we visited the port yesterday

Hello family and friends,

I pray all is well with you. I am behind on posting because Charles has been working a lot
on the computer. charles and I joined the O'Hare's down to the Black Sea port yesterday. It is in walking distance from where we are staying. Maybe 10 to 12 blocks. As you can see by the picture, Charles had his picture taken with a monkey. I was surprised at how clean the port was.
This quite a nice port. We really don't have a lot to report, we are waiting for our phone call to tell us when to go back to Kiev. We were told by Friday. I have been reading and praying and Charles is working. I am praising God for our SDA Appoint.

Does anyone have any advice or opinions for us?

Prayer request: keep believing with us for appoint. and a quick turn around back to Odessa. Pray for Joshua and Lauren. I pray the weekends for them are fun and not long.

Thanks for you prayers, they make a big difference.

We love you,
Jeri

The waiting Game

A local bread truck
our new friends Shawn and Tracey O'Hara
here is Charles orderin his street meat
here is Charles lovin the street meat :)
The train station in Odessa

Good evening,

This was one of those days where we just waited and prayed. At the end of the day, we received news that we would deffiently have appointment by the end of the week. That was good news for us.

We visited with our friends Shawn and Tracey today. We had lunch at a local Ukrainian restaurant. It reminded me of a Dutch restaurant. I had some chicken soup and bread, and Charles had borsch soup. The soups were pretty good. They use mostly fresh ingredients in all the restaurants. There is very little packaged foods here. They make everything fresh. We have had some real good food here. The cost is very low because of the exchange rate.

We will probably go to the beach tomorrow to kill some time. I heard its pretty nice. We also move to a bigger apartment tomorrow, we've been in a studio. Its in the same hotel, that will be nice and a change of scenery.

Charles is reading his book and we are waiting to have some bugers with the Shawn and Tracey
at there apartment. We are cooking in tonight.

We have really apprecited all the encouragment that we have received while we are over here. God is so faithful to send such good people in to our lives. We are truly blessed.


Prayer Request:

- continue to pray for the SDA appointment and for Vitalik sister.

- peace and strength for Charles and I, also for Josh and Lauren.

- Peace for Vitalik as he prepares to be adopted.

We love you,

Jeri

For Lauren

Hi Lauren,

How is my sweet pea? I love and miss you very much.
Did you have a good day today?

We are a little bored today because we are just waiting.

Mom and dad are very proud of you and Joshua. Keep up the good work.

I am sending you a kiss.

I'll talk to you soon,

Love Mom :)

To Joshua

Hi Joshua,

Mom wanted to say "HI".
Did you have a good day? did you do anything fun or special? Tell Ms. Amy and Nate Hello, and Tommy.
We are just waiting. We are either real busy or waiting on something.

give Dakota a hug for me when you see him.

I'll talk to you soon, Mom loves you,

Mom :)

Vitalik and another boy from the orphange at the Becker apartment.

how do you like her broom? it seems to do the job!
This was the orchestra at the park downtown Odessa

We are walking with some of the boys from 10th grade to the Becker's apartment.

Greetings,

A few people had problems with being able to comment. I believe I fixed the problem. so you can try again if you want.
We had a busy day today. We went church with Michelle, The O'Hare couple and Dr. Paul and
Tania were there. Tania was nice enough to translate for us. We enjoyed the service, the pastor had a good message. We met some of the 10th grade class at internot #4 that the Becker's brought with them to church. They were a great bunch of children. We were invited to lunch at the Becker's with the other couple and the children from the internot. All of the children helped in the kitchen, they served and helped clean up. They were very respectful and fun to be around.
We then went to the park were there was a live orchestra to listen to and enjoy.

Have a great week everyone,
Jeri

Laid back day

The park near our apartment in dowtown Odessa.

It's Saturday here and we have the day off. We relaxed, took in some sites, visited with our new friends the O'Hares. We are enjoying the weather here. It is low 70's and sunny. They have elections tomorrow for a new parliament. They had a very loud live concert in the square last night.There was a motor cycle rally in the street this afternoon. It is very busy here in the downtown area. Tomorrow we will go to church with Michelle in the morning and be able to meet some of the orphans that will be attending with the Becker's.

Prayer: please keep praying for Vitalik's sister to agree with the adoption, a quick appointment for us next week, Joshua and Lauren that they are at peace,content and for protection over all the families adopting and our families back in the States.

Thanks for praying and blessings to all our friends and family,

Jeri

God had a different plan!

Vitalik is the boy on the right.

Hello,

Well, its hard to know what to say in this blog. We received shocking news from Vladik
yesterday. We are a day behind in our blog. I couldn't bring myself to share the news.
We met Vladik at the school yesterday to go get his medical forms. When he got there he told
our interpreter he wanted to share something with us. at this point he shared that he didn't want to be adopted. He was concerned for his grandmother and didn't want to leave her. As you can imagine we were totally shocked, the day before he wrote out a letter saying he did want to
be adopted. ( we think the grandmother is behind his decision) we told him that would have to be the final answer and that we respected his decision. We only want the best for him. We hugged him and told him we would keep in touch and we would keep him our prayers. We were very upset with the news, but we think its for the best in the long run.



We are attempting to adopt another boy named Vitalik. He is in orpahange #4. the boy in the picture at the top. We have heard very good things about him. He is the leader in his class, very athletic, very popular, smart. He knows some English. We know he wants to be adopted very much. The only challenge we see is that he has a older sister 17 years. She must give her okay. We know that most sibling do give consent. We are trying to contact her to see what she says. We will welcome her to visit us anytime and we encourage them to keep in contact. We will do what we can for her. we are not able to adopt more than one. Please pray for her consent.

Today was much better than yesterday. we still feel this sting but not as much. We will probably be going to Kiev on Monday for a new appointment.


Prayer request: Vladik for protection and that he would give his life to the Lord. Pray for the sister to consent. A quick appointment next weeks for the new boy. Pray as you feel lead.

Thank you for praying and blessings to you,

Jeri