Another day.

Well, eventually I went to bed last night. We both slept well. Vasya and Kostya called and said they would be over around 5 to write a request for another appointment to the Adoption Center. We had a late lunch and just hung around with Janice. I didn't have any desire to go out and about today.

I know this is silly, but everything is so different here - it is funny how you find odd things that comfort you. Here at Janis' house there are two things - her cooking (she cooks American - today we had Apple Strudel muffins for breakfast - mmmm) and...her shower. Her shower doesn't look American. It is a tub that would kill my mother to try to climb up in - it is about 4 foot tall. The faucet is about a foot and a half long and it goes in both the tub and the sink - it swings back and forth. This is normal Ukrainian stuff. She told us that she was having problems with the shower head before we came and she told Randy she didn't want to mess with it with us here - so they bought a new shower/faucet combo. Randy installed it before he left for Nepal. That shower is WONDERFUL. You get in there and close your eyes and - you are home. I TOLD you it was silly - but it is what it is! So - here I am in Kiev and I have a shower for my sanctuary! So, late lunch, long shower and waiting to talk to Kostya and Vasya.

They got here close to the planned time and told us what we had to do. I had to write another letter that they would write first and then Vasya would translate it and I would write it in English. Another letter - dread starts to well up in my throat. They took about 30 minutes to artfully compose this letter in Ukrainian - and they were speaking back and forth to each other. I was getting a tiny bit of what they were saying and I asked them - we are basically BEGGING for another chance, aren't we? Yes. Another family today asked for a second appointment and were given one - NEXT FEBRUARY. If you know me at all, you know I can not hide my emotions -AT ALL. I wear my emotions on my sleeve. Apparently Kostya saw that in my face and said "It will be alright Lois - it will be alright. I told you it would be hard and it is - this is hard work but it will be okay." Can I tell you - if THIS is the labor of my paper pregnancy - I want an epidural and I want it THREE DAYS AGO!

So, they finish the letter and they read it to me and in a nutshell, it says that we went to meet the boys on November 11th and that we were told by their doctor that they have a skin disease that is very serious and that it is permanent. We are not proceeding with the adoption because many children with this disease die before they are four. We are true believers in Christ and we do not have any children and we do not want to lose our adopted children to this disease. Please consider us for another appointment as soon as possible as we are ready to adopt two children ages 2 to 9. Sincerely, Us. Yeah - THEY wrote in the 'true believer' part. They know we are because we told them that from day one - we know God is in control and we were not planning on being picky or difficult. Of course that doesn't mean the AC is not going to be difficult. I think they are professionally difficult!

It is interesting - we have asked Kostya if he goes to church (Janis asked him) and he said "Not too often." But on many occasions, he told us to pray because we knew who was in control of all this. They are both such good guys - they are really pulling for us. Pray for them - they have a tough job and they live in a tough country. And, as I said before - they are really good people. So we ARE getting quite a list of specific people to pray for. Today when Kostya came in, he said he wasn't feeling too well - some sort of virus maybe. He had a hankerchief that he put up around his mouth. We joked with him that he looked like he was playing cowboys and Indians. He put out his hands like guns and laughed. He said "I do this just for you so that YOU do not get sick and you are giving me hard time!" Yup.

So we had the Ukrainian letter composed by Kostya, written by Vasya. Then we had the English one spoken to me that I wrote. Once again, I had to write out why we rejected and refused to adopt Vanya and Dima. And then beg for another chance to look at some more children. What an odd game this is we are playing.

The plan is that Kostya submits this on Monday morning and we wait. Kostya will check Monday evening and Tuesday evening and on until we find out if they give us another chance or if we come back next year. Pray that we get another appointment and that this one goes better - that we actually find some children to go to that we can adopt.

Until then, we have set up some appointments with friends here. Tomorrow we will see artist Julia (she painted all the little rocks in my office on top of my file cabinet). Sunday we will go see Marina - she will meet us at Kreshatik and take us to her flat. Marina was 11 when we were here. She is 22 now and works for a lawyer downtown. On Monday we will go to Sasha's house and have dinner with her. We don't want to make many plans past that as we don't know when and if we will be on the road again. We still want to do some touristy things (like go to the ancient cathedral that was being redone when we lived here). We will probably have plenty of time. Randy gets back from Nepal on Wednesday - it will be good to see him.

So - pray we get another appointment and that if we do - it goes well. The next few updates will probably be very less emotional (Ooh - I sound Ukrainian). I know I could handle a few days of less emotion!

Thanks - all of you for your prayers and comments. We really appreciate it. We love you all - thanks for walking this road with us.