What an adventure!

Well, we are officially in Ukraine. We got here on Wednesday afternoon (about 7:30 am) at home. The flight itself was uneventful but awful. The international part of our flight flew us from Chicago to Dusseldorf. Eric and I were in the two middle seats in the middle section of the plane. The movies were boring and it was a choppy flight so it made for a very long night. We made it through Passport control and customs without incident and Jenia (one of our facilitators and an all around nice girl) was there to meet us shortly after we cleared all of that. She took us to the apartment that we would be staying in for our time in Kiev. It is a nice apartment. We were sharing it until today with another couple so that helped with expenses. It has all the ammenities that we were looking for after traveling - a bed, plenty of hot water, and heat! The fact that it is clean and pretty is a definite bonus. We are staying about a 15 minute walk from Kiev's version of the "magnificent mile" and they have a few restaurants here with english menus which is a definite plus. We had our appointment at the SDA today. They had all the paperwork ready for us and we will hopefully be headed down to Sevestopal to start the paperwork process on Sunday. It is an 18 hour train ride to get there. I was nervous about the appointment. I wasn't sure what to expect. The SDA official that we had was efficient and was ready to send us on our way about 15 minutes after we had entered her office. Normally they allow one hour for these appointments. Today however was a special day. They had scheduled the whole day with Americans seeking to adopt "known" children and so they had only allowed 30 minutes per family. It was nice to see some other Americans and be able to speak without translators. After our appointment we were taken back to our apartment. The other couple staying with us left this afternoon to visit some missionary friends so Eric and I are alone in Ukraine for the first time. Mr. Stir-Crazy (that would be Eric) lasted about 25 minutes in the apartment before we headed out in search of the internet cafe. (For those of you who will be here soon - go to TGI Fridays and take a left. At the corner go in that building and go upstairs. The person at the desk will give you a computer number and you pay when you leave. I'll let you know rates later - not sure what they are yet!!)
Emotionally we are doing okay. It's hard being away from the kids and it's hard not knowing what is going to happen next. We know in our hearts that God is in control of this situation but sometimes it's hard to keep that in my head. I'm trying my best to remember that all of this will be in His timing and that I can trust in Him to lead us all the way.
In other news, we talked to the kids last night and Michael says he is feeling great! Thank goodness! I think that's all I've got for now. If you have specific questions that I haven't answered feel free to email me and I'll try to reply at some point. I didn't bring my USB cord with me today so I can't post any pics but I don't really have any anyway so you're not missing anything.