6 Hours Left in Kiev

This is Ken.  I talked to Sarah a little bit ago and everything is on schedule.  She's getting up in only a few hours to get ready to head to the airport!  I'm meeting them in Detroit and we all land in Louisville at 4:47pm.  Come out to the airport and meet us if you'd like, we'd love to have you there!

So, what's been going on the past few days?

Monday Sarah was able to get Luke's passport without any problems.  They got back to Kiev and took Luke to the doctor to see about the fever and rash that he was having.  The doctor said that the rash was just allergies and gave him some medicine for the itching.  Sarah said that the medicine worked really well, which is good because he was scratching a lot. The doctor also gave them some children's motion sickness medicine in case they need it, which they've used on some of the taxi rides around Kiev.  Sarah said that it REALLY knocks him out, so he'll probably be sleeping well on the plane :-)

Tuesday Sarah went to the US Embassy and dropped off all the paperwork for Luke's visa.  Then they ran around to a couple offices (or was that Monday after the Dr?)  One of the places they went was back to the SDA office (where we first picked Luke) so that Sarah could get the picture that was attached to the original description and medical profile that they showed us.  She had to bring a current picture to swap with them so that they could have a picture on file.  So she did and got the old picture -- that's the oldest picture of Luke that we know of.  He's standing next to a building and some kind of bushes with a HUGE smile on his face (as you might expect!)  Anyway, we were really glad to get that picture.  By the way, shortly after we started visiting Luke a few weeks ago my mom did some searching around online and found a guy who visits the orphanage regularly where Luke was, and he had some pictures of events at the orphanage from last year on his Google Picasa page and Luke was in 10 or 15 of them.  Finding those was also really exciting.

Wednesday Sarah went back to the Embassy and picked up Luke's visa, checking the LAST thing off the list.  Our translator and the Thienemin family (with their new son!) arrived in Kiev to have dinner and hang out with Sarah, Luke, and Marcia.  Thanks everyone for praying for them also a couple weeks when they were hitting road blocks.  It sounds to me like everything is moving along REALLY quickly for them now.  They should be heading home before too long.  I think they're in the process of getting their son's passport now.

Luke and their son played for a while at the apartment tonight and had a lot of fun.  I'm sure Luke was glad to see someone around his age, who even spoke his language!

So Sarah leaves for the airport at about 4am Ukraine time!  Their flight is at 6:25am there, 11:25pm Eastern.  I guess she'll be catching up sleeping on the plane.

My parents will be in town in maybe an hour and a half and we'll get the last few things ready for everyone to be home.  Sarah's family will be arriving sometime tomorrow early afternoon, dropping off the dogs, and heading to the airport.  I fly out at 6:10 tomorrow morning to bounce through Baltimore (?) and then wait for Sarah and Luke in Detroit.  Sure hope I don't get stuck in Baltimore...or detained and questioned because I'm flying alone one way (x2) with minimal baggage...

Thanks everyone for praying for safe travels, especially for Sarah, Luke, and Babushka!