The beginning of the end...and beginning of the beginning...

We've been in Ukraine for 2 weeks now. I wouldn't say it has exactly "flown"by, but we told our Colorado kiddoes today that Mom would be home in a mere two weeks! That sounds a lot better than 4 weeks, doesn't it? So, this is the beginning of the end...in one sense.

In another sense, we are rapidly approaching the beginning of something entirely new...for our family...and for a couple of kids from Ukraine. So, in another sense, it's the beginning of the beginning.

I know, I know, how philosophical of me! Actually, I think it's just the apple streudel sitting weird in my stomach and we just watched the season 6 1st episode of House...which was really about new beginnings and transitions and healing. OK...off topic....can someone please explain why there are so many "House MD" t-shirts in Kiev. It was bizarre!

Anyway, we met Natasha and Pasha this morning for church and we weren't late so the caregiver did not have any reason to be angry with Pasha. Michele sat with Natasha and Rimma. We were so glad Rimma was there because we knew Natasha would not want to go to the youth service without some "encouragement". Here they are on the trolley bus:

Yes, that is a phone connected to Natasha's ear. Hmmm...going to go through some wthdrawal symptoms when we gуt to America, for sure! :)

Pasha stood with a group of girls including Zinna and Vikka. I tried taking a pic, but it was way too crowded and bouncy ыщ the pic was not clear.

At church, Natasha did not want to go with the youth group, but she had told us earlier that she would. We stuck to our guns, and she reluctantly went. I think she is hesitant to do new things and we were really glad to have Zinna there holding her hand!

We had contacted Sergey (friend of Jim and Kari Volf who is Ukrainian but speaks excellent english and who's family adopted two Ukrainian girls) the night before and he was planning on meeting us at the church. It turns out that the church we have gone to is where his uncle is a pastor. So, he showed up and was interpreting for us during the service. It was great....until they introduced an American Bible teacher who was in town for some teaching seminars and who was to deliver the message today! How funny was that! So, we heard an English message that they had to translate to Russian. This was fortunate for us since Sergey could only stay for about 20 minutes and had to go.

After the service, we went down to introduce our selves to the two American gentlemen who were there. The main person was Rick Deighton who is board member with the Nortwest Science Museum in Nampa, ID. Get this though....his home town is Longmont! We had a good chuckle about that. I didn't catch his colleague's name...but hey were both here for the week doing teaching. We also met another American from Kentucky who farms 17,000 acres of land here outside of Kherson with a Ukrainian partner. He comes to Ukraine 3-4 times a year to help manage the farming business. It was a really ineresting morning.

After church, we tried to get Rimma and Zinna to go to lunch with us, but they were sure that their caregiver would not allow it. So, we headed across the street to Oskar and ate at the Oskar Food cafeteria. We all ate our full for the sum of $10. You can bet we'll be going back to Oskar Food cafeteria again!

After Oskar we took the bus back to town and to the outdoor market where we were hoping to shop for pants for Pasha and a winter coat for Natasha. But, it was misty/raining and there were scads of people around, so it was a bust. After giving up on the outdoor market, we walked back to the Bible House where we had some snacks, tried to teach Pasha how to play Gin (I think he partially gets it) and used the English-Russian-English translator program a bit.

Since we had not asked permission from any one in particular to take the kids for the day, we wanted to get them back at a reasonable hour. So, we headed back to the orphanage around 4PM and said our good-byes for the day. We typically see them only in the afternoons after they are done with school during the week, so Saturdays and Sundays tend to be longer days.

After our rather large lunch at Oskar Food (ruining our diet plans, BTW...), we decided not to have a big dinner. So, we headed to our favorite restaurant by the walking mall (we call it the "Pearl Street of Kherson"). We still don't know what the name of this place is, but it was quite cosy inside after the couple of cold rainy days we have had. Here's a pic of the restaurant sign if anyone cares to translate it for us:

We split a really good pasta with chicken, mushrooms and peas smothered in a creamy mushroom sauce and then each had our own apple streudel. Yep, I thought streudel was a German institution, but this restaurant does streudel really well!

After dinner, we made our way back to the Bible House on Bus 8, and watched the season opener of House (streaming video on ninjavideo.net). Now it's time to hit the sack, and prepare for what we hope is an eventful week! We'll update the blog as soon as we find out anything tomorrow. Tanya and Roman are leaving in the morning for the city/town/region where Pasha's Mom is supposed to be living. Please pray they find her and we can carry on with the process. If they cannot find here, we will have some difficult decisions to make.

Thanks for everyone's thoughts and prayers. We certainly appreciate them.

B & M