Home One Week

It's hard to believe that we've been home for 1 week. Thankfully we are seeing some mild improvement in Slava's behavior. We contribute that to answered prayer. Many people are praying for us and for Slava and when he finally falls to sleep at night we pray over him. Our God is faithful. I'd like to share yet another miracle demonstrating God's mercy toward us in this process. The last day we were in Ukraine, Wednesday, we had to go to the American Embassy to finish the paperwork process and have Slava's visa printed into his passport. When we arrived there was another family also waiting for the same thing. They adopted 2 girls, sisters ages 13 & 14. Their process was quite difficult and had been in Ukraine for 8 weeks. We shared stories and were exicted to learn that they were Christians and this adoption brought their family to a total of 8 kids also. They would also be flying home the next day on the same flight from Kiev to Frankfort, so when we left the Embassy with our visa we told them we'd see them at 5am at the airport. Sadly we did not see them and did not know why until I read their blog yesterday. Apparently while they were waiting there was some kind of world-wide computer problem which prevented the Embassy from printing their visas...this must have happened just after we left the Embassy with our visa! The next day being Thanksgiving the Embassy was closed and Friday was the last Friday of the month and the Embassy is always closed on the last Friday of the month. Thankfully someone was working at the Embassy anyway and this family was able to finally pick up their girls' visas and fly home on Saturday. I don't understand why this family had to endure 3 more days after already being

there for 8 weeks. They handled the difficult situation with much grace and left the country with their faith still strong. I am amazed yet again how God moved mightily on our behalf. We left the embassy just before the computer system went down or we would have had to wait 3 more days also. Who would have thought something like that would have happened? But our all knowing God knew and for some reason guided us through so we could come home for Thanksgiving. Thank you, Lord!

Slava has added another word to his English vocabulary: Gram-Ma! This thrills my mom of course. Tomorrow we will have a family birthday party for Sierra which will include some extended family who have not yet met Slava. We've been laying low, except for trips to the dentist, so not many people have met him yet. I will stay home from church with him again tomorrow partly because we don't think he's quite ready for it yet and partly because we don't want to over-stimulate him since the birthday party will be enough.

Well, it's past my bed time now at 9:20pm! I'm really wanting to go curl up with my new book. It's a biography on Aimee Semple McPhearson a turn-of-the century pentecostal revivalist...very interesting! Thank you for your interest in our story and for your continued prayers. Good night!