Hello everyone,
We finally got to a computer and want to tell you what we have been doing for the last five days. We started off with a 15 hour flight, which seemed like it lasted forever. We had a 3 hour layover in Dueseldorf, Germany. When we arrived in the Ukraine we were tierd, but unable to sleep because our days and nights were totally mixed up. We finally got our first good night sleep last night. The first night we stayed in Kiev, which is the capital of the Ukraine. We stayed in an apartment the first night that was in the older part of the city. The next morning we had an appointment at the SDA to claim which child we wanted to adopt. That appointment went well, and we started off to the city of Sumy to meet Artem. After a 4 hour drive we met up with Artem. We drove down a dirt road to the orphanage, and there waiting for us on the outside of the gates was Artem. He had been there for awhile because he knew we were coming. He was excited to see us. We talked for awhile and soon Brent and Lucinda came walking down the lane to say "hi". They had just got done with their court, and their adoption had been approved, and are now in their 10 day waiting period. Our court date is set for Monday, and should know on Monday if our adoption is approved.
For all those who are wondering how we are doing, we are doing fine. The apartment that we are staying in is located in the middle of the city, so we have 3 different keys that let us into our apartment. One key to get into the building, one to get into our hallway, and one key to get into our room. I guess they want to make sure we are safe. We really need to watch were we put our wallets because the Ukraine is the #1 location for pick pocketing. I have already had an experience with that, so I know what to look out for. The buildings here are scarey on the outside, but the inside of the our apartment is really quite nice. We are now staying with the Heiner family, who are trying to adopt a 15 year old girl who is going to be 16 on Friday.
We found out that Artem has a 18 year old sister who has visited her a few times and is okay with him being adopted. They have been trying to locate her and have been unable to.
We are going to visit with Artem today at the orphanage to see his teacher and school.
If you were wondering, we are going to name him Artem Ian Milne, the meaning of Ian, is "A gift from God/ God is gracious. We will call him Artem, and you'll notice that the spelling is different than our blogspot because we have Americanize the spelling to make it easier to pronounce.
In our next blog we will include some pictures.
We now have a phone so we are able to call home and keep in contact with those that are
helping us here in the Ukraine. I hope that all is well at home. Love Neil and Carolyn