Anticipating Tomorrow's Appointment with NAC

Russian Orthodox Cathedral & Monestary Underground 




Today, Dima took us out again tonight to see some more of Kiev. We visited a Russian Orthodox Cathedral today and toured the Underground Monastery where the monks and Russian Orthodox people lived underground. We went through the underground tunnels that were lit by candlelight. The only thing we saw besides the narrow and short tunnel hallways were out coves of tombs of monks and saints all wrapped up in their royal tapestry garments in these glass coffins. One of the tombs the person’s hand was showing through their tapestry garments and it’s mummified skin was barely covering the bones in the hand. Of course Robert had to point it out to me to skeeve me even more than what I was walking through these dark tunnels looking at tombs. He had a good laugh at seeing and hearing my reaction though.



Mama Karrie & Papa Robert outside of Monestary Underground. Women must wear a scarf on their heads to enter. 




All of the churches here are absolutely gorgeous with murals all over the inside and outside of saints and scenes of the Jesus walk here on earth. Of course you are not allowed to take pictures inside any of the churches or the monastery. We also got to experience a traditional Ukrainian meal today, as per my request. We had borcht (beet soup with potatoes, beets, onions and sour cream) very tasty, ham with mushrooms, mayonnaise, and onions, ham with cheese, tomato and onions which was very tastey and rice. We all got our bellies full and rolled out of that Ukrainian Café. Dima then took us for a 2 hour tour boat ride on the Dnipro River. The Dnipro River is the main river that runs from the central north section of Ukraine to the south section and it flows into the Black Sea. It was a lovely day today for touring the city. The weather was about 80 degrees Fahrenheit. We enjoyed it thoroughly, however, my mind kept wondering about the outcome of tomorrow. We were fairly quite on the boat ride (partially because we were tired from walking everywhere the last week, and partially because of our anticipation for what children God has in store for us). Dima thought we weren’t having a good time and wanted to make sure that we were so he kept asking if we were having fun. I tried to explain to him that we were enjoying his tour, however, we were just excited and looking forward to our day with his mom, Alla tomorrow at the NAC.



Praise God! Tomorrow, July 26th is our appointment with the National Adoption Center. We’ve been thinking about it all day today and are wondering what children God has for us. What ages and gender are they, what do they look like and do they even realize that their Mama and Papa are so excited to meet them and to take them home and love them forever. Our darling children, Ohh how we’ve longed to have you join our family and to smother you with hugs and kisses. We love you already and haven’t even met you yet.



We’ve been praying for God to comfort, clothe, feed, protect and nourish you during this time apart from us. We’ve been praying that the Lord is whispering in your ears that He knows the plans He has for you both. Plans to prosper you and give you peace and not harm you, plans to give you hope and a future. Ohh and what a future you have in store. Our future together as a family has been our dream for so long. We are so grateful to God for Him directing us to you both and all of the people who have helped us get to where we are today.



Please keep us and our appointment with the NAC in prayer and agreement with us that we have supernatural favor with the authorities that we will be meeting with tomorrow, supernatural wisdom for God to direct our paths (for our thoughts are not His thoughts and our ways are not His ways) and that God shows us which children He has directed and planned for our lives and family.



We will keep you all posted as soon as we find out anything. Our appointment at the NAC is for 11:30am (4:30am EST) so we will hopefully be able to go in and select our children and get a permission letter signed to visit them sometime this week. Until then, we will hopefully get some sleep tonight.