One last trip

One more trip.  Just one more and this time we get to bring them home.

I'm excited and nervous all at the same time.  I know God's got this but I've never traveled with one of your children.  This time Gavin will got with me and Jode will stay home.

Gavin is our nine year old who is the size of a medium adult. That's what size clothing he wears.  His feet are bigger than mine.  He's strong and kind and loves to play with his little siblings, especially Leza and Nico.  It will be adorable to watch him and his new siblings bond while in country.  Especially Hunter who, although he is four, is about the size of an 18-24 month child.  Gavin is going to carry Hunter in an Ergo during our travels. 

In our family we have a tradition of not putting a child down, like in a stroller or carrier, until they have been home for at least five months, thus the Ergo and not a stroller.  Although we do get down in the floor with them to play, and we encourage them to play a lot, we do not leave them alone.  We find that this helps with security, building trust and therefore bonding.  I've done this with pretty much every child. Gavin's going to help me do it this time.  I'm good, but carrying two at once is not my forte!  =)  Besides, Hunter is pretty excited to have a big брат (pronounced brat and means brother) and been expressing that since he first saw Gavin's picture. I'm so excited to see their relationship unfold!

We leave Dec 4th in the evening. Please pray us through on this one last trip!

Second trip in the books!

We flew into Kiev after flying for abut 18 hours. We immediately ran to the grocery and then to our train for Hunter's region. We had to have groceries, cheese, hard salami and bread, along with water and juice to carry us through the nine hour overnight, very hot, train ride. Time was so short that by the time we got there they had already retracted the stairs to our train car, but we made it.

We settle in, put on our Georgia summer clothes (did I mention the trains are HOT), made our bunks into beds, ate a bite and tried to sleep. I'm not sure how many times that train stopped during our trip to his region, but it felt like every 15 minutes. There were times when the train made such horrific noises that I was sure our car was coming off its wheels. After a very long, restless night, the porter woke us up prior to our stop and in broken English told us that our stop was coming up.

We got up, washed up, ate a bite, changed back into our street clothes and waited for the call "Krivoy Rog." Bags in hand we departed the train and immediately realized something was not right.

As we walked down the ramp, the train station did not look at all familiar. We also notice our driver, Igor, who is always prompt was not there. We had no way of contacting the team since in our haste the night before we had failed to obtain an in-country phone - our fault for not asking and our drivers for not offering. We also had no wifi or mobile data in this region. We're talking country side. So, being resourceful, we contacted our friends back in Idaho, who then contacted the team in Ukraine. We found out that they had already spoken with the porter from the train who told them where we had gotten off. She also told them she tried to stop us . . . not true. I don't blame them though. If you knew our facilitator, Irina, you'd know she is one formidable, albeit little, individual. We call her the little bull dog. I can understand why they would try to lie their way out of loosing her family! 😱

We were actually in Krivoy Rog; however, there are four stop in Krivoy Rog and we had gotten off at the first one when we should have gotten off at the last one. By the time the team heard from our friends in the US, they were already on their way to.

Meantime, a precious woman who worked at the train station tried her best to figure out how she could help us. Between her broken English, Jode's broken Russian and the help of his Duo-lingo translator we realized we all needed to study the other's language much more! She did try . . . she was precious.

We made it to our hotel with enough time to eat quickly, shower and get to court which of course was successful! We then visited with Hunter for about 2 hours while our facilitator ran around doing what facilitators do. We ate dinner and then jumped another very long (12 hour), very HOT train ride to Katie's region.

I'm truly glad it was us and not a new, first time adopting family. We were calm. Experience has taught us we can trust our facilitation team to find us and rectify the situation. We also trust God to work all things together for our good. We are thankful to both of them.

Adoption isn't glamorous. It's exhausting, it's rewarding and it's worth it.