Our First Couple Of Days.....

Let me start out by saying that we did make it to Kyiv after much delay. We have internet access now (thank goodness) and we just returned from our SDA appointment.
Now, let me lay out the past couple of days for you.

We arrived at the Nashville airport courtousy of my wonderful sister-in-law and her husband (way to go Murphy and Jerry) at 9:30 to make our 11 am flight to New York. After our brief goodbyes, we went to register for our flight, after checking 1 piece of luggage (food and hair products only, no clothes) only to find out that the flights to and from New York were being delayed due to high winds (up to 40 mph). We were told to expect a 3 hour wait and pray that the direct flight from New York had also been delayed. Well, our 3 hour wait turned into a 4.5 hour wait. We left Nashville around 3. Mind you we had been sitting in an airport with nothing but our nerves to keep us busy for 6 hours.

We made it to NY at 6:30 NY time only to find out that our 5:30 flight directly to Kiev left on time dispite the delay of everyother flight. So.... we tried finding ways to get to Kiev. The first option was a 7:30 pm flight leaving for somewhere like Madrid. The other option was an Air France flight that had us spending all day Tuesday in the Paris airport. Aaarrrggghhhh!!!! Perhaps I should remind you at this time that we have never done the international flight thing. Finally, a very nice lady found us a flight also going to Paris, leaving at 9pm with only a 2 hour layover. That would put us in Kiev at 5:30 on Tuesday. Fine, we can handle that better.

Feeling somewhat more in control of my situation, I tried to get in touch with one of our travel correspondents. We had a travel agent who had the ideal itenerary that got dismantled who had also arranged for a VIP escort to pick us up and assist us through customs, we also had our incountry facilitator that was supposed to meet us and take over for our VIP escort. I needed to try and let some of them know we would not be on our original flight arriving at 10am, but instead we would be in Kiev at 5:30. The only phone number I had for anyone was my facilitator in the US (you may remember me speaking of him in some earlier posts.) So, I called him and left a message telling him what had happened and asking him to forward the info. on to the group in Ukraine working for us.

So, we left for Paris. I was sitting in the middle of the largest plane I have ever been on so no, I didn't get any pictures of the fly in ( I wasn't in the mood to take them anyway.) Both of our tempers were getting the best of us by now, our 17th hour in airplane/airport mode. So, we tried to just sit and wait on the flight since it was scheduled to be on time. We both were feeling overwhelmed and like crying. I like things to go as planned, if you don't know me very well. Jim Bob was getting sick so he went and paid $5.60 for a 16oz. coke! We were in Paris and all we have to show for it was the single coin he got as change for his $5 coke! BTW, the 1 piece of luggage we checked did make it on the plane to Madrid!! We were informed that our luggage would be in Ukraine sometime after we arrived. Sigh.

Finally, we boarded the last 4 hour plan ride to Ukraine. That's right, a full 24 hours of airports and airplanes!!!! Don't get me wrong, most of the flight attendents were more than helpful to the 2 lost Americans. Once we landed, we were greeted by a man screaming "Tune-er", "Tune-er"!! You guessed it, that was our VIP escort. He never received the information about our flight changes. After 24 hours of chaos, we get welcomed to Ukraine by a very upset, over-paid escort who is upset for waisting his day. Granted, I would have been mad if I was trying to do my job and was unaware of the circumstances surrounding my client. That was just not what I needed right then. He did pust us right through customs, asked us about our luggage, showed us where to go and left us standing in the middle of the arrivals in Ukraine's airport. I had all I could handle for the moment and started crying. Stress doesn't suit me well. After a moment, the nicest man came to help us. He reminds me of a guy who attends our church. He walked us through the paperwork and carried us to Yulia, our facilitator in Ukraine. You go guy in the Ukraine Customs Department!

For the first time since Monday morning, we left airport territory! Praise God!! Yulia and her husband, Yuri, took over. They helped us to our apartment, took us to buy basics like water and toliet paper, exchanged some money for us, and put us to bed. Luckily with us leaving the country 9 hours later than planned, we were able to sleep with no problem and haven't had any problems with jet lag.

I stayed up a little later than Jim Bob and decided to update our family on everything that was going on only to find out that we brought converters, adapters and extenders but nothing that would plug into our laptop battery charger because it has three prongs and our adapters only have two. Hence, more tears on my part.

Now, Wednesday morning. We wake up around 12 Ukraine time (about 10 hours ahead of home), get ready to go out and play only to be informed that our luggage was found and should be delievered to us. GREAT! So, we calmly wait. And wait, and wait, and wait. We watch reruns of Sabrina the Teenage Witch dubbed in Russian and Baby Looney Toons (also with Russian overlayed). At 6pm, our luggage was delievered.

It was to late for us to leave the apartment being that it was dark. So, more old reruns of american hits in the early 90's and to bed by 10.

Today, Thursday the 26th was our appointment witht the SDA. To be honest, we did not even have time to worry about the appointment. We prayed hard that we would have a clear sign of which child to choose. Time for the appointment. We were showed 12 files of siblings, all brothers, no girls. Most of the sibling groups had at least one child that was over our age limit. Most of the boys were 11 or older. Legally, we could only adopt a child up to the age of 9 (the youngest parent has to 15 years older than the child). That knocks us out. We were also shown 4 single kids files. One little girl, the rest boys (see a pattern here). The girls was sweet but we were told her orphanage director would not sign off to let her be adopted. Then, our sign hit us in the face. A little boy named Ruslan. He is the only child of a woman who is actually 2 years younger than I am. He has blonde hair and greenish eyes. (Doesn't look like either of us). You may be wondering "what sign are you talking about?" The sign was his birthday is June 5, 2003! That's a year to the day of our wedding anniversary!! Spooky, huh?! We are going to visit him and see what happens. Remember, we are just going to meet him and see how we react to one another. He is precious though.

So, that brings everyone up to speed. We had a very hard, rocky start but things seem to be smiling at us now. The sun was even shinning, so we are going to venture around the city. I haven't gotten many good pictures at all.

Thanks to everyone who has been following our journey and praying on our behalf. It did my heart good to open up my mail and find over 50 messages needing responding to. Keep those prayers a comin'.