We Are Here!

March 29, 2006 Wednesday

I don’t think we’re in Kansas anymore!

We have traveled three countries in 24 hours. The flight from Atlanta to Moscow was pretty uneventful. It was long, and cramped, but we made it and that is the most important thing. My fear of flying across the Atlantic, was completely gone. I truly felt the peace that surpasses all understanding. It was from God. And even when there were times I wanted to be fearful, I would stop and say to myself, “You can go there, but if you do, you are choosing to be disobedient and to not accept the gift of peace God has given you.” Thanks be to God for the calm heart and peace. The plane seemed to be a good mix of Russian/Ukranians and Americans. Although, I did hear someone speaking French. Kade did well on the trip over. He had a hard time going to sleep at first but once he was out, we had a hard time waking him up again for breakfast.

The Moscow airport was interesting. We were greeted by some very curt female airport workers wearing army green military style uniforms with a mini skirt and some stiletto heels. (think stereotypical). We eventually found our way through the airport and ended up at the right gate. However, once we tried to check in at the gate, they kept telling us to come back later. They seemed a little put out with us that we would try to get through the gate “early”. Moscow has a lot of little lakes and beautiful evergreen trees everywhere. Some snow had previously fallen and the cool temperatures were keeping it frozen.

We landed in Kyiv with no problems. Made it through passport control and were greeted immediately by a porter who took our bags and led us to the baggage claim. Wonder how he knew we were American?? Maybe we don’t blend in as much as we thought we would. So, we make it to the baggage claim, and we’re not surprised. It looks pretty much like the baggage claim we are used to at home. As we’re watching the conveyor belt for our luggage, it suddenly stops. Then the dread of realization that our luggage has been lost hits us and we promptly begin to look for lost and found. Paperwork, more paperwork, customs forms, etc. and the sweet girl behind the counter tells me that our luggage is still in Moscow and is due to be here tonight at 10:30. They will deliver it to us! Sounds like customer service at its best.

Leaving the airport we meet with Yuri, our facilitator, who takes us to our apartment. We are staying in a relatively nice apartment. It is about 300 sq. feet (big for Ukr. Standards) and has a small kitchen and bathroom. It is comfortable and we are happy to have a nice place to stay. Yuri tells us that he is going to take us to the grocery store. So off we go to the Mega Market. It is an interesting grocery store where everything is separate. You buy your fruits, veggies, etc. in one part of the market. There is another section for electronics. And then Yuri informs us that we need to head upstairs to buy shampoo, toothpaste & deodorant because there is no way our luggage is going to be delivered tonight. Hmmmm, not as great of customer service as I thought. J

Yuri wants to go to dinner to talk about some of the specifics to our adoption. So we tell him to pick the place. He says his favorite is TGI Fridays, but decides on an Italian restaurant next door. The food was good. Kade & Scott ordered pizza and I ordered the equivalent of a breaded chicken breast. It was good. Although I have to warn you, if you are allergic to smoke, Ukraine is not the place for you. EVERYONE smokes here. I told Yuri that smoking was down by 55% in America, and he said, “Yes, that is why American cigarette companies come here to sell.” Kade had a hard time at dinner. He was fighting a cold before we left and had some leftover congestion. He really had a strong coughing fit at the restaurant. Needless to say, we ate & ran! I was considering eating out while we are here in Kyiv and then cooking once we knew in what city we were going to be located. However, I think that has changed. We may be going back to the ol’ Mega Market for some more groceries. I can not put my baby through that again! We are praying today that we will find some street vendors for lunch so we can eat in the open air. And then if we can’t get back to the Mega Market in time for dinner, we have an Uno Pizza (yes Tulsans, a real live Uno) next door to us, so we may get pizza to go and eat it here at the apartment.

There was some confusion with our paperwork. In spite of my best efforts to clarify, it seems as if something fell through the cracks. Our marriage certificate did in fact need to be updated with our other paperwork. So Scott & I will be going to a notary later today to solemnly swear that we are still married. Other than that, we are in good shape. We expected a few bumps, so no big deal.

Well it is 4:00 in the morning here in Kyiv. Scott & I woke up at 3:00 and couldn’t go back to sleep. So we had a little snack and have been trying to get our day planned out. I am journaling on the laptop and am not for sure if we will be able to find an internet café today. Yuri does not know of one in the area we are staying. So we will do our best. Kade is snoozing soundly and seems to be a little melancholy. I am sure it is just culture shock. Scott & I keep looking at each other and commenting to the fact that this is totally unreal! Who else but God calls people to the other side of the world for their children. This is wild.

On the way to our apartment, we did see some “street children” on the main streets of Kyiv going from car to car begging for money. I asked Yuri if there was any Ukrainian endeavor to place these kids in orphanages. Yuri said that by the time these kids are 10 years old, they have lived on the streets many years and already know how to make money. They would not like an orphanage. It just breaks my heart. If you think Oliver Twist with a modern flair, then you will have a picture of the children we saw today. I wonder what Kade was thinking? He said nothing.

Something else that has been interesting has been the language. I have been thinking a lot about the Tower of Babel. And how God separated the people by languages. And here we are in this region of the world where so many languages are spoken, some similar and some completely different from one another. It is cool to me that God came up with so many languages and I am reminded of that each time I hear a different tongue spoken here.

I will go for now, but stay tuned for the continuing saga of “As the Thompson’s World Turns!

Love you all!
Kayla

Hello everybody, it's kind of boring not speaking the language. The smoking is irritating. I miss you all.

Kade

Hi,

We are having quite an experience in Kiev. By the time we found this internet cafe, which is actually in a post office, we managed to get our marriage license notarized. It took over an hour for the notary work, so we ate at a japanese restaurant which was a little expensive but they had a non-smoking section. Yeah! They really don't speak much English here, so we may get pretty good at speaking Russian after all. Well, we still don't know what time our appointment is tomorrow. Yuri has to turn in our paperwork today so we will know tonight. We just found out our luggage should be arriving at our apartment after 6:00pm. I will be very glad when it gets here.

It's time for us to go. Have a great day and thanks for all your prayers.
Scott

11 hours to go!

Thank you for the comments & farewells. Thanks for the support. I want to say goodbye to everybody I know.
Kade :)

Hey Friends & Family:
Thank you so much to those of you who stayed after church to pray for us and the children. That means more than words can express. Thanks Ginny for calling everyone to prayer and for setting up a "play place" for the kids. We drove to Tulsa this afternoon to check on my cousin, Alicia. She had gall bladder surgery. She wanted to be here to see us off tomorrow, but due to her surgery she couldn't. So we went to her for a SHORT visit. Then came home, made one last trip to Wal-Mart, Scott wanted some craisins (cranberry raisins) and some gum for the trip. Then we ate of "last supper" at Ted's. A few friends joined us and we had a great time. Any of you adopting again, I promise we'll take you out to dinner the night before you leave. It was so great to hang out and not be at home just counting down the hours. Speaking of counting down the hours...

We have exactly 11 hours to go until our plane takes off. Scott's parents are coming early to eat breakfast with us and take us to the airport. We will be there around 9:00 am since our plane leaves at 10:54 and we have to get there about 2 hours ahead of time. Right now, we are just putting the finishing touches on our carryons and trying to make sure we have all of our ducks in a row. It seems totally UNREAL that we are finally to this point. We have waited so long for this, I guess in a weird way, we got used to the waiting. We were just stuck there and it seemed "normal". Now here we are...about to see these little people with whom God has called us to be a family. WOW!!!! This is so cool. Well I better get off here. Have a good night and the next time we talk to you, we'll be on the other side of the world. Love ya! Kayla

Well it is only 11 hours until take off and we'll finally be headed to Ukraine. We are so excited to meet our new family members, although that may not be for another week yet. Thanks to all of you who are praying for us and for all of the helpful hands and hearts. I know God is with us and that is great because where would we be without Him. I am also looking forward to our jouney and I'm glad that all of you can join us through this web site. Talk to you soon from Ukraine.

36 hours to go!

Wow! 36 hours... that is really hard to believe. We have waited so long and now the hour is almost upon us. I have to say our stress level is pretty moderate at this point. By God's grace through many friends & family, we have had the most amazing help! Dinners, laundry (previously mentioned, my dear m-i-l is excited about the mileage she is getting out of the laundry gesture, but let me tell you, it was HUGE!!!), housecleaning, curtain-making, it really has been humbling. We are so grateful. Although, Kade is getting used to it really quick! He asked when we picked him up from his grandparents today, "So, who's bringing dinner tonight and what are we having?" He cracks me up!

In regards to packing and the like, we are in pretty good shape. Our bags are packed. We are just double checking our lists and re-packing our carryons to make sure we have everything we need. The house is clean (thanks, Tina) and we hired a crew to come remove the deck from our back yard today so that when we get back we can level it, sod it and make it a little more kid friendly back there. We feel soooo productive today. We had our last trip to Wal-Mart and Target, got the car cleaned out, changed the sheets on our bed, remembered that I needed socks packed, and even devised a plan to bring back (hopefully) some Ukranian eggs without breaking them.

I know I have said it before, but thank you for your prayers. Through God, we are being sustained by them.

love ya!
Kayla :)

PS: Hoping to see those sweet little faces in 6 days!

5 days to go!

Well, it is pretty crazy around the Thompson house right now, and yet in the midst of this chaos blessings are abundant. We have not had to cook several times this week (thanks Gayle, Kelly, Jennifer, Ginny & Michelle) and that has been a huge blessing. My mother-in-law took our clothes to the bulk laundry cleaners and paid to have all of our clothes cleaned. YEAH GOD!!!! That was a HUGE burden lifted (literally & figuratively). She said that our total laundry weighed 94 lbs. WOW!!! Sounds like the Thompsons might need to clean out the ol' closets when we get back.

I spent the morning at church and then headed off for an exciting afternoon at the DHS office. I was finally able to secure the final (at least thats what I thought at the time) piece of paper for our dossier. I found out that I would need to drive to Enid this afternoon to get a document from the agency performing our homestudy. I came home exhausted! The children are definitely worth it, I just think that everyone involved in the adoption process should have to actually adopt. It is an emotional roller coaster in the truest sense. Sorry to complain, I have just had a tough day.

It's kind of odd to be saying goodbye to people. I feel like we are moving to another state or something. I didn't know how much I appreciated the smiling faces looking back at me week after week until faced with the reality that I won't see those faces for a while. Hmmm.

Apparently I am in a really contemplative mood tonight and that was not the intention of my post. I simply wanted to get on here and say thanks for the prayers. Thanks for lifting us during this exciting/anxious time. We truly appreciate your time before the Throne lifting our needs. We love you and thank you for your gracious gift of availability, food, and prayers. We have 5 days left before we leave and things are getting exciting. By next Friday, it is possible that we could see the faces of the children that we have been praying for for the last 2 years. How exciting is that?!? And my son and I are getting to cross the Atlantic Ocean together for the first time. Scott was born in Okinawa and flew home w/mom when he was six wks. old. I will have to ask if they flew over the Atlantic or Pacific Ocean. Sorry to ramble. Have a good night and thanks again. Please pass along your prayer requests so that we can be lifting you & yours before the Throne as well. It is so easy to get sucked into the vortex of this craziness around us. It does us good to think outside of ourselves. So, know we want to pray for you, too.
Goodnight,
Kayla :)

Getting Ready

Hello Everyone! We are sooo excited and completely anxious about our upcoming travel. We will be leaving OKC on the 27th, arriving in Kiev, Ukraine (after 15 hrs. of travel) on the 28th.

Our appointment date at the NAC (National Adoption Center) in Kiev is on March 30th. We are so excited and really happy to be embarking on this journey (of faith).

We are running around the house, booking flights, packing bags, cleaning, running to the store and doing whatever else comes to mind. We wanted to take a few minutes to get this set up so we can communicate with our dear friends & family while on our trip. So here is our first official post.

11 days until we leave. Please pray for us. And let us know how we can pray for you, too.

Scott, Kayla & Kade