Our Apartment

We have made it to Kiev, Ukraine. YAY! Travel here was very good…no delays or anything unusual. We arrived yesterday at 1:00 pm local time. We got through passport control, got the one suitcase we checked and ventured out of baggage claim. We entered the general airport area and looked for someone holding a sign with our name on it. We looked and looked and looked some more. There were several people standing around holding up signs, but none had our name. Hmmm...what to do? I had no idea where we were staying and Jon's phone wasn't working. I turned on my laptop to try to find someone's phone number...I knew I had one of the facilitator's numbers somewhere in an email. Alas...nothing we thought of worked.

So I sat there in a foreign airport where no one speaks my language and prayed. "Lord...DO SOMETHING! We're completely stuck here! DO SOMETHING!"

About that time a man came in walking pretty fast. He had a piece of paper rolled up in his hands. I could only see a big backwards "E". I told Jon that might be our ride. It was. YAY, Niko! He apologized and said traffic was all backed up. No problem...we're just SO happy to see you! Niko took Jon to change some money and then took us to a little grocery store near our apartment. He told us where a few things are in relation to our apartment and then dropped us off. He helped us up 4 flights of stairs (no elevator) with our luggage and showed us around a bit. And then he was gone.

The entry to our building

Our door...#11

Living room

Bedroom

Cute little kitchen

View from our balcony

Just outside

Our nice, quiet little street

The area we're in is nice and quiet...it's very pretty here. We're in walking distance to alot. We took a walk around the city last night and again this afternoon going the other direction. Everything we need is close. We went to bed at 8 pm last night. We forced ourselves to stay awake until then...we were so tired. I woke up around 4 am and was awake until around 6. Then I slept until 10 am. Jon had just gotten up. 14 hours in bed and we're still tired.

Jon could not get our internet to work last night even though we were told to just plug in the cable and it would work. It wanted a password and we were told it wouldn't ask for one. Long story short, our internet is working now and I'm a happy girl again. It was SO hard to go to bed last night and not be able to let the kids (or anyone else) know that we arrived safe and sound. We had told the kids we'd be able to Skype last night and we couldn't. I hated going to bed like that. But there was nothing we could do about it. So I just prayed. God is good.

And speaking of God's goodness, my precious Jonah has a family!! I can't even tell you how happy this makes me! I have been praying for a family for him for a long time. I just received an email from Jonah's mommy and his family seems AWESOME! I love God and His timing of Jonah receiving his family. Our SDA appointment is tomorrow and I still had it in mind to beg Jon (and God) one more time to request Jonah along with Vera. But now I don't need to. Remember a few posts ago when God told me I would understand later why He was saying 'no' to me about Jonah? Well, understanding has come. Jonah is not mine. I am SO GLAD to KNOW someone is coming for Jonah. The only thing about this trip that was causing me apprehension was the thought of leaving Jonah behind. Now, I have peace. Jonah has a family. His future has changed. He will not be left behind. He has a family. HALLELUJAH!!

Our SDA appointment is tomorrow at noon. It sounds like we'll have to stay here through the weekend before we get to head to Vera's region. I'm praying we get to leave tomorrow night and meet her on Friday, but it doesn't sound like it will happen. We're just trusting God's timing and know that if He has us here for a few extra days, there's a reason for it.

I'll keep you posted!