Ok, here is the big one that you have all been waiting for. Mario’s is finally back online and we will be making up for the missed time…

Hello all. It is Shona (for now). We have just returned from wandering about the city, looking for cconcert/ballet tickets. Let’s go back a bit first. We never got to a place with internet yesterday, so we need to catch you up a bit. Sunday we all woke up relatively early and had all slept poorly. We went to a Baptist church on the other side of the Dnipro (river) about 8 Metro stops away. We are really living in a fantastic area – everything is really quite convenient. Anyway, we didn’t know exactly where the church was from the Metro (and Jonathan had forgotten the Kyiv map) so we just followed his nose. We wandered a bit, got asked by a Taxi driver for a light, kept wandering and eventually saw the same Taxi driver again, so Jonathan asked him if he knew where the Cultural Center (where the church is) was. He chuckled and said ‘Da” (yes), but nothing more. Jonathan asked him ‘where is it? Because we are walking”. He replied, ‘I’ll give you a ride’. Jonathan asked him how much and so we paid him $1 (5 Hryvni). He then drove us about to the end of the block (where we had seen him before and he’d asked us for a light). We all laughed. We had walked right by the center and not noticed. Anyway, the church was held upstairs in a theater. They were singing familiar tunes – unfortunately for Darren and me, in a mixture of Ukrainian and Russian. It’s amazing how when you are hearing another language is seems to block my memory for the English words of the songs. No worries, we worshipped anyway. The preaching was….well…long (they had FM radio transmitter/receivers for us to listen to a translator. The whole service was over 2 hours start to finish and the preaching was a good hour and kind of… hmm…meandering and lacked a focus. Jonathan says he lacked a thesis. It was still good to be at church and the music and band were fantastic. There is another church that we may try next week and see which we like better – or we may just go to the local Orthodox Cathedral (St. Vlodymir’s) – we’ll see what we feel like then.
After church we came back here and I changed (I had been wearing a skirt and dress shoes – not great for walking miles in – besides the fact that it was really cold yesterday). Then we all had a little snooze. Naps are good. We then went out for a bit of a wander and ended up at the Circus for 5 PM. It was fantastic! It was a water-themed circus (and I’m sure you’re all wondering how THAT worked!). Let me tell you (although hopefully you’ll be able to see some video tape that JP took before they told him to stop!), it was an interesting start with a feel of a Las Vegas show (girls skimpily clad dancing with big feathery poofs coming out the backs of their outfits – do you have the mental image?) progressing to various acts from synchronized swimming (remember the pool), to rhythmic gymnastics, to magic show, to traditional circus clown goofy sketches (some including audience participants), to animal acts including: doves/pigeons, a duck, poodles, snakes (yes in the water – freaked me out), an alligator, and seals (way, way, way too much seals). The best part for me was the acts that were more like Cirque de Soleil with acrobatics, Gumby-like girls (your head is NOT supposed to be able to touch your BUM – backwards!), trapezes and ropes. Another cool part was this juggler who instead of throwing and catching juggled using a triangle shaped frame and used all sides. He had amazing hand-eye coordination (much like me!! Ha! Ha! FOFL). Anyway – overall it was a great show and it only cost $8US. Crazy. After the show we grabbed some food from ‘our’ supermarket and headed home. We were all tired. Jonathan prepared some open faced sandwiches and baked/grilled them – yummy! And then we watched a movie. I talked to Val a Jason a bit (they had tried to get through to us several times – I eventually called them because I figured they were probably having problems. I’m not sure why, but sometimes it takes many tries to get through to us (and this time we for sure were NOT in the Metro – and we have figured out the phone enough to keep it on all the time now – who would think ON/OFF would be so hard!). We watched “Ocean’s Eleven” (thank you Jen and Rob) – or rather Jonathan and Darren did – I fell asleep sitting up so I went to bed (big surprise – some things don’t change!) Apparently there was tennis on after so JP stayed up until some ridiculous hour watching TV. I slept like a solid, unmoving log. Sleep is good.

The only other thing that happened was I also got a phone call from Slava to tell us that the social worker we are supposed to meet today (Monday) is not at work in the morning so our plans have changed. She told us we will go at 2PM to start the paper work for the adoption (yes, you are all right – we still haven’t OFFICIALLY met our daughter!). Apparently if anything of concern comes up in the next few days – we can still change our minds and stop the process – but it will help to get things started (I guess the sooner we start the process – the sooner we get to come home with her!). It does seem a bit strange and backward, but we are trusting our facilitators that they know their system (‘cause we SURE don’t) and that they won’t have us do anything that could jeopardize anything. Then we will go pick up our official paperwork and head out to the orphanage for 4 PM. We are so excited and looking forward to seeing her again. We bought some markers and paper and a fun little spinny/noisy toy from the circus. Hopefully she’ll like them.

This morning we all were up and awake by 7 and then Tanis gave a lovely ‘goodmorning’ call to wish us well at our meeting – which now isn’t happening until later. We then did some Yoga (even the boys – I did get some video) and we left to go to the Internet Café – but it was closed so we wandered. We visited St. Vlodomyr’s Cathedral which is about a 10 minute walk away. It is stunning. Then we searched for tickets to the ballet. We never got any (yet) but we did find a lovely park (with a playpark for later!) that I’m sure we’ll go back to frequently – especially as the weather warms (it has been quite cold here). Eventually we ended up back at the Shawarma place for a snack and picked up a few things at our store (pretty much next door to each other) and came home for a bit. I wrote this little update while Darren and Jonathan watched TV, shaved and had rests. We’ll head out for part 2 of our day in about ½ hour so we’ll write more about that from Mario’s later.
Paka!

Shona and Jonathan have been doing most of the typing so far, so it is now my turn on the rest of the day so far – I’ll be briefer.
Slava and Vadim picked us up to do the important stuff. We went to the notary public where Slava dropped off our documents. Next, we were off (on a rather wild ride) to the social worker’s to get our papers for our official visit with our proposed daughter. Finally, we headed out to the town to meet with the orphanage director and little girl. We waited for a while upstairs and Slava told us that the director was not in today, but that we could meet with the girl and orphanage doctor anyhow. A little later a caregiver brought in the little girl and turned to go. The girl almost immediately started to cry a bit (a good sign from an attachment perspective). The caregiver got her a toy and left. Shona offered her fish crackers, which she eagerly hoovered. (apparently, she had not had a snack yet) We spent the next hour or so playing with her. It was really good. While at the start of the hour, she was shaking a bit and obviously pretty scared, after a while she was playing with Shona’s watch, pushing a ball back and forth between us, and colouring with us (she seems to like purple – Shona is now refusing to wash her hand, which has a very limited-edition tattoo on it from a pretty special little girl – her name is Ivanna, and while at the moment she lives in an orphanage outside Kyiv, pretty soon we are expecting her to move to Canada).

Hello there – It’s Shona again. While Darren has given a good description of what went on this afternoon and briefly how it went – I will try to give you a bit of an idea of how I at least am thinking/feeling. Well, stunned continues to be a theme of this adventure. I am so filled with love and joy it is almost hard to contain. Ivanna is such a precious little girl. She appears to be quite shy but is definitely warming to us. Jonathan asked us in the car on the way home how we thought our attachment was going with her – right now I feel as though I couldn’t love her anymore than I do right now, and yet I know it will just grow as we get to know her more and better. It broke my heart to see her trembling with fear and confusion and to not be able to comfort her properly (besides distracting/bribing her with food)! It was the hardest thing to do today, to drive away and leave her in the orphanage. What a joyful day it will be when we can go pick her up and take her home with us. The funniest part of the day was when we were playing with her and I was trying to help her with a shape sorter (a toy which she really seems to like). I turned the box to bring the correct shape closer to her and she said in Russian “don’t”. Jonathan and Slava burst out laughing and we certainly joined in once we understood what she had said. So her first word to us is ‘don’t’! I’m sure we’ll hear that plenty more of those over the next 20 years or so. It was amazing to hear her little voice for the first time. She is so serious and quiet (kind of like her Daddy)! While I wasn’t paying much attention – Jonathan was able to watch another couple playing with their daughter (they are American’s from Indiana). They have been to court and are on day3 of their waiting period. Jonathan heard them comment about their daughter making some kind of sound/word. It’s good to know that Ivanna isn’t the only very quiet child! Well, I remain a blubbering fountain pretty much at the drop of a hat – whether writing our blog, reading your comments (thank you so much by the way – your comments and emails bless us in so many ways), talking to family on the phone or just looking at pictures and video of Ivanna. God is so good and we feel very much as though we are being held in the palm of His hand.
Sorry for the delay in posting this – the wireless internet at our restaurant – Marios- wasn’t working tonight. Hopefully the detail and pictures will somehow make up the previous lack of information.
Shona and Darren