I Am Coming Home

Friday morning, we take a walk to the market to have Koyla's new jeans shortened (good deal, $2.50 to shorten jeans). I knew this boy needed a boy adventure, so we took a short cut home. This was what I would call a Rahn short cut, not my type of short cut, I am too caution for this type of short cut. I knew that I had to do a "Rahn" short cut to keep Koyla from bordem. We walk up this old set of stars, until there are no stairs and then we climb to the top of a hill on rock/dirt then climb over a wall to make it to a normal sidewalk. Koyla loved it. I really made points on that one!

We get to our apartment and I start cleaning and slowly packing, sorting what I will take and what to leave for the apartment, when the call comes in, be ready in 20 minutes we got the passport and we have to be at the passport office before they close at 5:00. Koyla and I start throwing things into bags including a powdered cremer container whose lid was not on right. The powder came pouring out into my suitcase and on to the floor. We quickly get the vacuum cleaner to clean our mess when our friend Don comes to say good bye and Betsy and Jim to get the key and Victor. Koyla thought this excitement was great. He was ready to move on. We got into the car and I discover that I don't have the phone. Victor calls my number and we discover the phone is in the trunk. That is what happens when all of the sudden you have to throw things into your bags, they make it into the wrong bag. We grab the phone and off we go to Tokmak to say our final good bye.

Grandpa and Koyla both did really well. Grandpa asked if he could be alone with Koyla in the house for 5 minutes. He must of given Koyla some encouragement because he came out pretty happy. I had Koyla run around the house taking pictures and I used the time to talk with Grandpa. He did express that he was happy for Koyla and that he was happy with Rick and I. He said his heart hurt. The good byes were full of hugs and kisses and off we went. I gave Koyla some space and he just stared out the window. After about 10 minutes I gave him the "thumbs up" and he smiled and moved next to me in the car. He is ready for this new step in his life. We arrived at the passport office at 4:35 and were ready to grab a bite to eat by 4:45. After our meal we went to the train station to get our tickets. We waited a little over 90 minutes for the train, but that gave Koyla time to climb and jump so when he got in the train, he was ready to sit. This is the first time he has ever traveled so the train was exciting. He spent most of his night watching out the window and I spent most of my night watching him. He is one little independant boy in a tiny little body.

We arrived in Kiev on Saturday at 6:00 a.m. and we were in our apartment by 6:30 a.m. We were down the hill and in Victory Square by 6:45 a.m. Koyla was too excited to rest. We ran around taking pictures until MacDonalds opened at 8:00 a.m. and ate the first of our 3 MacDonalds meals for Saturday. He has never been to MacDonalds but he has seen them on TV.
The rest of the day was low key and rest. On Sunday I got up early and outlined our day, in Russian and in English. When Koyla got up at 10:00 we followed the plan, it went well. We started with church in the apartment. We watched a DVD about Jesus on my laptop. We studied our English, money is the best part of our English study for Koyla, then we went for lunch, and he got a couple hours to play video games on the laptop. After game time we headed to the maket place and spent a couple hours at the outdoor market, our final stop a grocery store and then back to the apartment. After that, the structure was over, so we had a pillow fight, played tic tac toe, tarts, wrestled, and ate our evening meal (Koyla's meal continued for the rest of the night). I knew that Monday would be busy so I gave him a little more game time and we went to bed.

Today was the busy day, we got his physical, and went to the Embassy to get his Visa. From there we had to get tickets to fly home on Tuesday, June 23rd, exactly one month from the day we arrived in Kiev.

Thank you God for your grace. You have given me such peace during this time, a very sweet time in my life. Thank you all for the prayers and the contacts, what a great encouragement for the family to have people lifting us up. We do have one more possible obstical, Koyla's visa. It has to be ready by 9:00 a.m. Tuesday morning so that we can leave on our flight home at 1:00. Victor and our driver pick us up at 8:00 a.m. and that will be the start of one longggggg day. When we arrive in Virginia, Yana will be in Florida. This will be Koyla's week with mama and papa. When she comes home, we hope Koyla will be ready to be a brother to Yana and not lean too much on her.

What a Journey!
Fran