Deuteronomy 2:7 – ‘For the Lord your God has blessed you in everything you have done. He has watched your every step through this great wilderness. During these forty years, the Lord your God has been with you, and you have lacked nothing.’

God has been so good to us throughout this journey. When we arrived at the SDA offices this morning, Yulia indicated they were ready for us to go right in. We walked in, exchanged introductions, read the paperwork regarding the girls’ background, showed the SDA worker several photos of our family and of the time Alyona was visiting over the holidays, and we were done. We were in & out of there in LESS THAN TEN MINUTES!! We can go back tomorrow, Friday afternoon, between 3:00 & 4:00pm to pick up our referral to go see the girls!

What does that mean? 1) We will leave by train on Friday night and arrive in Odessa on Saturday morning. 2) On Monday we will check in with the regional SDA office, then head to Balta to complete whatever local paperwork is necessary to see Alyona. Our prayers are that the director will allow Alyona to stay with us from that point on. 3) We will then travel to Kiliya and complete the same process to meet Kristina for the first time. (I so cannot wait to see her! I hope she will allow us to hug her, and show her we love her, and have since the first time we first saw her picture.) Please pray that she, too, can stay with us. 4) Then, we will have to make the decision of where to file the paperwork for court. There has been some question of whether it will be better to work through the Balta or the Kiliya court. Then, we wait until whatever date court gets scheduled. We will be staying in Odessa for most of the remainder of our stay in Ukraine. There will be periodic day trips out to whichever city we have court. Otherwise, we will get to do some traveling on the country roads and get to see some more of Ukraine. YEAH for us.

We have had a great time while in Kiev. Oles took us around yesterday for about four hours and showed us some beautiful sites. Then he had to go to the office to do some work. He left us alone in a foreign town. What was he ever thinking? He does not know us very well. (Joking!!!!) We came back to our flat for a few minutes, regrouped, then off we went, map in hand and sights to see. We wanted to go down to the Dnipro river. So we walked, and walked, and walked some more. Finally, we came around a corner and there was the start of what turned out to be some of the most beautiful churches and sites we have seen. We went in some places I am sure most tourists don't ever go, but we like to see what lies in those hidden places. You can find some great gems. After hours of walking & looking, it was turning dark, so we needed to head back toward our flat. Don’t know how far we walked yesterday, but it seemed like ten miles. So, let’s see. We walked: Sunday=6 Monday=10 Tuesday=6 Wednesday=10. Wow! That's 32 miles in four days. I am not sure Tim, or my feet, knew we were coming to train for a marathon. Hehehe!!

Please keep praying for safe travel, and a smooth process.

Lynn