Blessings

I was really nervous about this trip. I didn't want to be nervous, but I was. The only way I knew how to handle my nerves was to pray and that was such a good thing. I read too much and was told many negative things by people with good intentions. Our experience thus far has been nothing like what I was prepared for and I am truly thankful. We still have four more full days before we depart, but I feel blessed and reassured.

On our flight from Frankfurt to Kiev, we met a lovely young lady (maybe mid 20's?) named Aleksandra, who goes by Sasha. She was returning from New York City where her husband is on a business trip. She is Ukrainian and lives in Kiev. She speaks fluent English. She was so eager to help us get settled in Kiev. She wrote down phrases for us to say to Irina. She drew us a map of some places and restaurants she suggested we visit. She waited with us by the baggage area to make sure we found our ride. She also sent us an email with links to maps so we could be sure to find what we were looking for. We hope to meet her for lunch tomorrow. Such a blessing!

When we arrived at our apartment, Helen was waiting. Helen and her sister Svetlana had served as  translators for a mission trip to Ukraine that Darin's friend J.D. went on with his church.  J.D. helped us contact them and they eagerly agreed to help us out. Helen was such a dear!!! She's in her early 30's and has lived in Kiev all her life. She helped us find the market, buy a phone to call the boys, got us water, taught us the metro and showed us all around. Svetlana is on the music team at an International church in Kiev that is in English. We enjoyed traveling with Helen on the metro to the church service (although by that point we had been awake for 27 hours and struggled to stay awake and pay attention). Helen was truly a blessing to us!

Today, we met Nick and walked about 20 minutes to our appointment at the SDA. Everything went great! They had already pulled Irina's file. They asked us how we knew her and how we first met her-- which we answered. They told us a little about Irina's history, which we'll keep to ourselves. We did learn her birthday is April 3rd and not April 13th. The appointment was less then 40 minutes and then we were sent on our way. Nick did all the translating for us and we could see he had good report with the woman we were meeting with. We'll go back tomorrow at 4:00 to collect paperwork giving us permission to go to Irina's orphanage on Wednesday. Another blessing!

A photo taken for us by Nick as we were waiting to go into our appointment. A rare photo of Darin not smiling... I should have checked the photo, because this doesn't quite capture how he was feeling. :) He's almost always smiling. You can see that my eyes are very puffy from the hours without sleep, but I am starting to feel caught up to the time change. 

We then enjoyed a leisurely day walking all around Kiev, taking pictures, and enjoying the sites. The people we talked to were friendly. Many of them spoke a little English and we had a great day talking and being together. Blessings upon blessing!

Thank you for praying. God is so good to us!