Thursday, January 29, 2009

Appointment day

After the usual "wake up at 3:00 a.m. and can't go back to sleep" night schedule when you first arrive in Eastern Europe, we played musical chairs with the tiny bathroom and our 3 Floridian ladies this morning, then waited on the street corner for our facilitator to pick us up just like secret agents. O.K. so it was not just like secret agents, but it is as close as we will ever get, dressed in dark colors and looking for a car that has tinted windows (every car has tinted windows). We made it to the appointment in time, and met with the SDA lady without a hitch. Thankfully, everything was smooth with the papers, and we were out of there in 15 minutes.
The next step was to get a referral from the SDA to visit the orphanage to see the boys, and we were able to obtain this referral letter late today along with several fur clad friends in a small space. We are grateful to God for the progress to this point and after going to charge the computer battery, we will post a little more.

Blessings,
The Nichols

Continued for Thursday January 29th…

When we posted earlier, the cold weather had created a short battery life on my laptop, so we had to halt our story. We hiked to the nearest Metro stop and caught the subway to the center of the city along with several thousand of our friends also wearing heavy coats. Today it is not the temperature that gets you, but it is the wind that is so rough to deal with. We met our friend Igor for dinner and conversation, to which we found that he is getting married on Saturday January 31st and moving soon to Southeast Asia. A cold ride and walk led us back to our 3rd floor apartment room.

Tomorrow we will meet early to go to the inspector visit so that we can finally be officially authorized to visit the orphanage. It is possible that we could have gone there today but we did not want to jeopardize the process by our early visit.

Back to information about our appointment this morning at the SDA…
We knew that our boys had a 12 year-old sister, but we had been told this summer that she had been adopted to Spain. We discovered this morning at the SDA appointment that she had not been adopted, but was in a different orphanage here in Ukraine. Questions remain about sister, but we will find some of the information we need tomorrow when we go to the inspector. Be praying…

3 comments:

The Bishops said...

Hey guys!! Glad you made it over okay. Whoever is posting your comments is doing a great job!! It's like we are there..I know the boys will be so glad to see you. And the sister..hmm...could be interesting??? We will be praying for you all and look forward to reading your next post!! Stay warm!!

Much love,
The Bishops

Karen T said...

Wow! A sister? Big change in plans! Alanna sounded like everything was going fine. We missed Kole last night at church. Tell Y. hello. Tell A. hello at 21. We will keep up with site and pray! Stay warm! Love from Thompsons

Aimee Beal said...

Wow... glad to hear you are doing well and things seem to be progressing smoothly. You're in our prayers!

The Beals