So, happy to report that we had another smooth day. After blogging last night, I did get some very good sleep. I slept soundly until the alarm went off at 7am. Nastia was to pick us up at 8:40am to go to the SDA. The Yoder's appointment was at 9, so we all went together hoping Darren and I could get in early. We are staying very close to the SDA building, so we got there before the door was open. A few minutes before 9am we walked in a waited a bit for Nastia to take the Yoders to their appointment. Darren and I waited in a little waiting area. We prayed and talked. It did not take them long. Unfortunately, they would not be ready for us until 10am, so as Nastia went to make copies, we and the Yoders went for a scenic walk. Darren was concerned with being late to get back, so we walked back to the building, but still waited a bit for Nastia to take us to our appointment.
At our turn, we went into a little room with Nastia and our Ukrainian counselor (?not sure what their title is). She had Sergei's file all ready for us. We had not turned the paperwork in to show that we were approved the age range up to 18, so we could not do Yarik first because of this and also we found out that he is still not off the registry. He will officially be off on Wednesday! So had we come earlier in September as I had hoped, we would have been too early and had to be in country much longer, or go home and come back...why oh why do I not trust the Lord instead of whining and complaining when things do not go as I plan them!?!
She gave us a few basic facts about Sergei's history. And I mean basic: date of entering care, height and weight at the time he came into care, and then again in 2009. A few facts about his parents and family and that was it. His medical records were almost a joke, but there was a good chart with his vaccinations listed. So really we know almost nothing more than we did during hosting. But we do know that we love him no matter what they would have told us and are so excited to begin to document a history for him as a member of our family.
After our appointment Nastia had some additional paperwork to do, so she promised she would finish up, then call us and meet us to take us to a grocery store for some food. Since we were not far from our apartment, and it was a beautiful day, we opted to walk back. We strolled a bit, checked out the open air market, checked out some sights and went back to our apartment to wait. The Yoders hang out with us for a while and then we got hungry. We called Nastia, but she was still detained, so we decided to try to find a snack closer to the Yoder's apartment. We walked along and Abbey and I got some meat filled pastries, Darren got pizza and Myron was not that hungry. Then we went up to their apartment to wait some more.
We got some calls into family back home while we waited and then were about to call Nastia back when she rang us. She was ready to pick us up, so we went down to the street to meet her. Abbey and I took her back up to their apartment to have her explain to Abbey how to run the washing machine. Ours had English, but theirs was all in Russian.
We discussed some plans for the next couple days and then drove over to the grocery store. We got some food for breakfast, water and snacks. Then Nastia took us back to the Yoders and we left our stuff in their fridge and went out to try to find something for dinner. There was a restaurant that we had read was recommended by other American families. So we tried to figure out where it was. We actually found it pretty easily. It was a very lovely restaurant that was full of traditional Ukrainian decoration and the staff wore traditional Ukrainian costumes. We had very good service, but it was much more expensive the the place from last night. Especially poor Myron who was trying to order something, but they did not have it, so the waitress suggested something else and he agreed, not quite sure what he was agreeing to. All of our food was very good. However, when the bill came, the Yoder's bill was twice as much as ours. He ended up with a steak that was charged per 100 grams. It was 300 grams, so the price of 108 listed ended up being 324 grivna, or about $40...oops...he did enjoy it, but will be more careful in the future.
After dinner, we walked back to the Yoders to get our groceries. Abbey used Darren's phone to make a free call to her kids and we watched a little soccer. As we are all still a bit unused to the time difference, we were all tired and Darren and I came back to our apartment to get ready for bed. Darren found our girls online and we did the Facebook video chat with them. We were able to give them the "tour" of our apartment. They are doing great back home and have had fun with their friends. They were getting ready to go to a different place tonight after their schoolwork was done and soccer was over.
So now I am back at the apartment writing down the notes from today and trying to keep my eyelids open.
I do have to detail one incident from last night. I was not going to mention it as we know that many people worry about us, but Darren posted it, so I guess it is out there any way. As we were walking back to our apartment last night, we were passed by a guy in a rush. He dropped something on the ground right in front of us and did not realize he had dropped anything. Darren got his attention and I picked up the packet he had dropped. When I looked at it, it was a wad of cash! He was very grateful that we returned it to him, but then he realized he was missing a second packet of money. He asked us if we had seen anything else, but we had only seen him drop one packet. He was very upset and was hoping we might know something. As we were talking to him, a Ukrainian policeman walked up to us. He was worried that there was a problem. However, the first gentleman tried to explain the situation and he did not incriminate us, but told him that we had been helpful to him. We aren't sure where the first man was from but it was not Ukraine. Fortunately, he knew a good deal of English. The policeman was satisfied that he did not need to take any of us to the police station and left us go on our way. We wished we could help him find his money, but there was nothing we could do, but pray for him when we got home. As we were approached by the policeman I was thinking, oh great, is this some sort of scam where they try to accuse us of stealing their money and take advantage of us!?! But no, we were not punished for doing a good deed. God kept us safe and we now just have an interesting story to tell.
Good night from Kiev! Tomorrow it is the train to Sumy.
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