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!
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| Kelly saying goodbye to Sveta, the housekeeper at the Bible House were we stayed |
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| Tanya from the bible house - she is one of two people there that spoke some English. |
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| Kelly feeding a lost puppy...no we did not bring her home! |
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| Kelly and Tanya at our final celebratory lunch..car waiting for us to leave. |
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| Ramon - former NACAR driver with his trusted VW racecar! |
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| 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!
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