Tomorrow morning we leave Odessa....FINALLY!!!!! We landed in Odessa on the 1st of February. We are so ready to see our kids back home. We will miss our Ukrainian family (IGOR...Yes, we will miss you) and we will be back, but we cannot wait to get back home.
Please continue to keep us in your prayers as we are not done yet. We head to Kiev early in the morning and will go to the US Embassy on Monday. We are hoping to complete everything in one day but there is no guarantee that we'll receive our approval by the end of the day. The way things have gone so far, we didn't dare schedule a flight out on Tuesday and risk having to change it. We already had to change it from heading home on Monday, as we orginally planned.
If all goes as planned, we will be leaving Kiev, and heading home on Wednesday.
We might even get to meet some friends of ours who we haven't ever met in person yet. I love it when things like that happen. We live very close to each other in Texas and have "met" and talked on the phone and on facebook because we're both adopting but have never met in person. We are both going to be in Kiev at the same time, I think, and will probably meet this weekend. God's cool like that. Big, big God-small world.
Earlier today, we finally got to meet Allen Hull. Allen and I have a mutual friend, Vova, who really wanted us to meet. Vova grew up in an orphanage and he and I have been friends for the last 7 years. He is a sailor now and I'm really bummed that I didn't get to see him while I was here this trip; I did hear from him though. When I was in Odessa last summer, Vova was with our team during lunch. He called Allen so that Allen and I could meet and talk, at least on the phone. I was glad to know that there was someone here who was mentoring Vova, guiding him spiritually, and giving him advice. We've been here 2 months and Allen and I just haven't been able to work out meeting each other. So, finally, on my last day here, we made it work out and got together. As we talked, we found out that Alan visits his Aunt who lives in San Antonio, so we'll get to see him when ever he comes to S.A. God, once again, showed us how big He is and how small our world is.
We spent our final evening with Igor and Pastor Oleg (another unplanned event-thank You, God). What a great way for Viktor to spend his last night in Ukraine....with his two favorite men, who have mentored him and cared for him all these years.
Igor, I think you really willmiss this boy when we go. :) Thank you for all you have done for us while we were here. Thank you for caring so much for Viktor all these years and thank you for caring so much for us. We love you so much.
