A Ukraine Christmas

Ty and I had a full and busy weekend!  Saturday, January 7th was the day that Ukraine celebrates Christmas (in accordance with the Russian Orthodox calendar.)   Our day started earlier than we expected due to a miscommunication caused by the enormous language barrier.  We answered a knock on our door, in our pajamas having been up for only a short time, to be told that it was time to leave for Christmas day church.  YIKES!!!  There was a few minutes of panic (mostly by me)  but I am proud to say that, 20 minutes later we emerged in full Sunday attire ready to go... and we were not even late for service!

We were very glad that we went!  Katya and Mariana's church is beautiful and probably seats about 1500 people.  Although the message which was completely in Russian (of course) was lost on Ty and I we did really enjoy the music and dancing and drama.

During the two hour long service I found myself wishing I had not drunk so much coffee.  So after the Pastor finished preaching, Katya and I excused ourselves to find a restroom.  

Now here is where I depart from the spiritual and just share the very practical.  What do I do with this?

If you can't tell by the picture this is not a normal toilet.  It was only about 3 inches off the ground.  For those of you globe trotters out there this may not seem like a big deal but it was my first experience with one and I have to say it took a little bit of figuring out before all was accomplished.

After the service we all headed out and I was able to get a picture of the girls with their ABSOLUTELY WONDERFUL houseparents, Marsha and Sergai.

What I haven't mentioned is that Katya and Mariana came to church with their brother, Andrey and his girlfriend Lena.  Because it was Christmas the girls had slept over his apartment the night before and the plan was for us all to spend the day in Kyiv.  So once again we were given an opportunity to meet more of Katya's and Mariana's family.  Thank you, God!

Andrey who is 25 spoke a little bit of English, so between that and the help of Sasha and the girls we were able to have some good discussion.  We went to a restaurant called Mafia, which specializes in Pizza and Sushi... two of my favorites!  It was very good and the atmosphere was elegant and quiet.  We enjoyed a very nice meal together and got to share some of our feelings in regards to this adoption.  Andrey seems to genuinely love and have concern for his sisters' future.  And at the end of the day he told us that he was very happy about this situation (our adopting the girls).  We let him know that it was important to us to have his support and that we want to keep up this relationship.

After lunch we headed over to Dream Town (along with most of Kyiv).  We ended up playing some ping pong and spent a little bit of time in the shooting gallery.

Lena, Andrey's girlfriend could not speak or understand english but she was very sweet and beautiful!

We really had a fun and wonderful day.  We are hoping to be able to get together again before we head back to Florida.

We parted ways at the metro and headed back to Father's House where we got to enjoy a Christmas dinner with a couple of the families.  I am really enjoying the Ukainian dishes and am hoping to either learn how to make a few while I am here or at least have Katya and Mariana duplicate them once we get home.

Natasha and her mom, Marsha (my two favorite Housemoms)

After dinner, I helped Vova, one of the boys here skype with his family in Michigan.  They are working on his adoption now. 

And after all that we headed down to the gym to once again play some serious games of volleyball... til about 12:30 at night.  Needless to say it was a wonderful, fun, long and special day for us!

Now... I have to post some pics of  faces that we miss terribly!!!

And I end with my crazy Nickle Pickle doing his best model pose!