Last Day in Kiev!!

I haven't posted anything on the second trip (mostly because Jamie is not with me this time).  We are flying home tomorrow and are so excited to get home.  We have our final appointment today at 2pm at the US Embassy to get Maria's Visa into the US.  We are staying in Kiev with a wonderful young woman who uses her apartment as a ministry to help people who are adopting in Ukraine.  She doesn't charge anything and is full of hospitality and grace!  We are so blessed to have met her!!!

We will post pictures and tell you about this trip after we get home!  Thanks for following along on this wonderful journey.  Maria is doing great and we are so blessed to have her in our family!!!

God is so good!!!

To my family at home....I love you Jamie, Jake, Mark, Nicholas and Brooke!!!!  xoxoxoxoxo

Maria Left the Orphanage Today with Kelly!

Kelly left with Pam on Saturday to complete the adoption process.  My parents arrived Sunday to help me with school, food, laundry, lunches and all the other things that Kelly takes care of that I have no clue about!

After a few days in Kherson of running around, Kelly sent me a text message today with a picture of Maria.  Under the picture she simply wrote, "I got our daughter out to the orphanage!"  I was at a business lunch with seven other men when I received the note.  I passed it around the table for everyone to see and I got goose bumps (I admit that I held back tears at the table)!  Yes - after mountains of paperwork and an exhausting trip to Ukraine, we finally have our daughter with us!  This statement is probably over used but "Praise God"!

Kelly said Maria didn't shed many tears and was more than ready to get out of there.  She has a "no looking back" attitude right now and is ready to start her new life with us.  She told Kelly through the translator that she will be a good daughter and behave!  I wish I could be there with Kelly to share this time with her and be with Maria during these first few days as a Leggiero!

Our kids are all excited.  I know they are anxious and get the sense that they all do not know how to take this all.  Understandable given I don't know how to take it sometimes!

Our prayer at this point is a safe and timely return for Kelly, Pam and Maria.  They are scheduled on a flight Saturday that would get them home Saturday night.

Maria Grace Leggiero...welcome to the family...we love you!

Kelly's Flights are Scheduled!

We finalized Kelly's flights on Friday.  She is returning to Ukraine with Pam Romano on Saturday, October 1.  For those that know us well, yes, that is also our wedding anniversary!  Our gift to each other this year is a another daughter!

Kelly will hopefully be back with Maria on Saturday, October 8 if all goes well.  She will have a busy schedule over there getting everything finalized.  My parents are coming in to help me that week with the kids...we are blessed with a gracious family!

Though I do not want to be away from Kelly for a week, I am very anxious to have Maria home.  It is tough not being able to communicate with her right now.  Though I know she is being taken care of, she is our daughter and should be with us!  I guess this is where the patience lesson comes into play.

We are so thankful for the many people who we have told us this week that they have been praying for us.  It has been encouraging and has helped get us through!

God continues to amaze us and we are thankful to Him for showing up the way He does! 

Judgement is favorable and we arrived home safely!

It has taken me a few days to get back to posting and I apologize if I left anyone hanging!

Prayers were answered on Monday as we had a favorable court appointment with our "new judge."  We spent about half an hour in his office answering some questions through Tanya.  It was hard to know how things were going until the judge asked to see pictures of our house and then asked if we could adopt him too!  He joked a few times, rare from what we had experienced, and was very positive in many of his comments.  We left his office with a huge weight lifted off of us and happy to know that Maria was coming home very soon!  Thanks to all for lifting us up in prayer as He delivered again!

After court, we returned to the school to say goodbye to Maria.  Once Tanya explained to Maria that it all went well, she was visibly releived and gave her now signature, "wooo whooo!"  I wish we could have taken her home then, but the court requires a ten day waiting period before they issue the final decree.

We met one last time with the Director before we left and he was much more comfortable with us.  I think we had earned his trust over the 17 days we were there.  He congratulated us and asked if we would trust him to take good care of our daughter for the next couple of weeks...we conveyed that we knew she would be in good hands!  We left his office feeling much different than when we first met...it was like an opponent became an allie!

Our driver, Ramon, met us outside the building as he had just arrived from Kiev.  After a brief stop for food and our luggage, we finally began our journey back home.  The 7 hour car ride from Kherson to Kiev was interesting to say the least.  We probably averaged around 85 miles an hour and I saw the speedometer hit 180 kmh at one point...well over 100mph!  That may not sound too unusual but the roads in Ukraine are not like I85.  Most of the trip was on a two lane road and he passed cars constantly.  We went "three wide" a few times as he did not get back over in time!  Needless to say, Kelly was a little nervous.  The car trip was not for those that are prone to car sickness.

We arrived at a short term apartment in Kiew around 10pm.  It was a little dated but we only needed it for about 5 hours as we had to leave for the airport at 3am.  Ramon actually came back to pick us up and drive us to the airport.  On 3 hours of sleep (nap really), we boarded our flight to Frankfurt, Germany at 5:30am.  Our layover in Frankfurt was about 5 hours.   Our flight arrived back into Atlanta around 4:05pm.  After a much faster than anticipated trip through customs, we met the kids and my brother Joe at the top of the escalator.  Home at last!!  It was Mark's birthday so we ate our usual Tuesday Moes burito (Free Kids Meals on Tuesday) and then enjoyed Aunt Rhea's homemade birthday cake!  We gave the kids some Ukrainian candies we bought for them, Russian hats for the boys, and special pig tail holders for Brooke. We also gave them each a journal with Russian writing.  It was great to be back in our house and able to hug the kids!

Kelly is returning to Ukraine on October 2 to pick up Maria and bring her home.   We are making final arrangement as I type.  Her friend Pam is going to join her as Pam hosted a girl who currently still lives in Maria's orphanage.  Pam also befreinded Tatiana and will spend time with her during the second trip.

We will continue to blog until Maria is home.  I still have a few things I want to post regarding the kids we met and some of our observations of orphanage life.  We also want to make sure we leave some advice based on what we learned through out the process.  We feel like we learned a lot through trial and error and hope to save some trouble for couples who follow.  Kelly will have the computer during the second trip but we  know that she will be busy getting things wrapped up so I am not sure how many times she will post.  I might be doing an interpretation from here on the desk top!

Kelly saying goodbye to Sveta, the housekeeper at the Bible House were we stayed

Tanya from the bible house - she is one of two people there that spoke some English.

Kelly feeding a lost puppy...no we did not bring her home!

Kelly and Tanya at our final celebratory lunch..car waiting for us to leave.

Ramon - former NACAR driver with his trusted VW racecar!

View of Frankfurt Germany from 10,000 feet...very foggy day.

God has shown up so many times for both of this through out this process.  I know this may sound wierd to some, but you need to know that we could not have made it through the last three weeks without Him carrying us through!  If you have been following this, you know what I am talking about!

Sunday - Our last day at the Orphanage

Kelly summed it up for us while walking home from the orphanage Sunday night, "I've never felt so bad leaving a place I have been trying to escape."  After spending the afternoon and evening with Maria's group, we realized how much we would miss the kids.  We received multiple hugs from many of them and a few of the older kids gave us their email and facebook addresses.  It happened that both their caretakers, Tatiana and Katia, were there when we left.  They also gave us their contact information. 

We had become part of each of their families for a short time.  It is tough to know what went through their minds but we pray that we were able to give them more hope than despair.  I know it sounds like a bad cliche, but we truly drew more from our time with them than they with us.  I know I found myself thinking about how I spend my time with my own kids as I played cards or kicked the soccer ball.  The toughest part was realizing that some of the kids had little chance of being part of a forever family because of situations outside their control.  Though we had done it many times, it was an unusual feeling walking back to our apartment on Sunday.

Please keep orphans in your prayers...

Kelly brought her flat iron and makeup so she could play stylist with some of the girls our last night.

We bought DVD's of Disney Movies in Russian for Maria to watch with her friends.  We also figured that it would allow our kids at home to realize how hard it is for Maria to watch movies in English!

Maria sharing candy with her best friend in the group Nastia

Out of the Valley and Away from the Ground Hog!

Bill Murray would have liked our day today...totally different than anything we have done!  God blessed us with a great afternoon spent first with Maria alone and then with all of her group.

Today was a day of several festivals in Ukraine as Kherson celebrated its 233 birthday.  It was a lot like July 4th in the US only at a state level.  Kelly and I happened to read about this day in a book we bought and Tanya informed us that it was this weekend.  We made plans to get permission to take Maria out of the orphanage for as long as they would allow and take her to the festivals.  Her caretaker, Tatiana, gave us only two hours which we were not thrilled with at first.  We took her downtown, had lunch and then enjoyed some of the street entertainment (craft booths, dancing shows, etc.).  Tanya sent a cab and told us that we needed to get Maria back by 2pm as the group was going out on a  "walk" together.  We begrudgingly got her back in time only to find out that the group was actually going to the festivals!

Kelly and I were invited along and we walked back downtown with the entire group lead by Tatiana.  We walked through the city and stopped at several historical and tourist type spots.  Tatiana was like a Kherson tour guide as through Valera, a boy in the group who speaks English, she gave us the history of many of the things in the city.  She also educated the kids on a few meaningful historical areas.  At one point, we were admiring the river at one of the parks and Tatiana broke off from the group only to return with ice cream for all!  The tour of the festivals took us about 5 hours and we probably walked over 6 miles...the kids kept together the whole time and never complained!  Tatiana was gracious and stopped at a few places just so Kelly and I could see - we are so glad she allowed us to tag along!

We had the best afternoon so far and took a bunch of pictures.  It is amazing how He knows just when to lift you up onto the mountain! 

I will let the pictures (along with captions) tell the rest of the story...

We are standing in front of one of the stages that had dancers performing

French Fries for lunch!

Most of the pizza we have ordered (and we have ordered a lot) has looked and tasted familiar.  Our lunch today was a little unusual...two inch bread with ketchup, mayo, cheese, mushrooms and chicken.

Yes Jake, Mark, Nicholas and Brooke you will get some too!

Park on the Dnipro River...our second time there but a little more action this time.

Not sure the guy who laid these pavers had this in mind...but it looked cool!

On our way into Lenin Park

A monument in Lenin Park...not sure the name.

Who says that Moms and Caretakers are no fun!!

Today was a very popular day to get married in Kherson.  We saw no less than a dozen couples getting pictures and driving through out the city.

Heading into "Glory Park"

View from top of Glory Park...they had a free concert there tonight...too tired to attend!

Ice Cream along the river front

Tatiana treated us to our own adult cones...which we did not turn down!

Catherine's Cathedral and the bell tower

Outside of Christian Youth Center...they had a concert there as well tonight...again too tired to attend!

With Valera our "translator" for the day...Maria getting a free ride - not that 6 miles isn't work out enough!

Yubileynniy Cinema and Music Hall

Tatiana giving the group a history lesson on the statue in this park by the river

Lenin Square in front of the Region Government Building...center of city.

We got to see another side of the city today...a much needed perspective!

The kids at home spent the morning cleaning the house and organizing the garage...Larry you truly are full service!  Jake told Kelly today, "the lawn has never looked so good!"  Thanks son!  Mark, Nicholas and Larry rode bikes on the trail while Sandy, Brooke and Jake wandered the Suwanee trail on foot...rumor is they got a little turned around!  They canceled plans to go to a luau as the weather was tricky in GA today I guess.  We talked to them tonight and the homesickness came back...especially for Mom.  We miss you guys and Tuesday can't come quick enough!

Entering the Home Stretch...Literally!

The past two days have been much better as our visits to the orphanage have been been a bit more interactive with Maria! 

On Tuesday afternoon, we were met near the soccer fields by Dave and Darci Funk.  They had just returned from the final stage of paperwork and were with their new son Stas ready to head home to Virginia.  It was great to be there when they left...Stas' backpack was bigger than any I have ever seen!  He wasn't leaving anything behind!  We were blessed to get to know such a Godly couple and seeing them take their boy home was very encouraging!  Proof again that God is Good!

Maria has had dance class all week from 5 to 6pm.  We have gotten to watch her rehearsing the performance with the other children.  The dance teacher is very patient as it is not always an easy group!  It was neat seeing her in this "production" and I think the kids enjoyed an audience...remember no Moms and Dads to come see them practice or perform - harsh but reality. 

Kevin and Stephanie come up to Maria's floor on Tuesday after her dance practice and Kevin played and sang some songs on a guitar he purchased here.  Kevin is part of the worship band at his church so they got a true performance.  The boys in her group were fascinated by him playing and enjoyed the entertainment! 

Today we spent most of the time on the playground outside before Maria had to go to dance.  Kelly was the center of attention once again as she coached Maria and several of her friends in gymnastics.  One of Maria's friends is quite the gymnast and had Kelly and I wondering about a "sports visa"??!  :)  The actual unfortunate fact is that this girl and her older sister have a family in the states that want to adopt them but they are "not available" like many of the kids we meet.  I know that some legitimate reasons exist, but most of the stories we have heard are not enough to keep a kid in this environment when a family is ready for them.  Realities like this make being here very hard sometimes...can't wait to get Maria home.

We said goodbye to Kevin and Stephanie today as they completed their court time and are now in the ten day waiting period.  Kevin is staying in Ukraine and Stephanie is flying home to her kids.  Again, we were blessed with another Godly couple to join us on this journey...despite them being from California (inside joke amongst the delirious in Kherson)!

We spoke to the kids tonight and they seem to be doing well with Larry and Sandy.  It is Larry's birthday today and hopefully he felt as special as he should.  HAPPY BIRTHDAY LARRY!  Larry, Sandy and even their dog Molly all will have celebrated their birthdays while on this adventure with our kids!  Friends of ours have invited them to a Luau on Saturday near Lake Lanier...swimming and BBQ...really home sick now!

We ask for continued pray for our meeting with the judge on Monday.  We do not anticipate any surprises but not everything has gone exactly as planned.  Please pray that we have a quick hearing and that nothing comes up that will delay us getting Maria home.

God is Good!