy while with the grandmother and then again on Wednesday and Friday!!! We are very excited to get to see him some more before we pick him up for good.


This is just a random photo we took on Sunday of what we think is a World War II Memorial just down from our apartment. I think we may get an 8x10 done in black and white and put it in the boys room.

We are Family

On Wednesday November 21st at 12:30 (Ukraine time), we went to court and were proclaimed to be Little Guy’s parents. Of course, it isn’t totally official until we get through the 10 day wait period. But it was great to mark off another big milestone in our journey.

We are pleased and proud to officially introduce you to Little Guy Dove (we’re saving his new name as the final part of the surprise!). He is a healthy and handsome 5 ½ year old. It is truly amazing – he looks so much like pictures of Zack at that same age. We are overjoyed at the wonderful gift that God has given us, and can’t wait until we can get him home & introduce him to everyone.

Please continue to pray as we wait for the final court decree. If all goes as planned, we should be able to pick up Little Guy on Monday December 3 as well as complete the regional paper chase, before heading to Kyiv for a few more days of paperwork and finalization.

We had a nice surprise on Wednesday evening, when our friends in Berdansk called and invited us to spend Thanksgiving with them. We watched a DVD copy of last year’s parade, ate Turkey raised by a church member from the next village over, and started getting into the Christmas spirit by listening to Christmas music and reading some Christmas stories with Maya and Sasha.

We’re back in our region now. We’re looking forward to watching Christmas Vacation tonight. This is how we kick off the Christmas season every year, and why should it be any different just because we’re in Ukraine? It just wouldn’t be right to go through the day after Thanksgiving without Clark Grisswold!

Thanks for your emails, and for the comments on the blog. Please know that they mean so much to us and keep us going from day to day.

A Fun Weekend

Hello everyone! We tried to post yesterday but the internet cafe was very busy and we were unable to get to the site. Better luck today (at least so far!).

We had a fun getaway this past weekend! We have friends from my grandparents’ church that are missionaries in the next region over, and we got to visit with them from Friday until Monday. Jonathan picked us up on Friday afternoon and brought us back this morning. We had fun hanging out, sightseeing, going to church, and eating very well.

We drove to the beach. We experienced a Ukrainian market on a busy Saturday morning. Heather whipped up some favorites from home throughout the weekend, including baked chicken, pizza, and spaghetti. We were introduced to the Wiggles and other children’s TV shows. They took us to their favorite restaurant, The Potato House, where we had delicious burritos. We played with their daughters, Maya & Sasha. And they even had a cake and gifts for me on Saturday night for my birthday! It was a great weekend and a nice way to break up our time here since we can’t really visit the orphanage on weekends.

Sunday was an especially great day as we had the opportunity to join them at their church. It is clear that God is at work in Ukraine, and it was so good to be able to fellowship with other believers, even if we didn’t always know what was being said!

We're including pictures of the Orthodox church in the town, the yummy burritos at the Potato House, the market, a view of Berdansk from the peninsula, and us at the Sea of Azov.

Please keep the Powell family and their ministry in your prayers.

And please continue to pray for our court date, which will be tomorrow afternoon. God has blessed our journey so far, and we pray that He will continue to do so, so that the 3 of us can get home soon! If all goes well, we may be able to post his picture here on Thursday!!

Routine

We’ve been in region for almost a week now, and we’re getting very comfortable with our surroundings. We’ve created a routine of sorts to get us through each day. I awake around 8:15 and watch a little TV while getting ready to go. Zack gets up about 9:15 and gets ready. We put Little Guy’s snacks into our ‘back and forth’ bag. Our driver picks us up around 9:50, and we’re off to the orphanage.

We spend 2 hours with LG, playing, coloring, watching Pink Panther, having snacks, trying to teach him a little English, and bonding. He laughs a lot, and it’s so good to hear. He loves to play ball (even if it is soccer), so Zack is thrilled! We can’t wait to get him out of the play room so he can play more freely.

After the visit, our driver returns us “home”. We have a light lunch and hang out. Then we head out for a few hours in the city. We walk around, wander in and out of markets, hit the internet café… anything to kill time! We get back home around 4:00 because it’s beginning to get dark by then.

The evenings are spent snacking, having dinner, watching a movie, and taking in an episode of 24. After showers, we watch an episode or two of The Office (yes, Joey & Eric, we’re hooked!). Then it’s off to bed around 11, and start all over again!

So that’s a little glimpse of our life for the next few weeks.

We’re including a couple of pictures from Wednesday. We found a big market/mega store nearby. Walking down the toy aisle, Zack saw the “Jennifer” line of doll furniture. And on our way out, we grabbed a Coke Light. We’re not big fans, but it was better than nothing!

The last picture is a street corner near our apartment. Each day, vendors set up their wares and sell them to the passersby throughout the morning and afternoon. You can almost always find flowers and produce, and many times the babushkas are sitting on benches, selling nuts, beans, and sunflower seeds.
Thanks for stopping by and checking in on us!!

Bonding

Things are continuing to go well as we build a relationship with our boy. He is precious and we are enjoying watching his personality begin to show up. We can’t wait until the day when we can take him home with us! Speaking of that, we found out on Monday that we will have court next week.. There is still a lot ahead of us, so please keep the 3 of us in your prayers.

We talk about the three of us going to America. I even use a Matchbox Airplane (thanks for that wonderful gift, Theresa!) to illustrate the idea. He seems excited but I know it’s a lot for his little mind to handle.

Those that know me (Jenn) know that I love to cook. Well it is definitely an adventure here! We cooked a meal for the first time on Monday night. We tried to get creative with what we had. We ended up with pasta with a very spicy tomato sauce, and dumplings filled with turkey, all topped with Russian cheese. It was very good and we dubbed it Pasta Amerikansky – we may even have it again tonight!

Showers… err, baths… are an adventure here! Hot water is hit or miss. When we find that we do have it, we are quick to bathe before we lose it again. And as you can see in the picture, we use the word “shower” loosely. There is no curtain, and only a handheld shower head. But as with everything else so far, I think we’re adapting to it pretty well.

Please continue to pray for all the days and tasks ahead of us!

Sunday Morning Rain is Falling

It is Sunday afternoon here in Ukraine. It is probably 34-35 degrees and raining. The wind is blowing VERY hard. In fact, it blew one of the windows out in the stairwell outside of our apartment.

Our meetings with our Little Guy are going great! He is very sweet, but extremely shy. Of course bringing out some food always gets things off to a great start. So far we know he loves bananas, juice, and raisins… and of course ‘confetti’ (candy). We gave him apple slices today and offered him some peanut butter to dip them in. Ukraine doesn’t really have peanut butter so we’re pretty sure he’s never tried it, but he seemed to really like it.

Little Guy plays very well. He loves to play cars, throw the ball (a UT football of course!), and build with Legos. He is very pleasant and has a beautiful smile. He likes to pose for photos and then see them on the camera.

We introduced him to the Magna Doodle today and he liked it. I don’t think he’s had much chance to be creative and draw whatever he wants, as he waits for one of us to give him some direction before he’ll draw on the Magna Doodle or on paper. But we’ll work on that. We have a coloring book and crayons and want to see what he’ll do when there is a picture on the page and he doesn’t have to start from scratch.

We also took bananas and juice to his groupa this morning. He was so sweet – he passed out all the bananas before sitting down and eating his. All the children are beautiful and we wish we could bring them all back home with us. There are 14 in his groupa.

We finally had some authentic Ukrainian food last night! We took our translator and her husband to dinner as a thank you, and so we could try some of the food. We had Borscht, and it was great (see the picture). We also had some very good chicken.

The other picture is of Jenn on the elevator going to our apartment. It’s tiny and a bit scary! Oh, and guess what we woke up to this morning? NO POWER – ugh! I’m beginning to think we are a jinx or something. But just before we left it came back on. Unfortunately, when the power went out we also lost hot water, and we’re still waiting on it to come back.

Thanks to all of you for continuing to check in, and for your comments and emails. Sorry that we cannot respond to each one personally, but please know that we do appreciate it. We are very limited on our internet time as we have to go to an internet café that is a long walk from the apartment.

We Met Him!

We are still doing well. We are now in region and we went to the orphanage to meet the little boy on Friday morning. We believe that God has led us down this path and has shown us our Little Guy. The next step is to go through a lot of paperwork and then wait to get a court date. Please pray for this situation.

Our blog posts may be a little less frequent now that we’ve arrived in region. But please continue to post comments and email us, as they really help us through the days here.

Hope to write again soon!

We're still alive!

Sorry it's been so long since we've posted. Just after we got back from our SDA appointment, we were getting ready to write a post and lost power in our apartment. That was nearly 30 hours ago, and we just got power back!

Anyway, I'll jump to the part that you all want to hear.. the appointment went well! We were shown several profiles and accepted the referral to see a little boy. We will be leaving very early Friday morning to travel to meet him. We are excited and anxious - please keep us in your prayers as we take this next step.

In the meantime, we've been exploring Kyiv a little bit. We haven't gotten very adventurous in our cuisine choices, but we've enjoyed McDonalds and some pizza. We've also seen some beautiful churches and architecture. It still doesn't seem real that we're actually here!

Anyway, that's it for now. We'll try to post again soon, but it depends on internet availability in the region.

Here are a few pictures from our first few days...

We Made It!

We are in Kyiv! We arrived safely around 1:00 PM local time on Tuesday. It was a long night for both of us, but both flights were on time.


If anyone is debating on VIP airport service, we say go for it! He was wonderful and we were out of the airport and on the road in no time. Just be ready to walk... I mean RUN FAST. Oh, and the great news for the day - the airline didn't lose ANY of our luggage!

Our SDA appointment is Wednesday at 11:00 AM (that's 4 AM in Atlanta). Quite a few people mentioned getting up to pray at that time. I know it's early, but we would REALLY appreciate it as we are very nervous about the meeting! As is always the case in Ukraine, you never know what things will be like from one day to the next, and we just don't really know what to expect.

After the airport, we stopped by the market for a few groceries - definitely an adventure! Then we were taken to our apartment that we'll be in for the next few days. It is very nice, and less than a 10 minute walk to the SDA office! We are too tired to do any exploring today, because neither of us slept much at all on the planes. But we'll definitely spend the afternoon tomorrow exploring the city. We're within walking distance of a lot of shopping & resturants, and Independence Square. And we have internet!!

Thanks for checking in on us. We'll try to post more tomorrow as the day progresses.

Tomorrow!

The day is almost here! Neither of us can believe it. I guess once we get to the check-in desk at the airport with all our bags it will feel a little more real!

I think we're all set to go. The bags are packed and everything in the house is in order. We have friends and family to look after it and to keep things going for us while we're gone.

Zack and I have to admit that we'll miss our sweet Adie most of all (sorry family!). She's the only one that we see every single day, and she is such a big part of our lives. She has been very clingy this weekend - it's like she senses that something is up. She seems edgy and nervous - we found her "hiding" between the suitcases tonight...


I hope she will handle the extended separation well (and I hope we'll handle it well, too!). At least she'll be at her Grandmommy & Granddaddy's house (Zack's parents), where she spends A LOT of time. So we know she'll be well taken care of (and maybe a little fatter by the time we get back home!).

I don't think we'll get much sleep tonight. Kind of like Christmas Eve when I was a kid. I'm sure Tuesday night will be even more like it between the time change and knowing our SDA appointment is the next day.

I'll try to post once more tomorrow, but if not, we'll let you all know when we have arrived and are settled in.

Less than 24 hours!!

3... (almost 2!)

I'm posting a little late tonight as we've had a busy day. The last day of work for me - Zack will be working a half day on Monday. Then we visited Mimi (Zack's grandmother), then went out to dinner with Zack's parents. After that, we got back home and spent several hours loading our new bookcases with books and other stuff. We've been anxiously awaiting comletion of our bookcases and cabinets in our den, and they were completed today.

The first picture shows what it looked like before. It's kind of hard to see the area because it's in the background, but take a look at the wall where the fireplace is...




And here is the after...
The pictures don't do them justice. The detail work is amazing. The trim ties in perfectly to the mantle. We couldn't be happier with the outcome. Thanks to Greg for doing a spectacular job. Now we have somewhere to keep books & toys on the main floor of the house!

3 Days!!

4...

On my way home from work today, I glanced in the rear view mirror and the car seat caught my eye. It was one of those moments where I was flooded with a million emotions all at once. Our lives are about to change, and it's a change that we can't fully prepare ourselves for. But I think we're as we're ready as we'll ever be!

Tomorrow is our last day at work for a while. I can’t believe I won’t be going back until January! We are in desperate need of a break, though. We’ve saved every bit of vacation time and leave time we have to use for our trip. So we haven’t really had a day off since last Christmas.

I think the packing is pretty much complete, other than finishing up our carry-on bags. In fact, we hardly have anything left on the To Do list, but we still have 3 full days before our travel day. We’ll have to find some things to pass the time. I’m sure we’ll think of something!

4 Days!!