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,.......