The other side of the world...day 4

It’s 9 am Friday here in Kiev. I’ve been thinking about money all night. Too bad I didn’t win the lotto while I was sleeping. lol

I have our facilitation money set aside, and the money for the Embassy appointments, and Timothy’s ticket money. These are all expenses that HAVE to be paid. So, now what is left is what we have to live on. Once John goes home and gets back to work, it should be easier. I know that we’ll make it. God is good, and has provided for us, and I know that He will continue. I also know though, that I have to be a good steward of what He has and will provide.

As I type this, we’re without power in our building. Well, at least on our floor. The hall is pitch black too.

Later…
It seems that our power outage was “planned”. We can’t read the little posted sign though, so we didn’t know. We left the building around 11 and didn’t come back until after 5, and it was back on.

We didn’t get to meet up with Maria. I’m very disappointed about that. I’m sure the extra craziness of having the two little ones didn’t make planning anything very easy. They had their embassy appointments today, etc. They leave early, early tomorrow morning.

We had a nice lunch at a Ukrainian restaurant with the Howells (another adopting couple that we just met). We came back to the apartment and the power was still off, so we just waited outside for the taxi that was coming to take us back to the SDA to pick up our referral paperwork(there was NO way I was hauling my big ol’ body up *9* flights of stairs just to be called back down in a few minutes!). I have to tell ya… after all of the “no smudges, no marks outside of the boxes, make sure everything is pristine” rules that we had to follow, getting our poor dossier back all marked on, and stitched together was sorta strange. Oh, and the fact that it’s in Russian (hehe it’s the translated version). We got the referral letter too, which is in Russian as well, but we figured out our names, his name, birthdate, and something about something poky. LOL

After coming back to the apartment and having supper (left overs thankyouverymuch), I decided to wash the clothes that were dirty since I don’t know what our laundry plan will be in region. Yeah, great plan… other than the fact that the Ukrainian cell phone was still in John’s pants pocket!!! Yep… our only link to the outside world… drowned. I left a message for the Bachmans who are here too, to call Uncle Niko (hehe) and find out what we need to do. I do NOT want to have to buy another phone! Not to mention, we can’t really afford to. Ugh!!
Ok… here are some photos…


Outside of the SDA with paperwork in hand!!

This one's of the inside of the toy store... Barbie is all over the world!

This one is for Joey... they even have HSM in Ukraine!!

Random Games- I just thought it was cool that they have Monopoly too! lol

The outside of the toy store

Just a street view

The next two are our lunch... it was only $10 (US dollars!) for all of this!


Ok... the next few are just fun shots of some food places, and buildings...




The Church next to the SDA

The infamous SDA door!