Our journey so far...

First, thank you for covering our family in your prayers. I know that many of you are curious to know exactly what has happened to make our trip so rough up til now.

I'll just list things in order by which they happened-
1. Washington DC airport- I know sometimes there are security searches and they pull people at random. We had passed all check points, scanned our boarding passes and were literally about to turn down the long tunnel (I'm sure there's a name for it) that leads to the airplane when I was "chosen" to be searched. Lucky me, huh?!?
2. The German airport- what is it about Germans that makes me so uncomfortable? I was already a bit uneasy about having to be there in the first place. There were 2 security checkpoints. Hubby got through both....I was not so lucky. That's right- I was stopped both times. The first time they used the wand to make sure I was safe, felt me up and down, took off my shoes, etc. The second time, they used the wand, PULLED MY PANTS OUT AT THE WAIST, etc, etc. I was fuming and nervous beyond belief by the time it was over.
3. We arrived in Ukraine only to be greeted by a drive who hardly spoke any English- I mean HARDLY spoke any English (he was not the driver we were suppose to have). He sped away from the airport and immediately upped his speed to 190km/hr (118 miles/hr)!!! I didn't know if we'd make it alive to our apartment or not. He sped around town making several mysterious stops only to drop us at the door of our apartment with a "Welcome to Ukraine!" and off he sped. Hubby swears he thinks he was making some sort of drug deal. Who knows?
4. We were without a phone, internet, money, food, tv...nothing for about 8 hours. Call me a spoiled American if you want, but talk about being afraid. The phone in our apartment didn't even work making it impossible to call anyone!
5. At the airport we were told that our facilitator would be over very soon. Tick tock, tick tock-Late that evening we finally saw her. I believe she felt bad about leaving us and brought us food- bread, butter, cheese and water. Plenty to get us through the night.
6. The next day we ventured out in search of some place to exchange money as well as find groceries. Exchanging money was easy. Then came the groceries. We were minding our own business trying not to stand out. I'm not sure what happened but we were followed around the store by a security guard radioing someone on his walkie-talkie the entire time. Again...very intimidated. We couldn't get out of the store fast enough. On the way back to the apartment a policeman thought to take it upon himself to stare us down until he could see us no more.
7. We were promised phone calls from facilitators that didn't happen. We were promised internet connection that didn't happen...for days and days.
8. We had an elf bed. Really- hubby says he felt like Will Ferrell trying to sleep in that thing. It's funny now but at 2am it wasn't so humerous.:)

There is much more to the story that I just don't feel good about sharing on these pages. We've had a rough time. We have been left in "the dark" about many things and lines of communication have not been upheld. It wasn't until yesterday that we had internet and were able to get in touch with our families. YESTERDAY- TUESDAY!! We left FRIDAY!!

I had an extremely rough night Monday night and literally looked at my husband and said, "What are we doing?! Can't we just go home?!" I know that's not possible and it was probably Satan showing his ugly face, but that's how down I was at that point. Thankfully, we met up with Ellen and Andy Stumbo (adopting Nina- Reece's Rainbow) and Frank Garcia (adopting Kelsey, Reece's Rainbow- his wife, Renee, is already home) Tuesday and had a wonderful time. We were able to walk around Kiev a bit and have lunch together. I had no idea how much we needed those few hours- just to be able to talk with others who spoke our language.

Last night we spoke with our angels back home over Skype and oh how this momma needed that! I am still missing them more than I thought possible, but we are pressing onward. My sister is awesome and took our 4 and her 2 to get a Christmas tree yesterday....all by herself. Rock on, J!! Thank you so much for making this season special for our kids while we're away! They turned the webcam around to the tree last night so that we could see it and it is beautiful.

Yesterday we were able to meet with SDA and receive Ruslana's referral. There were 3 photos of her in the file and since they only needed one, they let us have the 2 youngest- one was taken when she was around 6-9 months and the other when she was around 18 months. I am so glad to have these as we have missed so much of her life already.

I am writing this from the train. We are headed to R's region and are about half way into the 18 hour train ride!! Hubby just fell asleep beside me and our facilitator is on her bunk reading. We have a new facilitator- one that I don't believe anyone from RR has ever used. We will arrive in Sevastopol at 6 am, get cleaned up and head over to begin paperwork around 8:30. Prayerfully, before lunch we will meet our girl. I can't believe we're really almost there.

I am tired and need to get some rest but will try to update tomorrow after meeting Ruslana. Thank you so much for your words of encouragement!
In Him,
E