The Week in Review

Wow, I don't know if I can't get it all in now or not but I will try. I will do it in reverse, starting with the events of last night. We traveled to Stacey's parents and her mom had supper ready and waiting for us when we got there. Everyone was busy helping to get the food on the table and drinks ready, etc. and all of a sudden we heard crying coming from the basement. Coy had opened the door to their basement and had fallen down the steps. We don't know how far he fell but to say that we were scared to death would be putting it mildly. We ran to the bottom of the steps expecting the worst. He had a LARGE knot on his forehead and a scrape between his eyes but amazingly, no other injuries. The door to the steps open in and we think that he just was exploring and opened the door and didn't realize there were steps there. After just a few minutes of crying, he was OK. His eye is not black but he does have a doozy of a bruise.

Katie graduated from pre-school on Wednesday night. They had the cap and gown thing going on and it was pretty cool. Katie did a wonderful job at this pre-school. We were so amazed at how much work they accomplished in just a couple of hours, three days a week. We are hoping that this pre-school is still running in a couple of years when Coy is ready. Grandma Yankey learned something at the reception that followed. She was going to get Coy just one more cookie. Well, she got one that he kind of acted like he didn't like so she went back to get him a different one. Her intentions were to switch them out so that he could have one that he liked. She learned that once food is in Coy's hands, the only way that you are going to get it away from him is to make him mad.

Last Sunday we got to go on a walk with our friends the Dorschs. Our kids have such a great time with their kids that we probably couldn't keep them apart if we wanted to. We hiked for about an hour around a lake that is nearby our house and then we came back to our house for homemade pizza and a water fight in the back yard.

In between all of that stuff, Stacey took the kids to the zoo to try out the new splash park. Coy also was diagnosed with more ear infections and given another round of antibiotics. The pediatricians thinks that we will probably just put tubes in his ears during his other surgeries to help reduce his ear infections. We understand that it is not uncommon for children with cleft pallete to be especially susceptible to ear infections.

The political unrest in Ukraine is still in the news as it has apparently begun to grow less peaceful.

We continue to be amazed at God's timing for everything. It has truly been unreal. Unfortunately, I don't have time in this blog tonight to go into the details of everything but He obviously had our path worked out ahead of us.

The Lights are Beginning to Come On (and off)

People told us that we would be amazed at how quickly children would understand a new language. Of course he has been submersed in English but I would have to say that we are amazed at how much he understands. This morning, Caleb and Coy had gotten up early. Coy likes to try and use the restroom. He usually does something. He then likes to flush, wave goodbye, and then wash and dry his hands. Well, this morning, after about the third trip in 15 minutes, I left him after he got his pants pulled back up. I was about 15 feet away when I turned around and he was walking out. I said, "Coy, turn the lights off." He stopped. Walked back a few steps, and reached up and turned the lights off, just as I had instructed. That is amazing.

We had our first taste of public eating tonight. We all went to Ryan's for a meal. Coy was tired from getting up early with Caleb this morning and he fell asleep about 5 minutes before we got there. Fortunately, he usually wakes up in a good mood and he did this time as well. As we waited to pay, he did get a little upset but once we sat down, Stacey got him a plate of food really fast and we said our prayer and he was good to go. As always, he ate really well and we all generally enjoyed our time out. We did take him to the restroom a couple of times at his request but other than that, there he sat in all of his glory. The only time he got upset was when he realized that we were getting up to go home and not to go to the restroom. One thing he did like at the restroom was getting the papertowels out of the dispenser on the wall. Also, since he is smaller, he didn't see the hole for the trash can on the counter top so he went under the counter to throw away his towel.

Caleb likes to try and make us all laugh and he usually does a pretty good job of it. He tries to correct some of my poor grammer habits, like saying the word ain't. Well, sometimes, Coy gets real excited and he rattles off a lot of something that must be Russian because we have no idea what he is saying and Caleb will look at him and say, "Coy, please use proper English." Of course, he is just trying to be funny and it almost always gets a chuckle out of me. His other thing that he does is he will ask you what your name is and after you tell him he will say, spell it. Of course, everyone begins to spell their name and he says no, i-t. Get it?? If I did that, it would be annoying. Since a 6-year old does it, it is kind of cute the first few times.

Coy loves to swing on the swing set and slide on the sliding board but he can't keep up on the monkeybars with his big brother and sister. They worked up a "performance" for their friends and spent a lot of time one night writing out invitations to all of them. Unfortunately, they scheduled their performance for the next night so that we weren't able to deliver very many of the invitations and really didn't expect anyone to be able to make it on such short notice any way. But they did work really hard on them for several hours.

What's Next??

We are busy looking around trying to get things ironed out for what we are going to do with Coy this fall. Stacey has called every pre-school in southern Indiana. We think we have one that we will be satisfied with but time will tell. We are actually on the waiting list but we are the first one on the waiting list. We are hopeful that we will get in. It is one that Caleb actually went to when he was about Coy's age.

Stacey is going to be teaching during the day time beginning this fall. This will require that Coy have some sort of child care for about 4 hours on Mondays and Wednesdays. Not the end of the world obviously, because lots of children go to daycare.

Going back to work went fine. Most of my projects were in pretty good shape. Lots of folks at work had been following the blog and were genuinely interested in hearing the details of our story.

We haven't heard back from the pediatrician about the results of Coy's tests and we haven't heard back from the plastic surgeon to confirm Coy's surgery date. We have however, heard lots of good stories about the plastic surgeon that will do his surgery. That makes us feel better. Lots of people have commented on how well his surgery already looks and they are right. The results of his first surgery don't look bad now and his lip looks pretty good. But he does need to have his pallete repaired for his speech development.

Coy's understanding of what we are saying is increasing by leaps and bounds. He understands lots of phrases. We also understand several of his hand motions when he wants us to do things. We try very hard to have him verbalize what it is he wants or is trying to get across. Don't get us wrong, he is a very verbal little boy, it's just that we have no clue what he is trying to say and whether or not it is in poor English or in Russian. We are trying to encourage his English development so that we will have a better understanding of exactly how much help he needs so that we can find that help for him.

It's Back to Work Now

Coy seems to be having so much fun. Most everything that we do is new to him and watching his reactions is lots of fun. This weekend was his first weekend in the church nursery. (We went last weekend but let him stay with us.) The report was that he did great. This was no surprise since he has basically been in organized chaos his entire life. The folks at church are wonderful about teaching the children but lets face it, 15 2 year olds could drive the most sane person crazy in a couple of hours if left alone.

Our neighbor (Addison, Caleb and Katie's friend) had a birthday party. He didn't want to get in the castle that is behind him but he did not want to leave the swing and the slide.
We did get out a little mini-trampoline on Sunday and he liked to jump on it. He pretty much loves to be outside. I don't know what we will do this winter when we are stuck inside most of the time.

We got to go to Caleb and Katie's soccer game on

Thursday night. We had missed 4 games while we were away. That may not seem like a lot but it was huge for us. I feel sorry for children whose parents sign them up for activities and then don't make it a priority to attend the games and cheer them on. I know not every family is fortunate enough to be able to attend most all of the games like we are, but it hurts me to think that there are fathers or mothers that aren't at the games because they are not interested in what their children are doing or because mowing the yard or washing the car is more important.

Both Caleb and Katie enjoy playing soccer and we enjoy encouraging them to always do their best, no matter what they are doing.

Katie's recital went great on Saturday. I kind of already knew about the surprise but the last song that they did was titled "Thanks for Being My Dad." During the song, they showed pictures of all of the girls with their fathers. The picture of Katie and me that they showed is the one at the left. It was a very emotional moment, as if I haven't had enough of those lately. Coy was on my lap and Caleb was at my side while I watched Katie sign the words to the song. Since Coy can sign a few things, one of the things that he recognized from the song was the sign for Thank You. So as the girls would sign 'thank you', Coy would also sign it. I am so glad that we made it back home in time for that recital.

Coy got to meet the rest of his cousins this weekend. My sister's kids and Stacey's sister's child were all at the recital on Saturday. Coy must think that he is some sort of international superstar because it seems that everywhere we go, someone that he has never met comes up to him and greets him by calling him by his name.

It is back to work for me tomorrow. Some might say that I don't work enough to call it work but I do work hard. When Stacey and I were praying for me to get this job, our desire was for me to be able to be at home more with the children. I think it was God's plan to put me in a situation where I would be able to spend time away from Caleb and Katie so that we could adopt Coy. I believe that God had worked it out well before we knew what we were doing. My work has been super about this adoption (I will let you know if I have changed my opinion on this tomorrow once I see what kind of shape all of my projects are in now since I have been gone for so long). I will still have over 2 weeks of vacation left since I was able to use sick time for about 1/2 of the time that I was gone. What we intended for one purpose, God intended for a different purpose. I don't know if I would have had the flexibility to do what we did had I stayed in private practice and not moved to Civil service. I am glad that I will never know.

It will be interesting to see how much I am able to post once work starts back. It will definitely be harder.

We have started on working to help Coy to stop sucking his thumb. This is very hard for us because we know it has been his source of comfort for probably his entire life. I sat with him while he cried himself to sleep tonight, but without his thumb in his mouth. We hope he knows (or at least figures it out someday) that we are just trying to do what is best for him. It is a habit that he needs to break now so that it is not double misery for him after his palette surgery.

The Surgeon Says.....

This picture is of St. Andrew's church in Kyiv. It is the church that is right next to the SDA (Department of Adoptions). The steps are probably less than 50' from the door to the SDA office.

This is a picture of Stacey standing outside of the door to the Adoption Center. That brown door is the entrance. Up a flight of stairs and in a small office to the right is where we had our appointment to select our referral.

This is the view from where Stacey is standing in the previous picture. It is St. Andrew Street. Notice the coblestone pavement. There are souveniour vendors on the other side of the street. This is where we bought lots of our souveniours. We were even able to buy some without the help of our translator. Don't be too impressed though, most of the vendors spoke enough English to patronize you. You know, "The price is 80 grivena, but for you, 70 grivena." That kind of stuff.

We went to the plastic surgeon's on Thursday and his initial comment was that we need to fix his palette first. This is what we thought too. Primarily for speech development purposes. The tentative surgery date is not until July 23. We were hoping for something a little sooner but it might be for the best. This will give him time to get comfortable with us and perhaps understand enough of what we are saying that we can communicate some of what is going to happen to him. Another reason that the surgery is not for a couple of months is that we are going to have his "boy surgery" at the same time. This is more for social reasons than for religious reasons. The surgery will last only a couple of hours and he will have to stay in the hospital for one night. He will have to be on a soft diet for 10 days. He will also have to wear something over his hands to help keep him from sucking on his thumbs. We know that we need to start working on keeping him from sucking his thumb but it has been his source of comfort for so long, that we kind of feel bad for taking it away. We will work on getting him to stop sucking his thumbs because we know it is in his best interests for the long run.

He seems to be sleeping well (or at least Stacey and I don't hear him) and he is definitely eating well. As my dad would say, Stacey is going to have to start taking in wash to earn some extra money for us to feed this child. He was 90th percentile in height and only 50th percentile in weight for his age. There is no way he will only be 50th percentile in weight at his next check up.

I am fully expecting another emotional night tomorrow night at Katie's Angels' Wings performance. She does sign language to Christian music with other girls and boys. They perform at lots of different places and it almost always gets to me. To see these children praising God in their own way, it is really special. To see how Katie concentrates and really tries to do her best on every move is really moving. It is one of the ways that she gives Him glory. Not to mention that it makes her mom and dad very proud of her. I will try to post some pictures of the performance (or at least after the performance) soon.

One of Stacey's friends has a CD of the photographs that she took last Saturday of our homecoming. Once I get that, I will post some of those.

OK, I Couldn't Resist Another Post

Coy got new sunglasses from Grandma and Grandpa Yankey (actually they all did) and they came in handy on our trip to the zoo the other day. Coy had a big time. We didn't see too many animals (mainly because we eat picnic lunch and play at the playground) but we had a good time. I think the next time we go back, we will try to actually look at some of the animals. He saw the zebras and the baby elephant but he didn't seem overly impressed. There were a lot of people there so he may have been too busy watching the people.

Coy got his first taste of that age old American summer time tradition, the Slip and Slide today. He loved it. The neighbors already have their swimming pool open and Caleb went and got in it the other night. Coy was beside himself with laughter watching Caleb jump in and climb out.
I sat him on the edge of the pool and let him dangle his feet in the water and he really liked it too. So this afternoon, we got out the slip and slide and let him have a turn. He didn't really get the slip and slide part but he did have fun getting wet. He likes the water, which is good. Caleb and Katie are both water bugs so it is good that he likes the water. The look of excitement on his face is priceless each time he experiences a new thing.


Coy continues to adjust to his new surroundings very well. He still has some temper tantrums when he doesn't get his way but we even take that as a positive because it is normal behavior for his age. Not acceptable behavior (which we are working on), but normal behavior.

We have our first appointment with the plastic surgeon tomorrow. We are expecting his first surgery to be very soon but we obviously don't know anything yet. Our pediatrician indicated to us that he felt that the surgery would be soon. He had an ear infection, but other than that, the pediatrician thought he looked good. Coy had blood drawn today and we have been collecting stool samples for all of his lab work too. We are hoping that his immunizations can be confirmed to minimize the need for another round of shots.

Coy is a great eater. If you put it on a plate and put it in front of him, he will take a bite of it. He especially has liked pizza, green beans, and watergate salad. We haven't really found anything that he doesn't like. He just likes some things more than others.

Caleb had his kindergarten graduation program today. He did a great job. They did handbells and sang a number of really neat songs. At the end, they sang a really special song (a tune I know but I don't know the actual words because I have heard it on a commercial somewhere) but they changed the words. I don't remember exactly what the words were but they went something like "I hope there is always you." and Caleb pointed up in the audience at us. We cried again.

We have had trouble sleeping still so we are still kind of tired and emotional. The little girl next to Katie is Caleb's "girlfriend". She is also our next door neighbor. Her mom joked with me today after the program that we would show this to them on their wedding day. If they do get married, we will have lots of these kinds of photos to show them.

Here are some more pictures of Caleb and some of his friends at school.

Safe at Home!!!!

WOW!!! WOW!!!......... WOW!!! I can't believe it. We made it. We went to Ukraine, adopted a child, and made it back. WOW!!! We made it. I can't believe it. Did we just do that?? I can't believe it. It really did happen though. We have the evidence to prove it.

This picture is at the airport in Kyiv with another couple from Fisherville, Kentucky that is in Ukraine for their second adoption. They have a biological son and two daughters that were adopted about 3 years ago. They are now adopting another son.

We made it in right at 10 PM on Saturday. It was a L-O-N-G trip home. Coy did exceptionally well, considering the circumstances. After all of the fun on Thursday and Friday, Coy woke up with the sun on Saturday morning. That is just after 5 AM local time (10 PM the previous day back here at home.) Luckily, I was able to rock and sing him back to sleep for about an hour that morning. But after that, no more sleep for us. Part of the fun that morning was giving Coy a bath. Stacey would spray his hands and he would laugh histarically. Then, when his feet would get wet, he would cry for all he was worth. This went back and forth several times. It was pretty good stuff. We went to the airport and it was fairly stressful getting ticketed. Our biggest trouble was getting our luggage from the point that only ticketed passengers were allowed to go to the ticket counter. With all of our luggage and Coy, and the nerves, it was just tough getting going. But we got to the counter (100 feet at most but it seemed like 3 football fields.) But once we got our boarding passes for the trip (and checked our suitcases), most of the stress was gone. At least the logistical portion of the stress.

One of the ladies helping us in Ukraine had given us suckers (two) for the plane ride. We thought that it would help with his ears on take-offs and landings. Well, the first sucker came out of the bag while we were still in the airport in Kyiv. He was not a happy camper. However, from his reaction, it is safe to say that this child had never had a sucker before. It didn't take him long to learn what to do with it. It did make a mess but it kept him quiet. At least until the sucker was gone, which was just about the time the flight started. We were trying to save the second sucker for an emergency so we went with a cracker. He held it in his hand as the plane sped forward on take-off. His eyes became wide again as he experienced the speed of a take-off. The take-off was fairly turbulent and the plane was shaking around. He swallowed hard and I was expecting to see crackers coming back at me. But after about 5 seconds of that, he gave the "oh well" look and bit into the cracker that he had in his hand. It was kind of funny because Stacey and I were both huddled over him, watching his every reaction, preparing to clean up a mess or see how he was going to handle the flying experience, especially since that was what we were going to be doing together for the next 20 hours. He slept on every flight and did not get exceptionally out of control. And when he did get fussy, we were able to settle him down relatively quickly. We did have to go to a couple of extra stores in the airport in Amsterdam to find a bag of suckers that cost 2.95 Euros (about $4.50 US) but it was worth every penny of it.

Here is a note to other prospective adoptive parents out there. Our total costs, start to finish, were in the neighborhood of $22K. That includes all of the paperwork, the airfare, our other travel expenses, our facilitators, etc, everything. But look at the picture of Coy playing in the rock box at our house and tell me who would question the first penny of it?? Not me. I would pay that amount and millions more for him, or any of our children now.

When we got to the airport, there were several of our friends and family there waiting for us. Stacey and I could feel the emotions of the entire ordeal, not just the trip home, but the 2 years that we have put into this starting to release the minute the plane hit the ground in Louisville. We both begin to fight back tears. The walk to the area outside of security seemed like it was 10-miles long. The first face that I remembered seeing was my dad. Then I scanned the crowd quickly to find Caleb and Katie. They came to us and I still tear up just thinking about it. It is definitely one of those moments that I will remember forever. The looks on their faces were priceless, and I can imagine that the look on my face must have been pitiful.

Coy had been traveling for over 20 hours and had a total of about 6 hours worth of naps (1 hour on the first flight, 4 hours on the second flight, and 1 hour on the last flight) strectched out on airplane seats. We did not know how he would react to the excitement but he handled it well. He did seem to recognize Katie and Caleb and seemed to look at them like they were Disney characters or something. His demeanor was incredible and he was quite the star.

The entire trip was indeed an answer to prayer. It took us about an hour to leave the airport because of all of the friends that had gathered there. Some of our very best friends were late getting to the airport because they had a flat tire so we stayed and chatted some more. They own a sign shop in Shelbyville, KY (KileSigns), and they had made a large banner for us that said "Welcome Home Coy and Family" but didn't get to hold it up. They had also made Caleb and Katie t-shirts that read "My mom and dad went to Ukraine and all I got was this lousy t-shirt and a little brother". They have a great sense of humor and are great friends to boot.

We got back to our house around 11:30 and everyone was awake. Caleb and Katie had almost covered the house in welcome home signs for us. One of my favorites is in this picture. Coy's bed is positioned next to Caleb's bed. Caleb made a sign for Coy that reads "I Love Coy, 1st Night Today" and taped it on the end of Coy's bed. It still is hanging there and can hang there until he leaves for college as far as I am concerned. After we all got settled, Stacey and I got to bed around 1 AM. We thought we would sleep for days. Well, we both woke up around 5 AM and could not get back to sleep. I think we are better now.Lots of folks have congratulated us or called to see how we are doing. Our neighbors have stopped by to talk and we have generally been greeted by lots of people.

This pictures is of the kids after we got home from church on Sunday. Stacey's mom had been so thoughtful to buy Coy pajamas and church clothes so that we could go. She also made a lasagna and had it in the refridgerator so that all we had to do was heat it up. We have since dug out the boxes of 3T clothes that we have saved and will probably have trouble finding places to put them all.

I hope that you have enjoyed reading this as much as I have enjoyed typing it. I have to admit, when I first started, my intentions were to just use this blog to update folks on how things were going without filling up folks in-box with stuff that they weren't interested in but it took on a life of its own. I really enjoyed it because it gave me a chance to share things that I probably would not have gotten to share otherwise.

At the end of our wedding video (yes I have watched the entire thing), there is a slide show of several screen captures from the video and then a message about the wedding scrolls across the screen. At the end of the message where you would expect it to say the end, it says "The Beginning." That is how I see this now. It is indeed the end of the trip but it is only the beginning of Our Big Adventure. It is not really even the beginning of the adventure but just a continuation of the adventure that we had already begun. It is so neat to look back on all of this and see how God continually, time after time, answered our prayers, calmed our fears, and guided our paths. He did it all. We were just along for the ride, and what a ride it was. But now that we are home, we are pretty much like any other family. We will have our disagreements, our struggles, and our triumphs and our joys. There will be a few bad days and lot of good days. But they are days together as a family and we will try our best not to take them for granted but to make the most of them. We will try to laugh at the times when the new kid is so excited about getting a bath that he keeps peeing on himself and the bathroom floor and has to keep getting back in the tub. Most of all, we thank God for giving us the opportunity to do this. He provided us all that we needed, just like He promises that He will do. We have an even more wonderful family now, thanks to His goodness and mercy. And we have another story to share with folks that we meet about how God didn't just stop doing miracles in Bible times but that He still does them today, with very normal people as witnesses to His greatness. When you think about it, everyone of God's children is a miracle. It doesn't matter what their family situation is, they are all the same. They are a miracle. This miracle just happened to be born a half a world away and it tooks us a little longer to get him to be with us than most, but he is with us now. And it is good.

By the way, folks, if you are traveling to Ukraine, be prepared for the toilets that look like this (all toilets, not just the boys urinals). I had read about them on other blogs but was still overwhelmed when I saw them. They are unique to say the least. At gas stations, the same kind of deal but imagine a port-a-let without the blue stuff that perhaps gets pumped out once a year and you pretty much have the picture.

If you get a chance, please come by and say hello. We would enjoy the company and a chance to share some of the details that we had to leave off because of the risk or carpal tunnel syndrome. Plus, we can't get enough of home. We love our home, our family, our friends, and our neighbors. Many of which are all three or just as good as any one. Thanks again for reading this and we hope to see you somewhere down the road.

The Call to Post

Not much to say except "Pack your bags Ethel, we're goin' to town." It has truly been amazing the things that have fallen in place for us the last two days. You probably wouldn't believe us if we tried to tell them to you. Heck, I don't know if I would believe it if I tried to retell it myself. But the bottom line is that we have our hands full of completed paperwork and we are scheduled to be on the first train (actually plane) out of Dodge tomorrow (Saturday). Our intenary puts us getting to the airport at 10 PM on Saturday night. Coy has been wonderful to travel with these past 2 days. When we picked him up on Thursday, we stayed at the orphanage about 10 minutes saying goodbye and signing some papers and then it was 9 (NINE) hours in the van. One stop, for gas, nothing else. Well, Stacey and I did go to the restroom but here is a little advice for anyone traveling via car in Ukraine: if you have to go to the restroom, go somewhere, anywhere, except the gas stations. Wow. But Coy did wonderful on that trip. We left around 1 PM local time and got in around 10 PM. He slept from 9 PM until 10 PM but then woke up when we got to the apartment but went back to sleep pretty easily. He woke up at 5 AM with the sun and was up most of the day today. Because we had paperwork and appointments around town, we stayed in the car most of the day today too. We joked that he probably thinks that we live in a car. If he could call his friends, he might say "I live in a van, down by the river!!"
We plan to have a summary post of this whole thing sometime early next week to let everyone know that we made it home safely.

The Final Countdown

The final countdown has begun. We are doing our "lasts" now but wanted to pass along some of the observations of Donetsk that we have made in the last three weeks. Here are some of our favorites:

1. Girls and women that are friends with each other walk arm in arm a lot.

2. The girls wear boots. Very high heeled boots. Boots that go up past their knee boots. If they don't have on boots, they have on some other kind of tall, strappy, high-heeled feet killing shoes. (Stacey's addidas white sneakers give her away as a tourist.)

3. The gas stations are all bright and modern while most everything else looks old and dated and dirty. Some of the downtown is well maintained and things have begun to brighten up some since the weather has turned warmer. They have turned on the fountains and a lot of the public places have gotten a fresh coat of paint recently.

4. The gas, and most everything else for that matter (except for the food), is just as expensive here as it is at home.

5. Their roads are not very well maintained once you get off of the main drag. We questioned why some of the roads do not have lines on them marking the lanes but we later learned that any line that tries to mark the lane is just a waste of paint. There are no lanes.

6. People aren't afraid to ask other folks for help/directions. When we were trying to find our way around, Victor would hop out of the van and ask anyone he could find for help. It was not unusual for 2-3 people to all be trying to help him at once. One time, some strange man was making calls on his cell phone to try and help him with directions somewhere. No one seems like they are in too big of a hurry to stop and help someone.

7. Most of the things that we recognize as being imports from the US are not very positive images of the US. A lot of the music on TV and the movies on TV are definitely American or have American influence and it is not a very positive image that is portrayed of America.

8. No one drinks the water here. At least it appears that nobody does. They all appear to buy bottled water. I am sure that there are some that drink the water but from the stores, it appears that lots and lots of people buy drinking water. However, they only have 1 aisle devoted to water and about 3 devoted to alcohol (we saw some Jim Beam on the shelf). We have bought approximately 60 liters (about 16 gallons) of water while we have been here.

9. Public transportation seems to be a popular mode of getting around. I am sure that is true of any large city but we always see buses crammed full of people and tons of people waiting at the bus stops. It appears that they flag the buses down like taxis.

We have received some comments/messages from some folks that are currently in the adoption process here in Ukraine, some even in Donetsk. We will try to respond to those people when we get a chance. Fortunately, today is our last "sane" day and we head off to Kyiv tomorrow, leaving us precious little time to communicate.

This is possibly our last post from Donetsk. Please keep Coy in your prayers the next couple of days as he enters a world that will be completely new and foreign to him. We can only imagine the turmoil that will be present in his little mind and heart and we would hope that you would be able to pray for him when you get a chance. It will be tough for us and we sort of have an understanding of it all. We are not sure yet exactly what he understands about it.

Hopefully, our next post will be in Kyiv. They will be short and sweet but hopefully, full of good news. We just can't thank everyone enough for all that they have done for us while we have been gone. The messages, the e-mails, and the prayers have been wonderful. We couldn't even begin to mention all of the acts of service that have been given to our kids and family back home. Thanks to all. Until we get to Kyiv,.......