Progress was slower this week in the Ukraine than we had hoped but there is still hope that they will finish up next week and Paul and Max will be able to come home on Friday.
It ended up taking a few days to get the tax id. Not sure why but that is something that our coordinator and attorney have no control over. Monday was a holiday in Kyiv and that just seemed to slow down things for the first part of the week. The tax id was finally obtained and the passport application was filed on Friday afternoon. We hope to get the passport on Tuesday which would allow the U.S. Embassy appointments to occur on Wednesday and Thursday. If the passport is not received on Tuesday that will most likely mean the Embassy appointments will not be completed until sometime the following week. Two appointments are required over a 2 day period at the Embassy. The U.S Embassy is closed on Friday because they don't take appointments on the last Friday of the month and then they are closed on Tuesday, June 28 due to another Ukrainian holiday. (Ukraine has a lot of holidays!) Please pray that we receive the passport by Tuesday.
Paul is hanging in there but it is hard when most of your interaction is only with a 7 year old all day and you are in a foreign country. They have been doing a lot of walking around Kyiv. Paul has been letting Kirill play in the fountains in Independence Square (when it warm you see people in the fountains all the time and fortunately they clean them on a regular basis). Yesterday they did go to the beach and Kirill had a lot of fun swimming in the river. Paul also enjoyed the opportunity to speak to a couple of Americans at the beach. Today they went to Dream Town, which is a complex with an indoor skating rink, bumper cars and things like that to do. They had fun ice skating.
Going out to the orphanage to hang out with the other kids is not an option for Paul and Kirill which is unfortunate for them. The kids from the orphanage are in the Kremini area (i think that is on the Black Sea) for a couple of weeks. Great for the kids but a bummer for Kirill as he is not able to spend time with his friends. The other family that was in Kyiv adopting 2 children went home on Wednesday so Kirill is missing his two friends who had been staying just a half a block away. He will have the opportunity to connect with his friends again in MN.
If you have a skype account, Paul would love to talk with you. His skype account is under his email address so feel free to contact him. Max and I are hanging in there as well but missing Paul and Kirill. Max has had baseball most nights and he has several day time activities so that keeps both of us busy.
Thank you to everyone for your encouragement during this separation period. We appreciate it.
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