Well, I sit here, feeling a little glum as we’ve just spent the last hour or so, packing Jonathan’s bags. He came with one small one and is going home with one of ours and a purchased bag as well. No, he didn’t buy a ton of stuff – he’s taking home some of the things we (Darren and I) have purchased as well as some of the clothes I brought that I don’t think I’ll wear and almost all of our art. We’re keeping one piece to take home ourselves. Neither Jonathan nor I slept well last night, so I’m flagging a bit (it’s 5 PM here) but he continues to be the energizer bunny. This morning we went to the other church we’d found out about last week – Kyiv International Bible Church. It was in English (which I really appreciated – it’s amazing how tiring and confusing it is to never understand what’s being said around you)! The music was fairly good and the preaching was much better than last week (and I don’t think I’m just being biased by the language). The church has a lot of Americans but also has people who speak Chinese, Farsi, Ukrainian and Russian. They seem to be very Biblically based and have lots of different areas of ministry. It is a relatively small church and the people were very friendly (although both Darren and I were very glad for our extroverted brother’s presence when the pastor asked visitors to stand up and introduce ourselves). I think we may go back there – it’s only 6 metro stops away from ours so it doesn’t take that long to get there. There’s also a really nice little outdoor market outside the metro station so we stopped for Shawarma again (not as good as our favorite guy who’s place is a few blocks away from us, but still pretty good.) and wandered the market a bit. We then headed downtown for Jonathan to pick up a few things to take home and stopped at the TSUM (Central Universal Magazine – basically a big department store) and bought a few shirts for Ivanna. I think most of the pants and other things we bought her should fit, but knowing how kids get shirts dirty, I wanted to pick up a few more (besides she needed a little more pink in her wardrobe). It was fun to buy her things (it sure makes it easier to shop now, knowing her size and sex!). We took the metro to our grocery store to get a few groceries and are back at the apartment. Since Jonathan is basically packed, he’s making supper, Darren’s watching TV and I’m writing to you in anticipation of going out for dessert and coffee at Mario’s after the ballet tonight. We are looking forward to going to the ballet – hopefully it will be good (Jonathan’s not exactly sure about this ballet – it is actually two 1act ballets). We haven’t yet heard from Slava so we aren’t sure if we go out to the orphanage tomorrow or not (The next 4 days are holidays to celebrate May Day). I hope we get to go out either Monday or Tuesday – 4 days away from her is just too much. We still also haven’t heard about our court date and are expecting if this holiday may delay that. We are trying to keep our spirits up but are definitely feeling quite sad about Jonathan leaving (while we are glad for him to go home to his family, it’s hard to think of doing this all on our own again – it’s a bit daunting). Anyway, so as not to end on a sad note, I will plan to add more to this later. For now, paka.

jonathan: yeah, though I am very glad to be going home to my gracious wife and family there, I am sad to be leaving these guys. I know they’re gonna be a bit down when I go too, so now is the time to be writing lots of comments and emailing them and praying like you have before: fervently and effectively. They are really very well established here, for foreigners, and I have every confidence in their abilities to get all they need.

Well, we were too late for Mario's so we're sitting out on their step to post this. Hope it gets on.