Ukrainian Holiday

As I mentioned in a previous blog, we are very blessed that Ukraine had only one holiday while we are here.  This is a blessing because all government offices close.  Today is the Ukrainian Independence Day.  Therefore the Ukrainians have been on holiday since Sunday.  Jeff wanted me to share a bit of history...so here goes via Wikipedia.  On August 24, 1991 the Ukrainian parliament adopted the Act of Independence in which the parliament declared Ukraine as an independent democratic state.  The Act was adopted in the aftermath of the August 19th coup attempt when conservative Communist leaders of the Soviet Union tried to restore central Communist party control over the USSR. In response, the parliament of the Ukrainian SSR in a special Sunday session overwhelmingly approved the Act of Declaration.
The holiday affected our adoption by adding on a couple of days.  We can't go to court until Thursday...if there had been no holiday we would have gone to court today.  However, I am extremely grateful there are no other holidays to delay things.

Anyway..now that Jeff is happy is the mini history lesson.....we celebrated the Independence day with some of our new friends (Ukrainian and Russian) and our facilitator by going on a boat to an island that is located at the split between the Black Sea and the Dnieper River. We stayed for about 3 hours and walked the island. It was kinda cool to stand in the water where the two meet. 

We are sunburnt and exhausted.....but of course we went to see our little girl.  She said her first English words while we were playing with her on the teeter tooter.  She said UP  DOWN...of course she was copying us. BUT this is the first time she made any attempt to copy our English words.  She chatters away in Russian..but never before copied any of our English.  We were very proud! I am sure she will be chattering away in English before long!!
Z should be back tomorrow.  I can't wait!! It is surprising to me that I miss a child I just met. But I really miss him.  I can't wait to see his sweet face again!!  Once he is back, we think he is staying here in town instead of going back to camp.  School starts next week anyway..so there is no reason for him to go back for a day or two. 
      On that front...we would like to ask our friends and family to pray for our court process.  Z has to tell the judge verbally that he wants to be adopted.  Since he hasn't spent time with us in over a week, we are a bit anxious about it. Trusting God..but anxious.   Please pray that nothing hinders his heart in agreeing.   In some cases, caretakers have told children all kinds of crazy stories about Americans and the children have gotten to court and said No...even though they previously agreed.    Z's director assures us that he is happy to be going to America..but  we still covet any prayers sent our way.  I don't want him to have any fear of us..even though the whole process will be scary for both our children.  I want him to feel our love as well as God's love and peace.  Please pray for favor with the judge, jury and prosecutor and continued favor with the directors and inspector.  We are almost there!!!!  I can't wait for them to be ours officially!! 


Here are a couple pictures from the island trip! 
This is us on the boat to the island..our facilitator and other Russian and Ukrainian friends in the background.

There are seashells EVERYWHERE on the beach.  At home, I can never find shells on the beach, because they are so populated.  Apparently Ukrainians don't collect shells!! We found some great shells.

This is me standing where the Black Sea and the Dnieper River meet.