Americans!

Hi All! We have the wonderful privilege of spending an evening in Christian fellowship with a missionary family from Missouri all the way over here in Ukraine! English! Hooray! Thank you, Phil, for hooking us up!

We just have spent a little while sitting around thier table visiting about our adoption, their church planting efforts and general Ukrainian-specific topics. We may even be able to go to an English church service this Sunday!

How nice it is to nibble Christmas cookies with Wendy and Kieth and their children. They have a Christmas tree set up in their apartment and it is the first we've really seen except for the big ones in the squares of the cities. It is just too early for most to have trees since they don't celebrate Christmas until January here.

We spent the morning with the boys again. We had a great time taking Misha and Vitali out on the sleds. Misha especially loved this. He rode down the hill over and over again. A few times he asked Steve or me to ride with him. It has been a long time since I have done that! We got it on video, too!

We went next to see Max at his place. He is obviously proud to have the older kids "deliver" us to him. They are proud to be able to help. We played in a big room with him for quite a while and Steve asked him to show him where the bathroom was. Max jumped up and his tongue stuck out just a bit like it does when he is slyly pleased with something. He knew that to take Steve to the bathrooms would require parading him past his friends! Oh, how he must feel to have what every child in that place is dreaming of! I am so glad to be a part of his joy.

Thanks to Wendy and Keith for the loan of their high-speed internet! And thank you all for so many well-wishes and prayers! We get so excited to log on and see your messages!

Things are progressing smoothly with the adoption. All is well at this point. Tomorrow we should have more of an idea about court.