Berdyansk Reunion 2008

What a beautiful picture, Ukrainian children that once lived in an orphanage, now have families that love them. The Berdyansk Reunion was a wonderful occassion for the adults and the children. All the children in this picture are from Berdyansk except for a handful of 4 or 5. Most of them knew each other in Ukraine, and all of them have roots to the Ukraine. There are two boys that lived in another orphanage in Ukraine, what a surprise they had when they came face to face.

The reunion started off on Friday, June 13th, with a dinner-simple one of course. Then at 8:00 it turned into a Disco Dance. The children had a blast. The lights dim, the disco ball spinning, shoes off, the Russian music blasting and the dancing began. The next two and half hours was filled with energy.

The following day we are out the door and at Busch Gardens around 10:00 a.m. An exhausting day of rides, walking, eating, and good fun. Even some of us adults took the challenge and jumped on the "Griffon", Wow! You would think by 9:00 everyone would be exhausted. Only the grow-ups, the children could have used up the last hour and continued to ride for the last hour.

The final day included church at the Williamsburg Community Chapel thanking and praising God. We followed church with a picnic, soccer game, and more fellowship. We said good-bye to people from Arkansas, Alabama, Virginia Beach, and of course Williamsburg at the end of the day, Father's Day at that.

We get home exhausted, Yana crashed. She played very hard all weekend, even had a friend that was adopted at the same time she was, stay for 2 nights. It will take a couple of days to recover from this weekend. Just in time for Maryna!

We are prepared to pick up Maryna on Thursday at 7:00 p.m. in Washington, D.C. As I write my heart is just racing, excitement, nervous, thrilled, scared, emotional, trusting, and most of all thankful that God has paved this path for Maryna and for us.
Fran