Two more miracles :-), and now it's time for home :-).

I think this will be our last post from Ukraine, for this trip.  I wasn't planning on writing again after my last post, but two things have happened since then that I really want to tell you about, so here goes:

We left Odessa yesterday around 4:00 pm.  We met with the notary around noon, and then just walked around the city until it was time to go.  It was April 1st, and apparently in Ukraine that is a day where they dress up in different costumes and celebrate (our waitress at lunch tried explaining it to us), so it was especially entertaining to walk around and watch people.  There were parades and performances - my favorite was a mime who was dancing to a medley of Michael Jackson songs :-).  I have never in my life seen anything quite like it, and I will definitely not forget it :-).

The notary's office

The gathering in the middle of Odessa on April 1

One of the random people dressed in costume that are always walking around all the time :-).  This was a minion and we took this picture for you, Evan Leonard :-).

We got on the bus at 4:00 and were on it for 6 hours.  I won't go into any details of the trip, but I will just say that it wasn't the most enjoyable 6 hours I've ever spent in my life. When we stopped at the pay-to-go-to-the-bathroom place, the woman taking the money kept trying to tell us something that we couldn't understand, and a young lady behind us stepped up and helped out and then gave us a great smile.  I think that is one of the things I will miss about being here - the way that everyone has been so kind to us.  I know that this doesn't jive with what folks have told us, and especially in light of the recent political situation, doesn't make a lot of sense, but I swear that every single time people would realize that we were Americans their faces would change like they were so happy, and then they would be even nicer than they had been before.  I have to admit I'm pretty proud of the fact that no one could tell we were Americans until we spoke - I ONLY brought black to wear and I tried to look as EE as possible at all times :-).  I can't wait to get home and dress all in pink again ;-).  The point is, I had thought that we would face lots of hostility, but in fact we found only kindness and hospitality.  I don't know if this is a result of God's hand in the folks we met, or a change in overall attitude towards Westerners, but we definitely enjoyed it.  Several times we were in restaurants eating when we were Facetiming our kids at home (our time of eating dinner usually coincided with their getting home from school) and we would show the waitresses who we were talking to and they would always look so happy and wave hi :-).

ANYWAY, we took the LONG bus ride, and then around 10:00 pm we arrived in Kyiv. The schedule had said that we would get in at 10:30, so when we arrived at the station Alex was not yet there to get us.  We walked our bags around the corner to where he would meet us, and then sat them down while we waited. After a few minutes, Clint went to check on the pouch that had all of our credit cards, all of our money, and both of our passports, that he almost always had strapped around him.  He looked for a few minutes and then started to realize that it wasn't on him or in the backpack.  I went back to where the bus had been, but it was gone.  About this time Alex arrived, and we told him what had happened. Thankfully he took quick action and went into the bus station and had them call the bus driver.  We had no idea what would happen - we had to go move Alex's car because he had parked somewhere where he couldn't stay.  Clint and I ran back into the bus station lobby and were just staring at each other wondering what in the heck we were going to do, when this sweet older man walked in with a smile on his face and a black pouch in his hand.  I wanted to hug and kiss him (don't worry, I didn't - but we did give him a hefty thank you tip!!!), but instead we just said Thank you about a million times and smiled like total idiots.  I am convinced this was just a miracle - we had both been praying like crazy that God would save us, and He did!!!  Thankfully, He is a God of mercy who gives us that which we don't deserve :-).

Alex drove us to our new apartment (the last one was being used by someone else) and dropped us off.  He showed us a grocery store and a few restaurants that were still open (it was 10:45 by this point), and then he headed home.  We dropped our stuff off, went to the grocery store for some water (and pastries that we thought were yummy fruit pastries for breakfast, only to find out that in fact they were MEAT PIES!!! - Clint had to brush his teeth again after that discovery :-), and then went to the one restaurant that was open and had actual customers in it.  We laughed so hard when we saw the hours of the restaurant - 08:00 to 06:00.  Seriously? 8 am - 6 am?  We are still wondering what they are doing in those two hours between 6 and 8.  We were very happy, though, that they were open and still serving, off of a ridiculously huge and widely varied menu. It was a Tex-Mex Cantina, and they were playing only Western songs - some so old and so Western that even I, lover of all country music, had never heard them.  We laughed at almost every one, but probably laughed the most at "Cotton-Eyed Joe." :-).  We ate tons of food and drank a few beers, and were so happy to not be on that bus anymore and to not have lost all of our money and passports. On top of that joy, we truly had our best waitress we have ever had (in any country) - I think Harry got to see her on FaceTime. I wanted to take her home with me, she was so cute.  If she was still there tonight we were going to go in and get our picture with her, but sadly she was not working tonight :-(.

Our cantina - sadly you can't see the hours from here.  They actually had a "24 hour" neon sign as well - not sure if that accounted for the two hours they were closed or not :-).

Our beautiful new kitchen :-).

About half-way through dinner, I looked on my phone and there was a VK message.  VK is like Eastern European Facebook, and I am friends with both Sergey and his girlfriend on there.  I have sent him messages on there before, but he never responds (except right before our trip this time when he said he wanted to see us :-).  We don't usually use it to communicate - mostly I just use it to worry about him when I see all of the things he posts on there!!! Since he never writes me on there, I was shocked when I saw the notification pop up. I clicked on the message, and unfortunately it was in Ukranian, and my phone doesn't translate.  Needless to say, as soon as we got home I got on Google Chrome (which does translate) to see what he said.  And even thinking about it right now makes me get choked up.  The message was this: "Can you buy me sneakers for football."

His message is the one without emoticons.  Mine are the ones with emoticons.
I am sure you would NEVER have guessed that :-).

When you read this, you might think that seems a very normal request, so I need to explain the importance to you.  First of all, just the fact that he sent me a message on VK was amazing.  For him to want to communicate with us is a SUPER big deal, no matter what he had said in his message.  However, for him to ask something from us is truly nothing short of a miracle.  Each time that he has come to stay with us, I have taken him shopping several times and literally begged him to tell me what he would like.  Especially the first time he was here, when we didn't know if we would ever see him again, I was desperate to send him back with a suitcase full of things that he wanted.  Especially now that I have seen where he lives, it is very obvious that he has been given VERY little in his life, and I just wanted to spoil him and shower him with things that he wanted.  Over the course of three trips, the only thing he ever pointed to (after much prompting) was a pack of gum, which he then promptly shared with our whole family.  I realize that the reason for this unwillingness to express desire for something isn't necessarily a good thing, even though most of us would love our kids to be so unwilling to ask for stuff ;-).  He is used to not getting anything, and he even told us that his personality is such that he doesn't like to ask for things.  So the fact that he asked for something is ABSOLUTELY UNBELIEVABLY INCREDIBLY MIRACULOUS and WONDERFUL!!!!!  (Tears as I type) - it made me feel like, just a tiny bit, he was starting to realize that he was going to be our son and that we wanted to take care of him.  Maybe not on a conscious level (probably not), but somewhere inside he knew he could ask us for something. And I cannot even begin to tell you how that made us feel.  EVEN CLINT was emotional about it.  Yes.  He was.

I went to bed feeling full, blessed, cared for, loved, as Clint spent a good chunk of time trying to help Sam with something he was trying to do back home :-).  I slept past 10, and I won't even tell you how late Clint slept.  We had a day of not-doing-much - lunch out, dinner out, some walking, shopping for gifts for folks at home, talking, and packing in between.  We just got home from dinner, and as we have to get up very early, we will be heading to bed shortly.  I almost started crying today in the shop where we were buying the gifts, thinking about how sad I will be to leave this country.  On the one hand I am INSANELY HOMESICK and almost physically in pain from missing our three kids in Virginia so much, as well as our one kid in Odessa.  On the other hand, though, I have so fallen in love with this place and will miss it so much.  I know we will be back again soon, but to think that we will only spend days here, here and there, maybe just a few more times for the rest of our lives, made me very sad.  It is such a lovely place, and it has won a place in my heart forever and ever.  As we fly out in the morning, we will be leaving a huge hunk of our hearts behind, but I feel like even when we have that hunk next to us in the airplane, there will still be a little bit of us here, in this wonderful place that we have come to love.