03/23/2012 12:03

 

It is Friday night. I wrote this blog yesterday but did not have WiFi to post it until today. 

 

Wow and Wow.

The first “wow” is good and the second “wow” is terrible.

We were all set up to have an awesome day together today, which we did and I’ll tell you all about it.

First of all, Bill and Dana were out getting Dana’s hair done and also went to the store. While they were gone, Viktor cooked sausage. He made me sit with him, served me sausage, a drink, and even cleaned up afterwards. This is huge; he’s made some baby steps along the way but his is huge. 

 

Oleg and his wife, Lena, and their adorable baby daughter, Vera, met us at noon and we all headed to this really cool bridge downtown.

This bridge is covered with locks. Locks of all sizes and shapes. Some locks have names engraved in them or scratched in them. Some have the date as well. All of these locks represent a marriage. The newly married couple go to the bridge and lock the lock on to the bridge or the heart shaped cage near the bridge and then they throw the key over the bridge. This represents that they will always be together.

I heard about this bridge a long time ago on one of our mission trips. God brought an idea to my mind a few weeks ago and gave me a picture of what it would be like to show Viktor that our family is a forever family. He showed me that bridge with all the locks. I didn’t share this thought with anyone but I tucked it away as an idea that I wanted to do before we left Ukraine. Last weekend, when Viktor was walking us all over down town, we went to this bridge. I shared this idea with the family and they all loved it and thought it would be a great thing to do. 

We picked out a really cute lock that is shaped like a house so that it could represent our family. It came with  3 keys. At the store, Viktor said he wanted one key to be thrown in Kiev, not Odessa. He just wants to be sure that no one figures out which key belongs to our lock and opens it. He said he wants the second key to be thrown into the ocean in Texas by our whole family. We loved that idea! The third key, I decided to keep and put in a frame with a picture of us locking the key to the bridge or heart today.

 

We asked Oleg and his wife to come with us because they have had a huge impact on Viktor’s life these last five years. They have invested a lot into him spiritually, physically, mentally, and emotionally. I thank God so much for them. Viktor loves and respects them very much and they are family to him. I wanted Oleg to take pictures and I also wanted him to be with us to pray over our time of locking the lock and blessing our commitment of our life together.

Unbeknown to us, Oleg used to be a professional photographer for a magazine and he went right to work taking lots of awesome pictures to capture our special time together. Viktor was silly, as he always is when he is embarrassed or fearful. He was feeling both, so his silliness was shining through. It’s adorable though. Bill and Dana laugh and shake their heads at me several times a day because I say, “That was adorable.” or “He’s adorable.” or something like that all through the day. Now they say it about as much as I do. Almost. ;)

After we took pictures, we had a time of prayer with just our little family of Bill, Dana, Viktor, and me. We would have loved to have had Mer and the boys with us for this special moment but we’ll do the same at the beach in Texas, as Viktor requested! What a great excuse to head to the ocean! Bill choked up several times (I know you can’t picture that) as he prayed over us and prayed “as for me and my house we will serve the Lord” and committed our family to God and promised that we would never leave Viktor; that we would always be family. When we finished, Oleg, too, was crying. He has so much love in his heart for this boy and all orphans but I think Viktor has a very special place in Oleg’s heart. Oleg and Lena then joined our prayer circle and we all prayed again.

Locking the lock on to the huge heart shaped caged was a beautiful picture of our promise to each other that we will be committed as a family. 

 

We all had lunch together and then our family went on to the passport office hoping to hear the good news that Viktor’s passport would be waiting for us. Viktor called Alyona and she had bad news for us. This is the bad “wow”. The passport had not come in yet. It was like getting kicked in the stomach. We had a flight scheduled out for tomorrow morning. Dima, in Kiev, was working on getting things started for us so that we could be out of there quickly. We were hoping to be flying home on Monday. I couldn’t contain the tears. We want to go home so badly. Not just because we want to see our boys, but we do want to see our boys so much, but also so we can just leave and get our new life started with Viktor. With every hour we stay here comes another trial or struggle. Another hurdle with issues that we would not have to deal with at home. We walked our 20 minute walk home and tears were off and on all the way home. Viktor would put his arm around me and say, “don’t cry” or “tomorrow, tomorrow, tomorrow,” or “it’s life”. We were all bummed all the way home. We know God is in control and we know He has a plan, we just were not expecting this. 

I had been looking at pictures on my computer this morning and started from the very beginning of our process. I saw the pictures of when we first started hanging out with each other at restaurants and it seems like a life time ago. The rest of my world has completely come to a stop while I’ve been over here. We keep up with our kid's lives through Facebook and e-mail and talk to them on Skype but it’s not near enough. They are doing great and will probably have a hard time having us back home. :)  They are there for each other and I know they are showing love and kindness and we are so proud of them. It’s hard not being there for them as they are grieving the loss of a friend who died. It’s hard to not be there to just find out how their day at school was or how their spring break was or their evening with their friends was. 

We want to go home. BUT....God has us here right now and until He sends us home, we here for a reason. May our eyes and hearts be willing to listen and see what He has for us. May our feet and hands be willing to be used by Him. I asked God several weeks ago not to protect my heart. I want my heart to break for what breaks His. 

Hopefully, if you go to this link, you can see pictures of us putting the lock on the heart cage. I'm hoping it will work because I can't add more pictures to the web page this month. :( 

https://skydrive.live.com/redir.aspx?cid=0019192616159f54&resid=19192616159F54!608&parid=19192616159F54!411

You'll probably have to copy/paste it. If it doesn't work, never fear, I'll figure something out! I don't like it when the computer beats me! :)

 

Since writing this blog, we got the passport!!! YEA!!!!! We'll be heading to Kiev this weekend, praise God!!!!! WHEW! What a relief. I can almost feel the hugs of my big boys back home and I can almost taste that delicious mexican food!!!!! CHIPS AND SALSA!!!!! My mouth is watering!