Sorry about the lack of posting, but I think that I may have finally caught up with the time difference and the lack of sleep from our trip here. I hope so, anyway, since I slept from 10 pm last night until 11 am this morning!
We had a great day yesterday! We had our appointment with the Child Department at 10 am. We met our lawyer at 9 just to go over our "strategy". That made me a little nervous because I had no idea that we were doing anything that would require any type of pre-planning! I think that Ivan was just taking precaution because everything went really smooth. After looking through pictures of about 12 different kids, we saw our boys. I will never cease to be amazed at the way those boy's pictures can take my breath away. Something about seeing them in a small, official Ukrainian office made the effect even more extreme! We got the approval to visit them and will pick up our official paperwork today at 4 pm. Friday morning we leave at 7 am for the orphanage.
Aaron and our lawyer, Ivan, in front of the Child Department.
He has been an amazing help! We couldn't have done it without him
On our way back to our apartment, we passed a group of guys that were obviously Americans (Aaron and Ivan both say that it is obvious that we are foreigners, as well, but I don't believe them). Aaron said, "How are y'all?" and they stopped us immediately because they knew we were Texans. After talking to them for a bit, we found out that they were a group of singing men on a tour around different churches of the world. Stranger still than finding a group of Texans in Ukraine, was the fact that one of the men happened to be from our neighborhood in our small town of 400 people. I shake my head every time I think about the coincidence!
Later in the afternoon, Aaron and went with a friend of his, Alfred, to see Smile House. Smile House is where our whole journey began. This is the house that Aaron started working on about 4 years ago that lead him to Ukraine and eventually, Artyom.
Outside of Smile House
Aaron trying his hardest to pick me an apple out of the orchard
Well, of course I was going to eat it after all his hard effort!
We finished our day off with my first ride on a Ukrainian subway. We did pretty darn well, if I don't say so myself! I don't have pictures because I was trying to blend in as well as possible, since the guys tell me we stick out like sore thumbs. I thought the shirt that said "Ukraine" would tell everyone that I belong here!
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