January 20-21: Neither one of us were able to sleep well on Saturday night. It was almost dawn when we finally went into a deep sleep and I was the first to wake up at almost 11:00am. Obviously church was out of the picture so we decided to just make our Sunday a day of rest. The one exception was that I decided to wash some clothes in our bathroom sink. I hope you get a laugh out of what happened to my looooooong johns. We did venture out for a late lunch and enjoyed walking in the snow. After we got back to the room, Valery told me that he needed to talk to me. He had just found out that he would need to travel back to Kiev on Monday night to meet another couple at the airport. I was a little shocked to hear this but felt that everything would be well on its way to being finished by the time he left and that we could handle the rest by talking to him on the phone when necessary.
Monday, January 21 was supposed to have been the busiest day of our process. We needed to go to the tax office and get Viktor and Sasha’s new forms to take with us to Zaporozhe and then hit the road to Molochansk to pick up Zhenya before going to Zaporozhe to get stamps for their birth certificates and apply for their passports. Tamara and I got up early after another almost sleepless night and were ready to eat breakfast as soon as the cafe opened while Valery went to the tax office. When Valery returned for the office, we could tell by his expression that he didn’t have good news. The first thing that he said to us in his heavy Russian accent was “Let us go sit down, we need to talk”. It turned out that the Berdyansk passport office had made an error on both Viktor and Sasha’s passports that would cause them to have to be reissued before we could get their tax ID and be able to go to Zaporozhe. Even worse news was delivered when Valery reminded us that the passport office was closed on Monday. I couldn’t believe this was happening to us, just because they had put the boys’ new middle names on the line reserved for the derivative of the father’s name (like Dimitryvich) would normally go. Even after we both went back to plead our case and Galina (the orphanage director) called on our behalf, the tax office and the Zaporozhe passport office would not agree to let this go. I was severely crushed at first, mostly due to my knowledge that this meant that we would lose a whole day and then have to try to get new passports and then do everything on Tuesday that we should have done on Monday without Valery.
My first (and as usual, selfish) reaction to this situation was for Tamara and I complete everything that would require both of us in Berdyansk and Molochansk and then go to the US Embassy in Kiev on Wednesday for Tamara to sign papers. This would allow us to make our flights back and for me to come back in a few weeks when all the dust settled on our messed up process and take all the boys home. After praying and talking with both Tamara and Karen Springs (with Project Emmanuel in Kiev), I realized however that I was just angry and not trusting that God was big enough to help us navigate through this bureaucratic maze (even without Valery’s physical presence). Karen promised to help me by contacting the airlines for me about out potential changes. I was convicted that Jesus didn’t choose the easy way out; He walked the hardest road that anyone ever could to pay for our sins on the cross. We can go home on our scheduled flight Thurs. or we can stay in Ukraine a few more days and face the unknown obstacles. We can walk through this and just try to get the boys home with us as soon as we can. It is going to require much more faith to stay with this being our second trip, on our 9th day and having already been away from home 13 days in Dec. for the first trip. We had to miss Christmas Day with our kids and family. Yesterday was Ella’s birthday and we’ll have to celebrate when we return home. We’ve had to juggle things around and accept things being different from the way we had planned. God’s will isn’t always convenient. We decided to go forward and let God “make our paths straight” and take it one day at a time to see what He reveals to us. I realize that we can’t see the future but He already knows what is going to happen.
We decided to arrange with Galina for us to come sign the papers that allow us to take the boys from the orphanage when we leave in order to get that part of the process out of the way before Valery left. We picked up the Inspector and drove to the orphanage. When we entered Galina’s office, she greeted us and presented us with a stack of the boys’ pictures and diplomas. She then brought in the only two girls that were still left at the orphanage from the 2B class with Kristina Spangler. Galina wanted us to take a picture of the girls to send to Kristina. The girls told us that they also remembered our daughter Brooke (a.k.a. Yulia). We could hear Valery and Olga (the school lawyer) discussing the passport situation as they prepared the papers for us to sign. After we finished signing the forms, Viktor and Sasha came in and we to the library to talk and look at the suitcase that we purchased for Sasha while Valery went back to town for a few last minute errands. We enjoyed talking with the boys and were disappointed when we saw Valery enter the room because we knew we would have to return to the hotel. I knew that he needed to give me all the documents that we would need to complete our process and time was running short for him to make it to Melitopol in time to catch the 7:00pm train to Kiev. Viktor walked us to the taxi and hugged us goodbye, while Sasha took his new suitcase back to his room.
When we got back to the hotel, Valery carefully explained what we would need to do and how he had organized the documents for each office in folders for me. Finally, I felt comfortable that with the help of God, the boys and Misha, a college student friend of our Missionary friend Don Norton (who volunteered to drive us to Zaporozhe) we could make it. Valery reluctantly left our room and headed off to Melitopol. Hopefully, the next time we see each other is when Tamara, Viktor, Zhenya, Sasha and I arrive in Kiev to finish the process at the US Embassy. That is what I am asking God to do for us!
After all the stress of the day, lack of sleep, and Tamara fighting a bad head cold, we had the cafe bring dinner to our room and went to bed early. We thought for only a dollar extra, we would take advantage of this service, especially since it was rainy and cold outside. Lord, please bless us tomorrow with all the answers to prayers that we need. Amen.
Monday, January 21 was supposed to have been the busiest day of our process. We needed to go to the tax office and get Viktor and Sasha’s new forms to take with us to Zaporozhe and then hit the road to Molochansk to pick up Zhenya before going to Zaporozhe to get stamps for their birth certificates and apply for their passports. Tamara and I got up early after another almost sleepless night and were ready to eat breakfast as soon as the cafe opened while Valery went to the tax office. When Valery returned for the office, we could tell by his expression that he didn’t have good news. The first thing that he said to us in his heavy Russian accent was “Let us go sit down, we need to talk”. It turned out that the Berdyansk passport office had made an error on both Viktor and Sasha’s passports that would cause them to have to be reissued before we could get their tax ID and be able to go to Zaporozhe. Even worse news was delivered when Valery reminded us that the passport office was closed on Monday. I couldn’t believe this was happening to us, just because they had put the boys’ new middle names on the line reserved for the derivative of the father’s name (like Dimitryvich) would normally go. Even after we both went back to plead our case and Galina (the orphanage director) called on our behalf, the tax office and the Zaporozhe passport office would not agree to let this go. I was severely crushed at first, mostly due to my knowledge that this meant that we would lose a whole day and then have to try to get new passports and then do everything on Tuesday that we should have done on Monday without Valery.
My first (and as usual, selfish) reaction to this situation was for Tamara and I complete everything that would require both of us in Berdyansk and Molochansk and then go to the US Embassy in Kiev on Wednesday for Tamara to sign papers. This would allow us to make our flights back and for me to come back in a few weeks when all the dust settled on our messed up process and take all the boys home. After praying and talking with both Tamara and Karen Springs (with Project Emmanuel in Kiev), I realized however that I was just angry and not trusting that God was big enough to help us navigate through this bureaucratic maze (even without Valery’s physical presence). Karen promised to help me by contacting the airlines for me about out potential changes. I was convicted that Jesus didn’t choose the easy way out; He walked the hardest road that anyone ever could to pay for our sins on the cross. We can go home on our scheduled flight Thurs. or we can stay in Ukraine a few more days and face the unknown obstacles. We can walk through this and just try to get the boys home with us as soon as we can. It is going to require much more faith to stay with this being our second trip, on our 9th day and having already been away from home 13 days in Dec. for the first trip. We had to miss Christmas Day with our kids and family. Yesterday was Ella’s birthday and we’ll have to celebrate when we return home. We’ve had to juggle things around and accept things being different from the way we had planned. God’s will isn’t always convenient. We decided to go forward and let God “make our paths straight” and take it one day at a time to see what He reveals to us. I realize that we can’t see the future but He already knows what is going to happen.
We decided to arrange with Galina for us to come sign the papers that allow us to take the boys from the orphanage when we leave in order to get that part of the process out of the way before Valery left. We picked up the Inspector and drove to the orphanage. When we entered Galina’s office, she greeted us and presented us with a stack of the boys’ pictures and diplomas. She then brought in the only two girls that were still left at the orphanage from the 2B class with Kristina Spangler. Galina wanted us to take a picture of the girls to send to Kristina. The girls told us that they also remembered our daughter Brooke (a.k.a. Yulia). We could hear Valery and Olga (the school lawyer) discussing the passport situation as they prepared the papers for us to sign. After we finished signing the forms, Viktor and Sasha came in and we to the library to talk and look at the suitcase that we purchased for Sasha while Valery went back to town for a few last minute errands. We enjoyed talking with the boys and were disappointed when we saw Valery enter the room because we knew we would have to return to the hotel. I knew that he needed to give me all the documents that we would need to complete our process and time was running short for him to make it to Melitopol in time to catch the 7:00pm train to Kiev. Viktor walked us to the taxi and hugged us goodbye, while Sasha took his new suitcase back to his room.
When we got back to the hotel, Valery carefully explained what we would need to do and how he had organized the documents for each office in folders for me. Finally, I felt comfortable that with the help of God, the boys and Misha, a college student friend of our Missionary friend Don Norton (who volunteered to drive us to Zaporozhe) we could make it. Valery reluctantly left our room and headed off to Melitopol. Hopefully, the next time we see each other is when Tamara, Viktor, Zhenya, Sasha and I arrive in Kiev to finish the process at the US Embassy. That is what I am asking God to do for us!
After all the stress of the day, lack of sleep, and Tamara fighting a bad head cold, we had the cafe bring dinner to our room and went to bed early. We thought for only a dollar extra, we would take advantage of this service, especially since it was rainy and cold outside. Lord, please bless us tomorrow with all the answers to prayers that we need. Amen.
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