Market trip and papers headed to Kiev! Tuesday - Day 10.

Today we got up and ate breakfast.  Sergey came and had some coffee with us and explained how to walk to the market. He drew a map for us and soon after all this we made our way to the market. It was very interesting to see all the booths. As we were walking through the market, we saw an entryway to a huge room about the size of a football field with lots of foods.  Right as you walked in there was a huge amount of people selling huge amounts of meat.  We slowly made a circle around the complex and we bought a few things.  Once we had our fun there, we walked back to the street market and looked around some more, we bought a small Christmas tree and some small ornaments and lights, and then we made our way back to our hotel.

Dogs are another sad state of affair in Severodonetsk.  You see them wandering around in packs.  They aren't dangerous just cold and hungry.  The people that sell in the market seem to be in the same shape and so they have a heart for the animals and put cardboard down on the ground next to their booth for a dog to have a place to rest.

Walking is very treacherous, you must be careful because the sidewalks are ice and extremely slippery.  Once we got back to our hotel I decorated the Christmas tree and then not long after that we head to the orphanage and visit with Lera.  Its hard to spend time with all of them and their friends since there are four of them.  Lera had a very large room with five beds in it.  it was large enough to play velcro ball in it and so we did just that.  We played cards with her and her friends and then it was time to go.

We Skyped with my Uncle David and Aunt Heather a couple of times today staying in touch to keep up to date with what is happening with my G'dad.  It's amazing that we can talk with someone clear on the other side of the world and see each other face to face.  Technology is amazing!
Ryan (my brother) called today and checked in with us.   It was good to hear from him and know that he is doing well. (WE MISS YOU RYAN!)

As far as the adoption goes Sergey was taking our package of papers to Lugansk to put on the train this evening for arrival in Kiev tomorrow morning.  Our facilitator in Kiev will pick it up tomorrow morning and deliver it to the SDA office for review.  One of the papers is the court decree where the children were legally separated from there mother.  It has a few mistakes on it that need to be corrected (the spelling of names and one of the kid's birth dates) and we are in the midst of getting this done, but we have not received the corrected copy yet for the package to make the train today, so we are sending the package with the court decree (with errors) in hopes that the SDA will not look at it too closely and see the mistakes.  If this happens they will hopefully approve it and send it back to us on the train with approval for setting up a court date.  If they DO recognize the mistakes then we will have to continue to wait for the corrected court decree copy, send it to the SDA office on the train and continue to wait for the them to approve us for a court date.

Todays update on my dad...

Mr. Germany’s surgery is scheduled for around 7:00 tomorrow (Wed.) morning.  With prep time, surgery, and recovery, Karen’s mom expects to have several hours of waiting.  She said they are in good spirits and are very appreciative of the prayers and concern!

Dog at the market.

This is where we adopted our little Christmas tree.  Do you want a boy or girl?

Fruit and more fruit.

Our Christmas tree has a home!

Lera's room is very big.

Lera and Veeka

A girl I played velcro ball with.