Switch-A-Roo

Many thanks for all the kind comments! We're sorry to burst your bubble, but we are doing a switch-a-roo on ya! Clarifying information came to light and we are now going to see the three kids at the other orphanage, not the kidos at Zhytomer. The other three kids are right here, in an orphanage just 30-ish miles away. In fact, we may stay in Kiev and take the daily bus there! How cool! The town is a villiage just southwest of Kiev.

As said before, both sets of kids were equally pulling at our hearts, so we went with the two boys and a girl. We can't get into it right now, but we have switched to the other set, a boy and two girls. They will be a good fit and we hope that they are equally as excited when we meet them tommorow and that they say "YES"! They became available less than two weeks ago! I wondered why our dossier was going slow...Devine intervention, AGAIN!

I've got a quick, funny little story to tag onto the end here. Heidi and I met with Dr. Yuri on Sunday night to get a little information on Ukrainian medical diagnosis. We went to a little coffee shop right near the McDonald's in Independence Square (can you tell that this place is the center of the Universe for us) . He ordered coffee and asked for the same thing. Heidi ordered, I quote, "Hot Chocolate". After 15 minutes or so, the waiter brought out our coffee and Heidi's "Hot Chocolate". It was actually a cup of heated, thick, pudding-like substance with a spoon. Heidi glanced at me and I snickered and Dr. Yuri just kept on talking. It seems that here in Europe, they have hot chocolate (Heidi's pudding) and cocoa (which is what she really wanted). Karen explained this last night and we had a good laugh. On the train ride home, I was all "giddy, bubbly and bouncy" (my words). I couldn't understand why I couldn't stay still, stop laughing, and acting insane. Then it hit me, I don't drink coffee and I just had a huge dose of some form of Ukrainian speed! I've been quiet, resrved and even stoic like most of my fellow Metro riders (these folks never smile, talk, or look up while on the Metro). But on "coffee night" as it has become known as, I was the crazy smiling American. They probably thought I was drunk! Needless to say, I didn't get to sleep until way past midnight. I won't do that again.

We were told that we would get our referal this afternoon. We will travel to see the kids on Wednesday morning. Keep those prayers coming! Seriously, I feel the hand of God in all of this! Thanks, everybody!

~ Felix ~

SDA Appointment

Praise God! Our appointment rocked! The SDA worker, Maria, was very friendly and helpful. Olga was amazing during the appointment. Love her! But on to the reason you all are reading this post...

We've requested permission to visit three children (two boys and a girl) in the Zhytomer region. Maria tried to call the orphanage to find out whether anyone visits the children (which would hinder a successful adoption), but the right person at the orphanage wasn't available during our appointment. So we should hear this afternoon whether or not we'll get the referral. If not, we have a backup choice that we were equally pleased with. In fact, it was very hard to choose between the two sibling groups. Funny...we were only shown sibling groups of 3. I guess the SDA didn't want to let us get away with only 2 kids!

If all goes well, we'll get the referral tomorrow and drive to the Zhytomer region on Wednesday morning. We were hoping to get lucky and get the referral today, but that's ok. It was clear that God was smiling on us today. We could feel His prescense today during our appointment, as everyone was super eager to help us.

We also met Valentina, Alla and Kostya today - the whole team was there to root us on!

At yesterday's church service, the sermon was about God working miracles through people. The pastor said that we shouldn't pray for miracles, but that God works miracles through people who are open to hearing His word. Today felt like a miracle! Thanks for all your prayers.

Ukraine Day 1

It is now 2:20 pm in Ukraine (4:20 am Denver)

Yep, we are here! We arrived safely with no problems. In fact, it was a breeze. There were only about 40 people on the flight from Munich, So when we arrived we didn't have a long line at customs. We had already filled out the paper on the flight and we were only four people deep in the immigration line. Next, we moved up to baggage claim. Heidi filled out the forms for customs while I retrieved the baggage. Our baggage was already waiting for us, just spinning around on the carousel. No one bothered us, no one tried to offer us services we didn't want, no one wanted forty dollars to help us, etc. We proceeded to the empty line at customs, a lady and a man said something to us in Ukrainian and Heidi offered them the forms she filled out. They didn't care, we were bothering their otherwise quiet shift at the customs desk. They handed the forms back to Heidi as fast as she handed them to her. In fact, they didn't look at them. No "let me see the bags", no "let me see the money" at all. We next moved onto the doors separating this area from the airport lobby area. Lots of people were gathered here and they were all looking for someone else...it was dead quiet and I heard someone snicker and laugh at the Anerican with too much luggage. (We bought only two carry-ons for ourselves, but the gifts for the children took up three huge bags). In all, the entire"get off the plane and get to the lobby" took about 10 minutes...a record!

We met Olga (very pretty facilitator) in the lobby. She was a few minutes late because she too thought that we would take an hour getting through customs and immigration. She was there with Sasha our driver and he loaded us up in his nice swank BMW 500 series sedan. (Wow, i'm in the wrong business!). We sped through the streets of Kiev on our way to Karen's apartment. I wondered if we were late for something. I'm not sure how fast 180 km/hr is, but we were doing it at one point. We got to the apartment in fine fashion, though. The haul up five stories with bags like ours was the only hard part of the trip!

We met with Olga, paid her the balance we owed Valentina, paid Sasha for the Indy 500 experience and got down to brass tacks. She said we will do fine at the SDA and that she foresees us getting exactly what we want due to the nature of our request (1-3 kids, ages 4-14). We discussed a few aspects of the appointment and called it a night. Heidi and I went to bed at eight-ish Ukraine time and I slept until 8 am this morning. Heidi said she woke up at midnight and read for a couple of hours before sleeping again. Twelve hours sleep after missing a night's sleep was great!

This morning we went to worship service at Karen's church, navigating ourselves with the instructions left by Karen and our own understanding of the Ukraine transportation system. Boy, did that trip back in April payoff! We took trains and busses and made it to church just in time to see our friends from April. The pastor, Paul, gave a fine message from the book of John and Acts. We met Steve, Karen's uncle and he prayed over us and then he called an orphanage director he knew to see if she had kids that met our profile. How nice of him! We explained to him that we may use that info at the SDA tommorow.

Right now, we are in Independence square using the internet cafe right down the street from McDonald's. We are having fun and are very excited. Don't worry about us at all. We will try and post after the SDA appointment tommorow and let you know something. Oh, one more thing...Aimee, Heidi sucessfully negotioated the bathroom stall at McDonald's. Matt, I was on constant vigilence as my honey was there, noting the time in case I needed to jump to the rescue! All for now, bye!

~ Felix ~

Arrived safely in Munich

Wie ghets, wos ist los? (forgive me, my German is rusty). We have arrived in Munich (about an hour ago) and it is 10:20 here but it is 2:18 back home. We both are very sleepy (I, Felix, do not sleep well sitting up). Heidi got a little more sleep than I did, but she is very tired too. We are at an airport restaurant called Weiners, Der Kaffee and I just enjoyed Viennese sausages with mustard for breakfast. Heidi had a little sandwich.

We met Heidi's family for dinner at a nice Italian restaurant outside Chicago's O'Hare airport. It was good to see Sally, Shannon and Max before we took off to the other side of the world. They gave us encouragement and hugs all evening as we spent time with them. Max took us back to the airport so we could catch our flight out.

We are gonna log off and find a nice quiet place to nap until our flight at 1pm. We will be in Kiev at 4pm (6am MST, Denver). No doubt we will snooze well tonight at Karen's place.

Aufweidesien!! (sp?)
Felix

Ready, Set, GO!

We are heading out now, the big day is finally here! We will fly through Chicago and Munich en route to Kiev, Ukraine. We will arrive Saturday at 4pm. We will be staying at Karen Springs' apartment until we leave for the region which our children are living. As many of you know, we are going "blind", meaning we don't know the children yet. This is the case with most Ukraine adoptions. Rimma and Zina aren't registered properly and we will have to return in the future for them.

We will try and blog as much as possible. Of course, this is dependent on the region we are in and whether or not we have Internet service or an Internet cafe nearby. I'm sure we will be able to blog, don't worry.

We will visit Rimma and Zina when possible. Zina has a birthday coming up and she has already begged us to be there for it. We will visit the kids from Stara B. that came on the hosting trip this summer. I wish that I could adopt a few of them, but they have registration issues too. We hope to work with AGAPE and CBN ministries while we are there as well. We will keep you posted.

So, put your tray tables up and your seat backs in the forward position! We will be "wheels up" in a little while and on our way to meet our kids!

Sweetly Broken

At the cross You beckon me

You draw me gently to my knees, and I am

Lost for words, so lost in love,

I’m sweetly broken, wholly surrendered

Jeremy Riddle

Sweetly Broken

Many of you know the chorus to the song, "Sweetly Broken". Heidi usually never asks for anything specifically for her birthday or Christmas, but this year she asked me for Jeremy Riddle's CD. She had found something that pinned down hers and our feelings on our faith and adoption.

Now, I don't want to alienate people who otherwise don't feel the same way or choose not to follow our path. We don't put people in different "stacks", Christian friends over here, non-Christian friends over there. We aim to be humble examples of our Father's Love to everyone. At our party on Saturday, our friends from many walks of life were present. And, I'm not above having a brew or two with friends. We love you all. I thought long and hard before naming our blog, but the truth is this is God's Plan. Heidi and I have struggles with letting go and following His plan, just like everyone else has struggles with aspects of their lives. We keep making mistakes, just like you do.

This past Sunday we ventured up to Ft. Collins to man our UOO booth for an adoption seminar and guest speaker engagement. Tom Davis, author of "Fields of the Fatherless" was the speaker. We set up the booth and answered many people's questions. We went solo because we were available that night (no kids, remember). It was a step out of our usual comfort zone, but it had to be done. It was an opportunity to advocate for the orphans of Ukraine in a forum that was geared towards caring for orphans worldwide. What better setting could you ask for, and it was fun! I met Tom, he signed my book, and we attended his talk. Tom spoke about his early struggles with not doing enough in his faith. He needed to do more than just sit in the pew on Sundays and he was looking for ways to engage his youth group in an affluent Dallas suburb. He took a group to a Russian orphanage and at that point he was "broken".

This is the case with Heidi and me. I appreciate all the nice comments, People say all the time that we are special, blessed people with hearts of gold. We thank you. The truth is, we are no different than you. We have been called to do this and we have been sweetly broken.

We leave in three days! Please continue to read our blog, think of us, and pray for a smooth adoption.

Our Last Hurrah

Last night we held our last hurrah party to celebrate our last weekend home without children! It was great to see everyone and catch up. The party was over by 9:00 p.m., so I guess we're already acclimated to life with kids! We made many promises to blog as much as possible during our adoption trip. Not knowing whether we'll have any or reliable Internet service, the promises all have a little asterisk* attached!

Thanks to everyone who brought gloves, hats and scarves for the orphans of Ukraine! More thanks to all the pen pals in Colorado sending letters and gifts with us for their UOO pen pals in SB. It will be a privilege to hand deliver the goodies to the orphans! Thanks also for the survival package from the Stoesz family! We'll try not to eat all the candy before we meet our kids!

Stay tuned...more coming soon about our evening at Timberline Church with Tom Davis (author of Fields of the Fatherless). Wow!