Our last week in Ukraine was like the much of rest of the time, we hurried and we waited. For some reason GOD must have decided our wait time should be faster this time. I will not go into all the details at the moment, but just say since Kristina came life has been very, very different, and not in a bad way at all.

We never did get the call we had planned on Tuesday for our passports to be in, so we moved the suitcases off the bed onto the floor. Then Alyona Karen realized we were not going to Kiev that day; and she was very sad.

All was well the next morning. We went back downtown to go to the Christian Book store. I had wanted to get the girls’ cousins some videos; and Grandma needed a Bible. We took the bus in and went to the store. The lady was not overly nice to me. For some reason I thought if she worked or owned the store with the word Christian in it she would be nice. I was wrong, so we left. As we were going out the door Alyona Karen and Kristina looked down and noticed two street kids sleeping on the ground in the window well. Alyona & Kristina laughed at them. I wanted to cry. When we met up with Oles a little bit later I asked him to tell them about the boys and why they were homeless. He said all kids have been chosen to have a family, but some families just never come for them. He also told then they needed to be thankful that God allowed them to have a mom & dad who love them and desire what is best for them. In this God has showed me we need to do some kind of mission project with them to show there are lots of kids who need families. Enough rambling.

We ran a few more errands, had lunch at McDonald's, and took the bus back to the flat. I got up the next morning and washed all the sheets & towels as I just knew we would be leaving. It was Wednesday and Oles thought we would get a call by noon saying our passports were ready. The call didn't come, then, nor at 1:00, nor 2:00, nor 3:00. Finally, at a few minutes after 3:00, Oles called, “We HAVE PASSPORTS!” The bad news, though, was we could not get train tickets out that night, so we were stuck another night. Oles said he would go back to the station and see at 5:00pm if he could maybe get some. At 5:10 the phone rings and Alyona Karen jokes, “Hello! We have tickets! Yeah!!” Well, when Oles said we actually had tickets I started jumping up and down; and then the girls realized what was going on. We were moving on to the next step of the adventure. Kiev here we come. So a few hours of craziness took place. The train was at 11:00pm, but we had to be there by 9:30 for the family goodbyes.

The train was late getting into Kiev Thursday morning, but the driver was there waiting with Yulia to pick us up. A mad dash through the station, we put everything into the back of the car, and off we went for medical exams. Yulia was very worried about us being late and not getting done on time, but I had a peace about it. Strange. That does not happen much for me. We got to the medical exam building; and she went and got us checked in. She wanted us to be seen by the male doctor, but we got this older, not so nice looking lady. Yulia was very upset as this doctor supposedly likes to send patients all kind of places for tests, etc., where the male doctor does all in his own office. I told her that God said it would be alright. He knows what He is doing. So the Doctor calls us into her office. Yulia is not allowed to come in with us, but thankfully the doctor does speak English. That was a good thing. She looks over Alyona Karen, and has her read some, and do a little math. Then, the same thing for Kristina. She then looks over the girls folders and asks why they were labeled as learning disabled when they seem smarter than most who she sees. She said she had shown the girls Russian to read while they are actually taught Ukrainian in school, but they both successfully figured it out. My response was, “Of course. They are their daddy's girls!” She just laughed, but then she dropped a bombshell I would never have of. Both girls had apparently tested positive for tuberculosis several months ago. What does that mean? It meant they had to go for chest x-rays, then she would need to read them and write up her findings. In America that would take at least a week for someone to read them and give the report to the doctor, followed by another appointment. She asked when we had to be to the U.S. Embassy. I told her, “By 11:30am;” and it was already 10:20am and we would have to drive half way across town. She was not sure we would make it. My heart fell. How could GOD get us this far and we not get done on time? At that I told her GOD told me in the beginning of this adventure that if I allowed Him to work all would be okay. She then said, “God told you that? How did God tell you that; and how do you talk to God?” I then spent a few minutes explaining to her how God should be your best friend and how to you talk to him. I told her how I wake every morning and say, “Hi, God! How are You this morning?” I get into His word as much as I can. I want to know all about him. She then made a phone call. I knew it was to the x-ray department, but that was all I understood. We left that room go to x-ray. The line was long, somewhere around twenty people I believe. I just knew we were sunk, for sure, but the doctor came down, took us to the front of the line; and we went first. She made many people mad at her, but she was the doctor. What else were they going to do? She waited inside while they took the x-rays so she could get the reports written ASAP. We went back to her exam room. NO TB anywhere. PRAISE THE LORD!!!! We weren’t done yet, though, because she wanted to know more about talking to God. She would like to have a best friend as she had lost her husband and was very lonely. I told her she would never lose God as He is forever. Then, we finished up and left. Yulia was in shock once we got outside and I told her all that had occurred. My response was God knew we needed to that woman right then. I had her where God wanted her; and I let Him talk through me.

When we get to the U.S. Embassy we went through all the security gates to get inside to then find where we needed to be. Everyone was very helpful. Got up to the window and received all the papers that I needed to fill out. Tim was there before he left and signed everything he needed to sign. At that the lady behind the window asks how long have I been there and when we would get to fly home. I told her our flights were scheduled for Sunday, buy it had been a long eight weeks. She smiled and said, “If we could get you these passports today, would you like to go home tomorrow?” What a dumb question! Of course I wanted to go home. I texted Oles and asked him call Tim; and tell him to call me ASAP. It was noon in Ukraine. What was I thinking? Okay, I was not really thinking, I guess. Tim’s first, very sleepy, question to Oles, was what was wrong? Nothing. Just please call Golden Rule Travel right away and see if they can change our flights so we can come home a couple days early. He then reminds me it was only 4:00am there. They won’t open for several hours. Oops!!! Sorry honey, go back to sleep; and call as soon as they do open. I went back to the embassy at 2:00pm for my exit interview; and within twenty minutes we had the girls visas. Yeah!!

That evening we went to dinner with Oles and some other friends we had made via the blog world. They had been to Ukraine two years ago and adopted two boys and were now back for a third. It was good getting to spend some time with other Americans. We ate pizza and enjoyed a great night of fellowship. Alyona Karen doesn’t like pizza so after that we took a cab back to Independence Square. We had not heard from Tim so I figured we were out of luck and God planned on us staying longer. Well, so be it. We went to McDonald's and got Alyona Karen some French fries and a sundae. Kristina and I each had one, too. We are walking back up the hill to our flat so we could get baths and watch some TV. As we entered the door the phone rang. It was Tim; and his first words were, “You get to sleep in your own bed tomorrow night.” So, we took baths as quickly as possible. Mind you, you would not want to take long ones as there was no hot water. Then I finished putting suitcases together and called Yulia to let her know we needed the driver to pick us up at 4:00am because we had tickets; and I would finally be taking our girls home.

Well, it was long night. If I had known Tim was going to call about the tickets I never ever would have let them have ice cream that late at night. It was well after midnight before we all got to bed. So getting up at 2:45am was not easy, or so I expected. They were so excited to be going to America that they were up, and dressed, and ready to go when the driver arrived. It took about thirty minutes to get to the airport. The driver helped us into the terminal, then he was gone in a flash. We checked in, went through customs, filled out some papers, and went on to the gate. The plane was supposed to leave at 6:45am; and we almost missed it. Never would I guess they would have no idea how to check us in with the adoption. We did make it to the plane, but they had to hold the flight for us.

Kristina had never done anything like that, so I was worried about her. But she took to it like a champ. On the first leg of the flight they took turns sitting by the window and taking pictures. We had a two hour layover in Germany. They were not happy at that, nor the fact that three times we had to go through security. We finally got on the big plane to go over the big pond. We did not get window seats that time, which was fine. We had a whole center row to ourselves, which was nice. The girls had so much fun watching movies and playing games with each other. Once we landed in America we had to go through customs again, along with immigration for the girls. Then, we had to pick up our suitcases from the international flight, check them back in for the U.S. leg, and go through security one more time. The plane was late, so even after all the other stuff we still had another two hour wait. The girls were so ready to get home and see Papa and Christopher. To be honest, so was I. They both fell asleep half way home on the flight from Charlotte to Jackson. When we got off the plane there were about thirty people waiting for us at the airport with signs and flowers. The girls were totally shocked and almost scared by it all. It was so nice, though, to know we were loved and missed.

Lynn