It's a Big World Out There

Here is a photo of Stacey and Coy looking out of the fence. There is a big world out there that we are guessing that he has never experienced. His entire life, except for the month after he was born and probably some time after his surgery, has been spent inside this fence. All he knows is probably the people and experiences he can have inside of this small piece of property. It is scary to think of the responsibility that we have to introduce him to all of the things that are outside of this fence. Most of them are good, some will be bad. We are honored that God has given us this opportunity. Stacey and I discussed all of the things that he probably has never seen that he will soon see at home. The list quickly included the zoo, a swimming pool, walking in the woods, a lake, an airplane, stores, restaurants, and church. We could probably go on and on. These caregivers at the orphanage have been his mommy and daddy. The other kids here have been his brothers and sisters. However, these folks come and go. He changed groups in March so he is just learning his "new" family. But now he has a new family again. We will come and go but not as often as the one he knows now. We will be along side of him for as long as God allows us to be. We are also excited to get to introduce him to all of our extended family and friends. He has no idea what a great group of people are getting ready to enter into his life, and he into theirs. But most importantly, he will also have the opportunity to get to know a Heavenly Father that will not come and go but has been forever and will forever be.

We are looking at some of the things that the caregivers in the orphanage have said about Coy. They include that he likes music (no surprise to us there) and that he likes to go first (no surprise there either). They also say that he likes new tasks/challenges and he likes to express himself with his words (still no surprises). He says that he likes for someone to rub his back as he falls asleep. That is answer to prayer because it means to us that someone was probably rubbing his back as he fell asleep sometimes. We had prayed for this child to be loved before we could get there to love him and it appears that he was loved, very much so. He has the ability to bond with adults and Stacey's favorite, he likes to tidy up after he has played and put the toys away.

You might think that Coy is in awe of these bubbles but actually he is trying to eat them. At least trying to put his mouth on them. We have seen other families blowing bubbles with their kids and we see bubbles at the store but we don't know if he has ever seen bubbles or not.

One thing we do know, he has never been on an 8 hour car ride before. And we are pretty certain that he has never flown on an airplane across the ocean before. (Hey, I've only done it once before so it's not that big a deal.) God has only handed us what we could handle with His help so far, there is no reason for us to believe that the trip home will be anything but the same. We have been counting our blessings regarding the timing of our trip so far. We have talked to other couples that were delayed in Kyiv 2-3 weeks because of problems with their appointments. Another couple has to have a second 10 day wait because of some errors found in some of the court documents. Others are having troubles getting court dates because of the holidays. The way we figure it, because of the flight schedules, the holidays will end up costing us only 1 day if we are able to get out of the country on Saturday. Everyone's prayers have been felt and we could never thank those that have prayed enough for them.

If you see Caleb and Katie, please give them a big smile, a hug, and perhaps a kiss from us to them. We can't wait to be the Yankey 5 soon.

Baby Steps

It's a good day when the computer instructions are in English. Today, they are all in Russian. Someone more savy than me could probably switch them but I can not. So please forgive us if something doesn't make sense, we are doing our best.

Coy got to listen to Caleb and Katie's voice on the phone the other day. We called home during one of our visits. He plays with the caregivers' phones a lot but I doubt that he had ever talked on one before. When voices came out of it, he was surprised. He didn't know how to hold it or what to do with it. He eventually uttered some words to Caleb and Katie. We show him their pictures during every visit in hopes that he will recognize them when he meets them. We are still trying to enjoy our last days here as the homesickness gets worse and worse. We received new pictures of Caleb and Katie via e-mail today and we both teared up immediately. We are thinking that we will need buckets and mops at the airport. At least one for each of us.

We have had some success in the van lately. Not only did he get in the van, but Victor drove us around the building 2 times without much response. His eyes were as wide as could be the whole time though. We have toys, books, videos, and snacks for the drive. Please pray for us. It appears that we will try to leave Donetsk in the afternoon on Thursday if everything goes OK. This will mean that we will do the majority of the traveling before it is time to go to sleep.

We will go to the US Embassy in Kyiv on Friday if everything continues to go well. They say that they try to get paperwork done on the same day but that they can not guarentee it. We will also need to complete a medical visit on Friday before we go to the embassy. We went ahead and changed our flights to Saturday, May 5, just in case we get all of the paperwork done in time. If not, we will probably have to change them to at least Tuesday since the flight out of town leaves at 11:50 AM.

Our trip to the circus was nice. They had acrobats, magicians, clowns, and some animal acts. They also had a water show. We took some pictures but it was after our last trip to Circuit City. They did this thing where they would strap little kids into a harness that was connected to a pulley at the top of the arena and they would lift these little kids 40-50 feet into the air and bounce them up and down. Stacey and I both just sat there and laughed at how few of people we know would have let their children do something like that. The circus show was very impressive and we had a good time but some of the costumes and dances made us think more about Las Vegas than Moscow. Stacey was too afraid to hold the alligator on the way inside (real alligator available for photos) and she said that she could get her picture taken with a monkey anytime as long as I was around so she passed on that one too. (Stacey wants me to tell everyone that she didn't say that but I think I saw her think it once.)

We did some souvenir shopping around Donetsk on Saturday. This is the shop where they sell stuff for their Football team. They are called "The Miners" and seem to be quite popular. Sveta recommended that we not wear anything with the Donetsk Miners logo on it while we are in Kyiv. She said it could be dangerous for us to do so. Unfortunately, the prices for jerseys (even kid's jerseys) were just as expensive, if not more expensive, as they are in the US.

You can almost make out the cross walk in this photo. Stacey and I have determined that it doesn't necessarily mean that it is a safe place to cross but instead it gives the police a starting point to look for you if you get hit. I don't think the drivers would stop. I am not even convinced that they would slow down. Victor is funny because he will take off walking across the street while the rest of us are still standing on the curb looking and waiting and looking and waiting.

We walked around a park on Friday and saw many more wedding parties. There should not be a population problem in Donetsk any time soon. Wedding parties are all over town on Fridays and Saturdays taking pictures. I would imagine that she was wondering why this strange looking guy was taking her picture. She was the closest one to us is the only response that I have to that.

The Ukraine version of Dancing With the Stars seems to be a big hit. They are blaring the music from the speakers of the internet cafe as we type.

We are not sure how many more times we will be able to post before we get back home. Because of the holidays and our schedules, we are not sure when we will be able to get to somewhere that has internet access again. We will try to let folks know what is going on as soon as we can.

Before we start our post, I want to mention something that has been in the news lately. If you live close to the Louisville area, you may have seen a story about a young lady and her three children that were killed in a car accident earlier in the week. That accident happened about 1 mile away from my parent's home at an intersection that I have turned from many a time. Granted, the small towns around there are somewhat bigger and busier now than they were then. I probably had only spoken about 10-20 words to that lady in her life time but I knew her. Her dad and my mom had taught Math together at the High School for as long as I can remember. Her family went to the same small church as I did growing up. One of her older sisters was just a year behind me in school. I believe, but am not sure, that she (or her twin sister) helped at the Springfield Baptist Church's Vacation Bible School recently as a teacher in Caleb's class. Regardless, I know that it is a HUGE loss to such a small community. When national tragedies occur, you always think that there is probably a family and friends that are left behind to grieve. But in this case, I know that there is family and friends and an entire community left to grieve. Springfield Kentucky might be a sleepy little town that has not changed much in a long time, but if I had to go through something like this family is having to go through, there is no place on earth that I would rather be than in Springfield. We pray that God will provide sufficient support and love for that family during this truly difficult time. We know that He will.

As for us, the days keep passing by. Today is actually day 8 of the 10 day wait. Monday will be the end. However, because of the holidays, we will not have the required paperwork to be able to take Coy until Thursday. Once we get him, we will head to Kyiv to take care of paperwork at the US Embassy before coming home. Please be in prayer that all of the paperwork will go smoothly and that we will get to come home quickly and safely. We are hoping to be able to post this weekend about an expected time home. Of course, if any of the paperwork doesn't get completed, that could throw that date back some.

Stacey is leading in the Rummy Challenge. We have played 13 games of Rummy to 500 and she has won 7 of those. We have scored over 13,000 points together and the difference in our total scores is 5 points. We have a lot of free time on our hands. Maybe on the next post, I will provide some additional Rummy statistics.

Some good news that did happen to us. Since we are concerned about the van ride, we decided to try to hunt down a DVD for Coy to watch in the van. Our DVD player plays region 1 DVDs while almost all DVDs sold here are for Region 5 DVD players. Every once in a while, you may come across a DVD that plays on all DVD players, but not often. In our search, we had found a single Buggs Bunny DVD that would play on ours but we hesitated because they can sometimes be fairly violent and we weren't sure that was a good thing for him to watch on a long car ride. We did not purchase the Buggs Bunny DVD but decided to look around. The other day, on our way to the orphanage, we decided to go ahead and get the Buggs Bunny DVD. But we were running late and were not going to have time to go to the store where we had seen it before so our facilitator suggested that we try another store that sold the same things. We stopped and walked towards the door and there was a man outside, selling DVDs. At first glance, we did not see any children's DVDs but then Stacey found one towards the bottom that said Walt Disney so she picked it up. It had pictures on it from almost all of our favorite WD/Pixar movies (Cars, Toy Story 1 and 2, Finding Nemo, Incredibles, Monsters Inc., A Bugs Life) 14 in all. The DVD was made to play on all regions. We asked the guy if these movies were all on the DVD and he said yes. The cover said 14 cartoons. The cost, $4. We bought it. For the rest of the afternoon, we debated as to what was on the DVD. Was it clips from these movies?? Was it the music?? What exactly could be on this DVD for $4?? When we got back to our apartment, much to our surprise and amazement, all of the movies were on the DVD and they were in Russian. Some of them have the Russian over the English, but some, like Cars, Monsters Inc., and The Incredibles are only in Russian. That should provide hours, and we mean hours, of entertainment. Between that and food, perhaps we will make it to Kyiv after all. Someone (besides us) has obviously been praying for our trip home. We truly appreciate it.

This photo is of Coy telling some story. He tries to talk a lot and must be pretty good because our facilitator can understand what he is saying. We asked the caregivers to write Coy a note for him to read when he gets older. One of them told the lady writing the note to be sure to tell us that we had gotten one of the best boys in the house. They also told us that he likes to be the leader. That could be interesting.

He has sat in the van a few times but only for snacks. We think he will be OK once he settles down. Stacey and I are getting better at communicating with him and settling him down when he gets upset, so we have faith that we can make it. He gets upset now when it is time for us to leave. We used to think that it was just that he didn't want to stop playing with the toys or something else but even now when all we are doing is walking around outside, he gets upset when it is time to go inside. That is good and bad. It is good that it appears that he is forming an attachment to us. It is bad because it is hard on us to watch him get upset and be taken away and know that it will be several hours or days before we see him again. He is always glad to see us and acts like he genuinely enjoys the time with us.

We are heading to the circus tomorrow. This photo is the building where the circus will be. That will help to pass the time since the morning visit is all we get on Saturday. It is next door to the Circuit City, so we will probably get a new CD made with new pictures on it too.

As always, if you see Caleb and Katie, please give them an extra dose of love and grace while we are gone. It has been just as hard on us as we had anticipated it would be so we figure that it has been hard on them as well. They may not have completely understood what it would mean for us to be gone for so long and on the outside, we know that they are trying to be Big. But we know that on the inside, they miss Mommy and Daddy and we miss them too. Thanks for showing them love while we are gone.

Another Day Down

It has actually been 2 days since we posted because we took a day off to go and get a CD of the most recent pictures. This one was taken from inside of a play tunnel while Stacey and Coy were playing on the other side. The orphanage dresses him and some days he comes out in pink clothes. Today, he had on pink overalls. Thank heavens that there will only be a few more days of that.

We learned today that Coy had his surgery in August of 2005. That would have been about 20 months ago, when he was almost 1 year old.

Please continue to pray that the remaining paperwork and hurdles will all be cleared in a timely manner. We trust God that He will get us home in a timely manner but we are still asking all to pray. We are also asking for prayers for the journey. We took Coy out to see the van that we will be riding in last week and he sat in it for a few minutes before he became upset. Yesterday, he sat in it but was immediately upset. Today, he got upset before we even got within 10 feet of the van. Stacey thinks we probably should have used the element of surprise on him but hindsight is 20/20. We are going to attack with the new toy tactic next. If that doesn't work, we will go for videos. Our last hope will be the stroller. He loves being in the stroller and when Victor swithches the seats around so that they face each other, there may be enough space for him to sit in the stroller while riding.

Seatbelts you ask??? Forget about it. No seatbelts here. Every car ride is an adventure. We have only seen one accident though, which is amazing. They park and drive on the sidewalks here. We had heard others talking about it but we had to see it for ourselves. Its true. Walkers, beware.

This is some kids picking up their friends in front of the internet cafe. They are driving on the sidewalk. It gives new meaning to "I'll pick you up at the door."

We learned that the embassy will be closed on Monday, April 30 through Wednesday, May 2. We are still waiting to see if the court will be closed on those days as well. The judge was out sick today. Hopefully, we will know something tomorrow. We do know that the orphanage will be closed on May 1 and 2, so if we don't get to take Coy with us on April 30, we won't get to see him for 2 days. That is a long time when you are stuck in a strange city.

An update on the Game Boy situation. Our facilitator and another facilitator were able to get me a step-down transformer so that I could charge it. They have saved me from reading too much or hip-hop aerobics. They had to send it by train, so I really appreciated it. They had offered to let me use it while we were in Kyiv but I was afraid I would lose it. Now, I am glad to have it.

The visits continue to go well. He seems to get upset when it is time for us to leave. We don't know if that is because he wants to stay with us or just doesn't want to stop having fun. He seems to be generally excited to see us when we come and that makes it good. There are several other families that are visiting their children at the orphanage too but none of them speak much English. We obviously don't speak their language either. We are learning a few Russian words though. A very few though. We would starve, freeze, and die if left on our own for more than just a couple of hours though. (We might could last a day Stacey says.)

Thanks again for all of the e-mails and messages to this blog. We can not even begin to express how much we look forward to reading them when we come to the internet cafe. It is like Christmas morning every day or so. Thanks again to the friends and family that are caring for Caleb and Katie and helping out around the house and transportation, etc. etc. etc. God has been so good to us and we are very fortunate to have the number and quality of friends and family that we have.

If you see our children that are still in Indiana, please give an extra measure of love to them for us. We miss them a ton and can't wait to see them again. We have a date in our heads about when we might come home but it is too early to really start talking about it yet. There is many a slip betwixt a cup and a lip, so we will just keep praying that it is soon. God knows when we will be home.

Caleb and Katie, when we get home, you guys will have to take Coy and go with us to the place where we hike all the time with the Dorschs. I am sure that he will love doing that with his brat and sestra. (Russian for brother and sister.)

Day 4 and Counting

We had a good visit today. Coy is getting better at saying Caleb and Katie. I don't know if he will be able to say their names when we get to the airport, but he should recognize them at least. We work on it with him at every visit. He does a good job of trying to say more and please and also banana and piano. Another couple got fussed at by the care giver for letting their kids play (bang) on the piano so we did not get to play on it today. Hopefully, it will be warmer this afternoon so we can go outside.
All of the computers with CD drives were full today at the internet cafe. We will hope to make a new CD of the pictures we have taken the last several days so that the next time we come back, we will have some new pictures to share.
A special thanks to all of the messages from the young CBS class. Ms. Shawn and Ms. Jenny are very special to our children and they are very special to us as well. We are so fortunate to have people like them in our lives.
Stacey would like to send a good luck wish on your finals to any of her students that may be following along the blog.
We continue to be amazed at the way God provides for us. "Not by might nor by power, but by my Spirit," declares the Lord Almighty. Zec. 4:6 (This could be off a little because Stacey was working on her memory verse during the church services. I, on the other hand, was listening intently to the sermon that just happened to be in Russian.) We continue to be thankful that our prayers were answered and he appears to have been well taken care of as we waited to meet him.
Thanks again for the e-mails and the messages. They really mean a lot. Even if you are friends of our parents or have found out about our blog in some other way, please send us a message (or e-mail) to let us know that you are following along. I am sure that either one of our parents or other friends can provide you with our e-mail address if you need it. We really enjoy the messages from home in ENGLISH. Believe it or not, I am starting to run low on things to read. I read the DW book that mom and dad gave me in about a week and have just about read the Power of a Praying Parent book as well. I will read the Case for Christ after Stacey is done and after that, I am done. And since I can't recharge the Gameboy, I may have to resort to doing Hip Hop aerobics with Stacey if I can't come up with more reading material.
If you come across our children that are in the states, please give them an extra dose of mercy and love. Feel free to give them hugs and kisses from us too if you can. We would pay BIG BUCKS to be able to grab them up in to our arms right now.

One More Day Down

Not much to report. We went to the full 2 hour church service today. The music is very good and I enjoy that alot. I wish we could understand some of the preaching here but we do not. It is still exciting to see the enthusiam of the people that are able to understand what is being said. If it was English being spoken instead of Russian, it could easily be a church somewhere in the midwest of the USA.

Here is a picture of Stacey with Sveta and Victor outside of some important looking building. On Saturday when we rode past, there were no less than 5 wedding parties out there getting pictures taken. They are standing beside a large cannon. We have no idea of the significance of the monument. Victor, who is very funny by the way, said that perhaps the cannon did not work so they left it there. We really enjoy his and Sveta's humor.

We have tickets for the Moscow circus on Saturday. That should be interesting.

Here's Coy

After an hour or two at Circuit City, we were able to work around our photo problems. It seems our 2.0 GB SD card holds too much information for the $7 card readers we purchased. We were able to ask them to make a copy of the pictures on a CD and finally....here it is!

A point of clarification...our anniversay is actually in August. We are just celebrating a little late.

We had our last visit of the weekend today. Everything went well. Coy is quite the social bug. He enjoys going around and visiting with the other children and couples in the room. Yesterday he consoled a young boy who was crying by rubbing his head. It was very sweet and reminded us of his sister and her compassion for others. Coy was quite upset when it was time for him to go today. We take that as a good sign, but the nurse didn't have a new toy to distract him like they usually have. He spent a lot of time playing the piano today. It drew a crowd from the other children, but they mainly wanted to bang on the keys so their parents quickly put an end to their play. Today there were parents from Germany and Italy (We think.). One couple had two boys and the other had one boy. Another couple was in the room briefly and were visiting another boy. Our American friends were not there today. We heard that their son has a fever so they will not be able to visit him until Monday. They are supposed to be leaving Donetsk on Monday for Kyiv.

It looks like we may be set back a bit by the holidays. Sveta says that offices will probably be closed the Monday after our 10 day wait due to the following two days of holidays. She said that usually in this case they will be open on Saturday and closed on Monday so that there is a four day stretch of days off. If this is the case we will hope to be finishing our business in Donetsk on Thurs., May 3 and then heading to Kyiv. Either way, please pray that we will be able to finish quickly and get home soon.

Yesterday the head nurse at the orphanage, Oksana, gave us a little cross with a string on it. She said that Coy had been baptized when he was younger. She also gave us a picture of him when he was younger before the surgery. The doctors did a good job.

On a different note, I (Stacey), think I have figured out the mystery of our shower. I am a big fan of a nice warm shower in the morning if possible. It seems that the hot water comes in cycles. Gradually it warms more and more to burning hot and then back down again to ice cold. If I am patient enought I can get a good shower in about 3 cycles. The trick is to be washing during the cold cycle and rinsing during the warm...all the while trying not to get water in your mouth. There is an extra level of difficulty because there is no shower curtain and the shower head is hand held. A bit of coordination is key!

We have been so blessed to hear how family and friends are taking care of Caleb and Katie. Thank you so much for inviting them for extra visits, delivering food, and even loaning money at school for unexpected activities...We are so THANKFUL!!!

Happy Anniversary

Before I get into it, let's just say that we are just as disappointed as you are that there are still no pictures to put up. The technicians here at the internet cafe claim that the card readers that we are getting from Circuit City are not working. We have one or two ideas left to try and then after that, we are stumped. We are not sending an e-mail out today because we can't send pictures. Once we get pictures going, we will send out another e-mail. Hopefully that will be this weekend.
After Stacey and I got married, we went on a cruise for our honeymoon. We loved it. We had a great time being together and it was a wonderful experience. We had always thought for one of our anniversaries, that we would go on another cruise. We kicked around the idea of a cruise with a couple of our friends not long after we were married but none of us could really afford it then. Once we started seriously considering this adoption, we joked that instead of a cruise, we would get to spend a month together in Eastern Europe. Well, Happy Anniversary Sweety. We are actually having a pretty good time together. There isn't an entertainment director and we haven't seen any Broadway shows or magic acts or acrobats but Stacey and I always have fun together. You know you are meant to be together if you can spend 10 days in as close quarters as we have been spending with each other and not even get frustrated with each other. At least I haven't been frustrated with her. I did forget the camera cord and perhaps I read the e-mails too fast, but those things are minor things. We play cards and watch DVDs together. We pray together and just "hang out" together. We ride beside each other in the van and play with Coy together. We are just together. There are lots of things that we could have done for an anniversary, but the best thing is being together. I am so thankful that God has given me such an awesome wife that she enjoys just being together with me. For those of you that know me, you know that is no easy task. I might be fun for a while but I would tend to irritate most people after 10 days and limited showers. The only downside to this "vacation" is that we do miss our kids that are back at home. We are not wishing that we had brought them with us. It has been difficult traveling at times. But do wish that we were back together with them. We are enjoying our time away and will be even more committed to some quality family time when we get home. Just the 5 of us.
We did get to video tape the performance at the orphanage today for Health Day. There were about 8 children from Coy's group that participated. They were all dressed in matching sweatsuits of different colors. Several other children from the orphange got to sit in little chairs and watch. Two other families were invited to attend along with us. Good thing they require paperwork to adopt these children, or we might have stuffed a few extra in our suitcases on the way out today. We got to see Coy's bedroom, table where he eats, and playroom today. They had recently renovated the rooms with money they had received from families who had adopted children from the orphange. It looked relatively nice. He showed us his bed, bed #2. He continued on to point out other beds and named the children that slept in them. There were about 20 beds in the room. We heard that there are about 120 children in the orphanage.
Today we went to a local toy store to buy some gifts for the orphanage. The director said they could use some developmental toys and a few dolls. We brought a large box full of toys to our afternoon visit, and they were very thankful. The toy store was interesting in that it was kind of like the old Service Merchandise stories were you write down the number for the product and how many you want. It is entered into a computer. You pay, and then you go and pick them up in a different room. Sveta said that the toy store was opened by a man who had lost a child and wanted to have the store in the child's memory. We also picked up a few toys for Coy for the long drive and flight home. We hope you are not picturing Toys R Us. It was located in a residential area. Victor had to ask at least 3 people for directions to find it. The building was attached to a large, old apartment building. It looked kind of like an abandoned warehouse.
We hope to have pictures next time. Thank you for your messages and prayers!!!

Great News

Well, it is official. Micah Coy Yankey will be one of the clan at the end of the 10 day waiting period. We had hoped to post some pictures today but our $7 card reader was only good for about 2 times. We go by Circuit City all of the time so we will stop and get another one and try again later. Court went fine. Stacey kept me from standing up and screaming "I Object Your Honor!!!" Mainly because we had no idea what to object to. It was very friendly and relaxed and lasted less than 20 minutes. The jury consisted of 2 of the workers from the orphanage. The judge was a very young lady that seemed nice. A representative from the Inspector's office was there as well as the lawyer from the orphanage. The prayers from everyone were answered again. Not that we are surprised that they would be, but it is fun for us to acknowledge when God answers our prayers with a Yes.
We traveled to the "open market" yesterday. It was quite the experience as well. It was like the flea market at the fairgrounds only each booth was only about 4 feet long and there were LOTS of booths. We bought Coy shoes, socks, pants, shirts, pajamas, and a jacket because he does not get to take anything with him when he leaves the orphanage. We tried the clothes on him in the afternoon and he tolerated it but he does not share the love of fashion that his sister has. He does seem to be very interested in music though. We played inside today because he had a cough and he played and sang on the piano for at least 20 minutes of the hour. He would have played more if we would have let him but it was time to go. Stacey's goofy husband thought that he was video taping some of the market but when we got back in the van, he realized that all he had gotten was the inside of the camera case. We will hope to go back so that we can get some additional video tape. It would be worth our effort to document this market for our memory.
The head caregiver took pictures of Coy's bed, playroom, and table for us. They don't want us to take pictures inside of the orphanage because they don't want pictures of the other kids getting out to the internet. We learned that his group has 20 kids but only about 10 are healthy enough to go outside and play. The others are so handicapped in some way that they can not go outside. The caregivers at the orphanage seem to be very nice and friendly. The inside of the orphanage is not as bad as I had expected. They are doing a repair job on part of the orphanage right now. The court house, on the other hand, should have been torn down decades ago.
Now that the court date is done, we wait our 10 days. At the end of those 10 days, we will get a new birth certificate and passport. It is our understanding that we will have to travel to the town where he was born to get the new birth certificate. It is about 2 hours away by car. Only after we have the new birth certificate can we apply for a new passport. After we have those documents, we must return to Kyiv to take care of some paperwork at the embassy and the Adoption Center before we can leave for home. We don't know when that will be yet but the more prayers that we can get for it to be as soon as possible, the better.
I sort of feel like we are in an extra long episode of "Joan of Arcadia". That was a show that was on CBS about 3 years ago that Stacey and I really liked. God would speak to Joan in a number of different ways and he would have her often do things outside of her comfort zone. Sometimes they would turn out the way that she expected them to but often the end result was something that was unexpected but for the best of all involved. Stacey added that we are in a mix of "Joan of Arcadia" with the "Amazing Race".
We do get to go to a "performance" tomorrow for Health Day at the orphanage. Given Coy's apparent appreciation for music, we are expecting him to be quite the star. Unfortunately, we don't think that we will be able to video tape or take pictures. We have met another couple from Missouri that are here adopting an 19 month old boy. Another couple that we met that is from Italy is leaving today to go back to Kyiv. They have adopted a 4 year old boy. Coy does try to talk a lot and is often smiling and happy and that is good. He shows emotions too, which is also good.
Since we can not post pictures today, we will probably cut this post short and hope to be able to post them the next time that we come to the internet cafe. We so love getting the messages and e-mails from everyone. If you come across our children that are in the US already, please give them an extra hug and a kiss from their mommy and daddy. It would be greatly appreciated by us.

Court Date

Here are our new digs. The outside may look very intimidating but the inside is really neat. There is probably a life lesson to be learned there as well. We are glad to be in these apartments. The couple helping us let us have the nicer apartment because the people that have rented these apartments need to get into the other apartment on occasion to use a washer and they obviously can't communicate with us. Our driver said that the road to this apartment is something like driving on the moon. It is just a dirt road (yes we are in the city), more like an alley, with ruts and rises that you would not believe.

We have court date for this Thursday (10 AM local, 3 AM for most reading this). God has really put the right people in the right places for us. We can not wait to share what He has done for us. It is too much to put into words really. We continue to visit the orphanage and Coy. He is a very sharp little boy and seems to be quite popular with both the kids and the caregivers. Maybe all of the kids are treated the same but his name is one of the few Russian words that we recognize. When he walks by, we hear the kids say his name.

Please continue to pray for us. Especially as the days slow down and we wait. Homesickness will start to set in even more than it already has.

Our schedule for the next 2 weeks is pretty much, get up, go to the orphanage, visit for an hour, go eat, get on the internet, go visit for another hour, and then go back to the apartment.

The weather has started to warm up some and that is good.

We have discovered that Coy's favorite thing is "machina" (car). If there are any cars around, he just wants to point and look. He has some trouble speaking so we can barely understand his broken Russian but there is no mistaking what has his interest. It reminds us of Caleb and the way he was so interested in hats when he was younger. Coy can down a banana pretty fast and is good with crackers. He has mastered signing "more" and "please". We are working on others.

He has had a few small temper tantrums when he didn't get his way but nothing worse than what we have seen before. He is easily distracted. We took him for a ride in our NASCAR stroller and he stayed in for the entire hour. That will be good for going through the airport.

We don't know if there will be much "news" to report after the court date on Thursday. We will probably try to post some more pictures of our experiences here in Donetsk as well as share some of our thoughts.

Thanks for posting messages and sending e-mails. It is really encouraging to us. Thanks most of all for your prayers. It is just amazing what can happen when His people pray. Our faith has increased exponentially because we have been a first hand witness to the direct answering of prayers. It is truely undescribable. If you could, we would ask that you would pray that we would be able to get the birth certificate and the passports on Monday, April 30 and that there are no glitches in court on Thursday. There are national holidays on May 1 and 2 so if can't get things taken care of on Monday, it will mean at least another 2 days of sitting around Donetsk.

Sunday Sunday

We have photo capabilities now. A trip to Circuit City cured that problem. This is a photo of Stacey beside "the" elevator to go up to an apartment that we were staying in in Kyiv. The photo does not do the odor justice. The inside of the apartment was beautiful. We will post pictures of Coy after the court date.

It has been kind of a slow Sunday for us. It is rainy and cold. We got up and went to a church this morning. The lady helping us thought it started at 10 so we showed up around 9:35 and it had actually started at 9. Good thing though because it lasted until 11. Didn't understand the first word. Actually, we heard Jesus, Halleluah, and Amen a few times. Other than that, we were lost. There were lots of young people and they had a worship band and the minister was young and energetic. Even in a different language, we could still feel the enthusiam for God and His wonderful love. It was fun. We sat in the back and watched teenage girls look at pictures of teenage boys on the cell phones. Some things don't change, no matter where you go. Also, Stacey was concerned for me about the length of the service since my track record is not stellar for staying awake at hour long services that are in English. Two hours in Russian may be more than I can take after the newness has worn off.

We only got to visit the orphanage once on Saturday and no visits on Sunday. We are still hopeful that a court date will be on Thursday of this week. Sveta is doing a great job of getting things lined up for us. We know that she is trying to get us home as quickly as possible. She claims that she is our Mother and Father and sister and brother while we are here. She even brought me a jacket to wear while we were visiting with Coy. I had given mine to Stacey because her one was not enough. The jacket belonged to Victor and he stayed in the van. Please continue to pray for the paperwork to be completed in a timely fashion.

Since we are very far away from Kyiv, and they do not have services like UPS or FEDEX, she will send very important paperwork to Kyiv (for the adoption center) via either a train conductor or even perhaps a pilot. Her friend will pick it up from them at either the train station or the airport. This sounds like a risky way to send such important papers but I guess they do it all of the time. We trust them.

We found out at the internet cafe today that Stacey's Aunt Doris has passed away. We knew that she had been ill. This is still difficult being so far away from home. Please pass on an extra prayer for Stacey's family as they go through this situation.

We have found another apartment to move to on Monday. $24 a night for our room and $36 a night for the folks helping us. The outside is run down a bit but again, the inside is beautiful. Stacey chuckled pretty hard at the "run down a bit" comment. We will post pictures of it next time, maybe. We don't want anyone to be concerned for our safety. They have watchdogs there that we can use. Not really. It was more like a walking mop but it ran at us with lots of gusto.

Thanks again for all of your prayers. It has been a good weekend for us, all things considered. We miss our kids a ton and can't wait for the five of us to be together.

Good News from Donetsk

All, we had the meeting yesterday and to say that God is good would have to be the understatement of the day. After the appointment at the adoption center in Kyiv, Stacey and I were restless about what we might see when we got to Donetsk. The car ride was long and difficult and it only added to our apprehensions. However, God has always been in control, it is us that has the hard time trusting through it all. As soon as we walked into the room where we met this child, it was an immediate attatraction. He was happy and smiling and very friendly. He threw the ball very well and was interested in trucks "machina". He followed instructions very well and was very attentive. All of the medical reports that we have received on him were very good. The only set back is that he was born with a cleft pallet. He has already had a surgery on his lip and it looks relatively good. He will still need surgery when he returns to the US but he is as normal now and just about any child you will find anywhere in the world. He eats well and speaks well, all things considered. Today, when we visited him and fed him a banana, he already signed more and please and started on thank you. We were very impressed. He also likes playing with a ball that we got him and that bodes well for our family. His name is Mykola which is translated as Nicholas but they call him "Cola" as a nickname. We are leaning towards naming him Micah Coy Yankey and calling him Coy or Coya or Cola. We hardly ever say it the same way twice in a row yet so it will be an adjustment either way. He has big eyes like Caleb and Katie but they are the same color as mine instead of their mother's. He has short blonde hair and is a good size for a 2.5 year old. His birthday is Sept. 15, 2004. They say he eats well. We are guessing that he is either a 2T or a 3T. We are staying in a hotel right now but are hoping to move to an apartment very soon. We are waiting on signatures for a court date. Please pray for these to get done quickly so that we can get back to Caleb and Katie and the rest of our family. He also likes to swing very much. Please also begin to pray for his departure from the orphanage. We have heard that this can be really difficult (for him and for us.) It is a L-O-N-G car ride back to Kyiv. Our facilitator decided to drive instead of ride the train so that we would have a car here. The jury is still out as to whether or not that was a good decision. Although I have heard horror stories about the train so we trust them. We both have interesting stories to tell about the traffic and the restrooms that we have encountered. We may save that for another day. We are less than an hour's drive from Russia and there is obviously still a great deal of Russian influence here. The most interesting story about the restrooms agrees with what I had read on other blogs and heard others say is that some are just holes in a floor and nothing else. And in some places, you have to pay to use these holes. Toilet paper is not there and you have to either carry your own or go without. The traffic, we won't even go there now. It is something like a carnival ride except you are not sure that the person that is operating the ride cares if you ever get off the ride safely or not. The car that gets there first has the right of way and they are not shy about going 3 wide on a 2 lane road with one of those 3 going the other way. VERY INTERESTING!!!
While we were in Kyiv, we saw parts of the political demonstrations that are occuring here in Ukraine. Kyiv backs the President while Donetsk supports the Prime Minister. There are lots of police everywhere protecting the peace. I guess that is good. At no time have we felt unsafe or threatened. Most people here are very frienldy and helpful. We just have no clue what they are saying. We have encountered several though that do speak a few words of English.
To say that we miss home won't cut it either as far as understatements. We went to the Ukraine version of Wal-mart last night and it really made us miss home. Who would of thought that we would miss Wal-mart?? I think it was actually the fun times that we have as a family in Wal-mart that we missed. It is a good date night in rural America though you know.

Appointment Results

We are traveling tonight to meet a child in Donetsk tomorrow (Friday). It is about an 8 hour trip by car. We had a lot of emotions coming out of the appointment, but I think we have begun to take some comfort in our decision. We are hoping that there are no surprises tomorrow when we meet this child. The meeting was just as we had expected it to be, unfortunately, all of the children had some sort of issue. Some more issues than others. The sibling groups that we were presented were easily crossed off the list because of reasons like HIV, severe mental retardation, and Hepatitis. The rest of the children that we were shown had medical issues or there were things in their pasts that concerned us. One child was described as healthy but was 7 years old, and that would have put them as the oldest child in our family and I wasn't willing to take that distinction away from our son. The child that we have selected to meet is around 2.5 years old. We will meet the child tomorrow and hope to be able to start the adoption process immediately. As soon as we have internet access again, we will pass on all of the details if the adoption is a go. As long as there are no medical surprises tomorrow, we expect it to be a go. Please keep praying f0r us. You can not imagine the emotional struggle that a decision like that is until you have been in that spot. We thought we were prepared but we were not. Also, the lack of sleep and the homesickness don't help any either. We did have an extreme sense of peace though as we waited for our appointment. God did relieve our anxieties. He is good.

Appointment Today

By the time you read this, it is likely that we will have already had our appointment. It is at 11 am local time, which is 4 am in Louisville. We are obviously in Kyiv now and are doing fine. We miss the kids tons already but we knew that we would. It sounds like (via e-mail) Dawn and Carol have gotten of to an insteresting start with the storms and rain and power outage. We hope to let everyone know the results of the appointment as soon as possible.

Amsterdam Already

Not much to say yet other than we are in Amsterdam. We are tired but OK. We got off to a slow start since our flight out of Louisville was delayed. We ended up taking United Airlines instead of Northwest to Amsterdam. We are now back on Northwest. We don't stick out as much as we thought we might. As long as we don't talk, we are just like everybody else here.

This Is It, Kind Of

We leave today. All of the emotions that we have been too busy to feel are starting to creep into play. We both experienced a rather sleepless night last night. We stayed up late getting our packing complete and making a list of what we need to do today before we leave. Katie was up in the middle of the night worrying about Roman soldiers (we watched a portion of the Southeast Easter Pageant video from 1999) and we took turns getting up with her. We were both up well before the alarm went off. Stacey is doing more laundry and getting ready to run on the treadmill. I have a small list of things that I need to do around the house before some of the stores open. I am proud of our pack job. I think we have tried to take the advice of others as much as we can. Lots of friends and family have called or e-mailed or even stopped by the house the last few days wishing us well on our trip. God's people never cease to amaze me about how they can be so encouraging. We are definitely in need of the encouragement.
I feel pressure now to get up from here and to get going. That list of things isn't getting shorter as I sit here and type.
I titled this entry "This Is It, Kind Of" because this does not feel like the beginning nor I am so naive to believe that coming home will be the end. It is just another chapter in this story. It is an important chapter though. This is one of the days that we have talked about for a long time. I tried to describe to Stacey last night. For me, it feels just like she is pregnant and we are anxiously waiting for her to go into labor. There is nothing that I can do to speed up time and there is nothing that I could do to stop time either. I am trying to enjoy the ride. So I guess its time for us to get on this train (airplane actually) and see what the next step He has for us to take.

God participates in Family Fun Day

It was innocent enough. A movie with the kids, a trip to the Science Center, and then out to eat at one of their favorite restaurants. The kids had slept in the living room on Friday night and had woken up kind of early on Saturday morning. Stacey had gotten up with a restless sleeper in the night but I had gotten a decent night's sleep. We had a relatively lazy morning. All except Stacey as usual. She runs on the treadmill and cleans the house for company on Sunday. The rest of us try to stay out of her way and help when we can.
The movie that we picked was the new Disney movie, "Meet the Robinsons". We knew absolutely NOTHING about the movie other than it was animated, it was from Disney, and was rated G. Some friends of Stacey's had discussed kid's movies recently and one lady that knows we are going through this project said that it was a good movie but did not mention any details of the movie. I'll try not to give too many of the details away but the opening scene is of an apparent young lady leaving her child at an orphanage. The story progresses and the audience learns that this child is very interested in science and is also frustrated by not being adopted. His plan is to invent some sort of memory machine that will allow him to recall what his mom looked like in the hope of finding her and making a family with her. Without going into a lot of detail, time travel is involved and the young boy ends up going into the future and meets his future family. He then has the opportunity to go back in time and meet the lady that dropped him off at the orphanage. He realizes that knowing who this lady is would likely change his life and his future and he might not have the future family that he has already met. Stacey stopped me from typing out the ending but what I took from it was this: God has a plan. He works things out according to His plan. His plan was for us to go and see that movie this weekend to get that little extra bit of encouragement that we need before we leave. He has a plan for us leaving at this moment in time and not a year earlier and not a day later. He has a plan. Some might call it a coincidence. Others might say that I am reading way too much into a set of circumstances, but not me. I believe that it is just another example of how God is gently encouraging us to do what He has called us to do. We may not have the luxury of knowing what is ahead of us. We do not have the ability to know what seemingly unimportant event in our past has put us where we are today. But we know that God has a plan. We know that eventually he will work it out for the good of those that call upon His name. And that is good to know.
Tomorrow is a full slate so I don't know if I will be posting tomorrow or not. I will try to get on Tuesday morning and sign off from state side. We have gotten several well wishes and we appreciate it a ton. Thanks so much for praying for us. We can literally feel the burden being lifted from us from knowing that other believers are praying for you. It is very comforting.

Posting a Comment or Leaving a Message

More than a couple of people have asked us about leaving comments/messages on this blog. Unfortunately, you have to have a Google account in order to post a message here. It is a free account and they don't send you junk e-mail once you sign up. I feel like it is pretty much so that they can identify and remove people that aren't being responsible with the freedoms that being able to post comments provides. We have read many other blogs from folks that have been overseas for extended periods of time and they always write how the messages and comments from home brought them much encouragement while they were gone. If you are reading this, please consider getting a Google account and posting us a message of encouragement while we are gone. It would mean a lot to us. If you don't feel like getting a Google account so that you can post messages here, feel free to send us an e-mail. We don't know how much access we will have to our e-mail. Mainly because a lot of folks talk about how slow the connections are. We are spoiled with our high speed internet. We are going to try to check our personal e-mail though.
We have tabbed today as Family Fun Day. We are letting the kids pick what we are going to do together as a family. It looks like we are going to the Science Center, the movies, and probably to Golden Corral to eat.
We went to Easter services last night to make room for others at church this weekend. Caleb gets movie bucks for bringing his Bible to church and for remembering his Bible verse. He is trying to catch up with his friend Nathan so he has asked us to go back to church both tonight and Sunday. We haven't decided if we will try to go back or not. Probably not since the whole purpose for going on Friday was to make room for others to worship on the weekend so it would defeat the purpose of going on Friday. But on the other hand, we don't like telling the child that we can't go to church when he wants to go.
Just a few days to go until we leave. By this time next week, we expect to know something about the child/children that we will be hoping to adopt. We will post information here on the blog as soon as we feel it is appropriate/safe to do so. We don't know where we are going and what the internet availability will be like, therefore, we don't know if we will be able to e-mail everyone or not. Plus, with e-mail, we run the risk of missing someone that is important to us on accident.

It's Not Headlines in the U.S.

As if we needed something to worry about, there is news about political unrest coming out of Kyiv. This has been brewing since 2004 when they had what they refer to as the "Orange Revolution." This was a revolution in which a pro-western leader emerged as the president over a presumed Soviet backed foe. In my limited understanding of the situation, the Soviet backed foe has since come back to power by means of becoming the head of the parliament and thus the Prime Minister. He was steadily gaining positions in the parliament to remove all of the powers from the President so the President effectively dissolved parliament on Monday. The parliament immediately issued a resolution stating that they would ignore the President and continue to meet. Supporters of both men have taken to the streets of Kyiv to demonstrate their allegiance to the leaders. The military has already announced that they would follow the President. The rumors began flying on some of the chat rooms that these actions would effectively shut down the government, and thus, the adoption authority. There were also rumors about everyone in the adoption authority being fired because of the power struggles within the government. We are unsure if any of these rumors are true or not. We talked to the ladies that are helping us with the adoption and they told us that they had heard from the US Embassy via e-mail this morning and the Embassy told them that anyone that already had an appointment should be OK. We trust them. The Embassy has been wrong before too though.
With that, it causes us to rely on our God even more. We know He has a plan for us. We could certainly use the prayers of those of you that are like minded.
We packed tonight. It looks good for getting everything in on the first try. We are taking some old clothes so that we can just leave them or throw them away so that we will have room for some gifts and souveniers on our return. We still have a few small things to get to add but I think we are in good shape.
A story to end the post; the other night as we were driving home from somewhere, Caleb said, "It is going to be a sad week next week." He was refering to us leaving. I tried to tell him that it would be sad but that it was for a good reason and for him to imagine the celebration that would occur when we returned home. It stayed on my mind so Sunday on our way home from church, I was trying to explain to him again how excited we would be when we got back together and he related it to the Easter story of Jesus. He talked about how the people that loved Jesus didn't want to see Him die on the cross and they were sad when He did. But when He returned, they were extremely happy and excited. You can't buy those kinds of emotions as a parent. I wouldn't trade the feelings that I felt as I listened to him tell me that story for all of the money in the world. The fact that he knows that it is true and that he is beginning to understand what it means to him as an individual is beyond compare. He is amazing. And so is HE. It is going to be a sad day next week. But we are already looking forward to the homecoming and when we will be united as an entire family again.