Strangers and Aliens

Yip, that's us.  We are strangers and aliens, in more ways than one.

Before I get into what makes us strangers and aliens, let me share our latest SDA disappointment.  Over the past 2 weeks, we have been reaching out to every source that we could come up with trying to identify girls that meet our criteria.  We have been given names, birth dates and orphanages.  This time, since we are on our last attempt, we wanted to bring some of our own stuff to the table rather than just rely on the SDA information.  So today our facilitator took those names and went to see if she could verify the status and location of these girls.  Unfortunately, they would not give her anything.  They simply said that they would show us all the registered girls on Monday at 10am.  Supposably they showed us all of them the last two times.  It doesn't give me a ton of confidence and makes me more than a bit uneasy.  Ultimately, it is out of our hands.  We will take the girls names with us when we go, we will ask about them and we will pray that God will give us wisdom to know his will.

All we can do is the next right thing.  I don't want to think about the what ifs'.  Caring for orphans is the heart of God and I am trusting God that He brought us to this place for this purpose and He will see us through it.  All we can do is keep ourselves available for his will and ask for His wisdom.  So, if you guys could be praying alongside us, we would appreciate it.

Now...
As I go through my days here in Kiev, I can walk the streets, go to the market, ride the metro and as long as I don't open my mouth no one knows that I'm not from here.  However, everywhere I go I feel very much like a stranger.  Even more, I feel like an alien.  I don't understand the ways here.  I don't understand the language.  I do understand that really we are all humans, created in the image of Christ designed to worship and love Him first and then all mankind.  It is very difficult to even interact in a superficial way much less any meaningful fashion.

This is a humbling experience really.  I have always been pretty self sufficient.  I could figure out how to get most anywhere I want to go, communicate effectively, accomplish day to day tasks with relative ease. Here, not so much.  Truth be told, I haven't done much for myself the past 4 weeks.  Jamie has done the shopping and cooked every meal.  My roll has been the dishes.  I am trying to take some control back, I am now pulling up the metro map on line and trying to figure it out with out constantly asking for help from our local friends.  I am starting to be able to tell the difference in the different metro stops.  I am picking up on certain landmarks and can cross the street like a local pro.

What I really have a hard time with is not being able to speak for myself.  I know what I want communicated but what is actually said is completely out of my control.  I have never been accused of being short of words or unable to express myself in a clear fashion...but here, I am an alien.

Yesterday we decided that we wanted to go to the Kievo-Pechersky Lavra, an enormous cathedral and monastery that dates back to the 18th century located on the bank of the Dnepr river.  It require a metro ride, including a transfer of lines.  A nice walk past a monument of some sort that appeared to have something to do with World War II and beautiful views of the river and city.  We found our way there without any problem (thanks to some directions for our friends here).   But once inside, that was a different story.  We were looking for a specific part that had a display of microscopic artwork.  After wondering the grounds, roaming room to room, looking at a lot of stuff that was beautiful but unable to identify it's significance we found one attendant who spoke english and she pointed us right to it.  It was pretty cool, too.  A tiny chess board and pieces on the head of a push pin was just one example.

After our tourist experience, we were going to have dinner and drop Lily off for another sleepover with our new friends, Phil and Tara.  It wasn't a long trip and if I could have gotten a visual of their apartment building, I have to be honest, I would have walked.  But after some good coaching from Tara, we decided to go out of our comfort zone and ride the marshrutka (minibus).  It is super cheap and quite entertaining.  Happy to say, we got on the right one and even got off at the right stop.  So now all I have left is the overnight train and the city trolly and I think I will have experienced all of Ukraine's main methods of transportation.

After dinner we went to the Thursday night small group Bible study again.  Starting to feel like regulars.  But what a blessing these people are.  It is still one of the most interesting experience I have had here.  Studying the Bible in a culturally diverse setting.  I have to admit, I have been pretty self absorbed here.  Struggling to figuring out why in the world I have been sitting in Ukraine for the past month.  But some of the issues these folks bring to the table are way bigger that the fact that I would rather be home than hanging out here in the middle of the winter.  Kind of gives perspective and takes me outside of myself.  Which is really important here, because I could easily hide in Karens apartment and pretend I am somewhere else.

What I am learning is that I need to quit resisting this experience.  I am here for a purpose, I have no idea what that purpose is exactly.  People keep saying, "well your little girl must not be ready yet," which I can agree with but if God knew that she wasn't going to be ready until March 5, why didn't he just keep me at home until then.  He must have a bigger plan than just waiting for "our" daughter to be ready.  The lives that have intersect while I have been here never would have happened had our appointments gone the way we had imagined they would.  God is working in me and I just want to stay available for Him to work through me.  It has to be about what I am putting out, not just what I am getting.  It is softening me, shaping me, teaching me to trust more, give more, be more patient and to put aside my ideas of how I think things should go.  I can't just pray to God for my needs and then tell him what to do to provide for those needs.  He knows what I need better than I do.

I will say, it really is a small world.  While at small group last night we were talking to a guy who is here on a two year contract to work as the youth pastor at ICA church.  His name is Jesse and he is from Colorado.  I had a feeling he was even before we were told.  He just had that Colorado boy look.  We started talking to him and come to find out, we have a mutual connection.  A family that we knew when we were living in Aspen, who later moved to the Denver metro area went to the same high school as him.  Yesterday was Jesse's birthday, the host of the group had gotten him a gift.  He pulled out a jacket that had a Copper Mountain mountain rescue logo on it.  It was brand new and she had purchased it that day at a local store in Kiev.  That was cool.

So we have the weekend then something will happen.  Please pray for a couple of specific things.  First that we are able identify the girl God has for us.  Then that we could find favor from the SDA and they would grant us our referral that same day rather than the next day, which is customary.  They pray that God straightens the path and the remaining steps (and there are many) would go smoothly.  We are hopeful that we can get Jamie and Lily home within a week of meeting our new daughter.

Not to sound like a broken record, but we miss you all so much.  We are thankful for all the prayer support.  And we are blessed by the fact that we have people following along from all over the world, many are folks we have never met.  Blessings!