We finally made it! We know it's been a few days since we left, so we will bring you up to speed on what's been happening.We left Wednesday on time after spending hours and hours of packing and getting very little sleep. We didin't get everything done that we wanted to, but hopefully everything we needed to.
The last few days have seemed like "hurry up and wait", where we have to be somewhere, or get something done, so we try and be as efficient as possible, then something gets in the way and we have to wait - whether it be hitting every stop light on the road or standing in the only line in the store that is not moving. Leaving on Wednesday was no different. We made our flight on time from Ft. Lauderdale to New York, where we had to change planes, but when we checked the board for the gate, they were already boarding! So we ran to the other gate - made it (but completely out of breath)! So we taxied out, and the pilot announced that the storm that had just passed was still in the flight path and we were going to have to wait until it cleard....so 2 hours later we finally took off. So, we just had a little extra time to sleep and to get to know the woman sitting next to us, who was Ukrainian and had previously gone to Bible college in the U.S.
We arrived in Kiev only about 1 hour late, but our bags couldn't run as fast as us to make the connection and they wanted to go sightseeing in Paris, so they told us they would be arriving later. We had the VIP service in the airport and we are glad we did to help us with the bag problem. We met Nicolai our driver who took us back to the office where we met Yuri, one of our facilitators. We got set up with our cell phone and went to lunch at 'pyzata xata' for some great Ukrainian food.
This is the time of year when there are a lot of exhibitions in Kiev, so most of the hotels were booked. It took a while, but Nicolai actually helped us find a hotel at a reasonable rate.
While talking with Yuri, we found out that we know some of the same people at the EEO office in Ukraine and he had been a counselor at the camps one summer - we actually think he may have been at one of the camps we were at before! Will have to check our pictures. Pretty cool how God arranges everything - certainly better than what we could ever do ourselves. It was through those camps that the Lord developed our love for the kids in Ukraine.
We were on our own at the hotel, and went out to an outdoor market and a grocery store to get food for dinner. Good to get our feet wet a little speaking what little Russian we know.
As we sat downlast night to do our devotional, we just laughed when we saw the verse....because it is such perfect timing it give us that much more confidence that God is in control. The verse was: " We do not know what to do, but our eyes are upon You" 2 Chron 20:12 How appropriate.
Today we traveled out to Pryluky for our friends wedding on Saturday. It is about a 2 hr drive from Kiev. Our friend Lyosha met us when we got in and took us over to the hotel where he made resevations for us. Wonderful hotel - Hotel Alexandria. We still have had quite the experience, since Delta still has not gotten our bags to us. We had to come out to Pryluky with no clothes except what we are wearing. Surprisingly, clothes are more expensive here than in the U.S. so we did not want to draw from the funds we have for something such as clothes. We went over to the church where they were decorating for the wedding and met some of his friends, and one of the girls has loaned me some clothes and he loaned Grant some clothes as well. We are very grateful for their hospitality.
So, hopefully our bags came in this evening. Main concern now is having proper attire to where to the SDA appointment on Monday. We will try and upload some picture next time we post...there is only one internet cafe in Pryluky and we just happened to find it while out walking around.
Keep us in prayer so we keep our flexibility up for whatever God is working out.
