It's All Coming Together!

We leave for Ukraine tomorrow morning: Tulsa-Dulles-Munich-Donetsk.  It will be a brutal flight, I’m sure.

All of our last-minute preparations are falling into place nicely.  Cassie and Clay’s dentist donated 144 toothbrushes.  144!  I’m sure we will find grateful recipients for all of them.  Curt picked up some soccer balls and footballs and deflated them--we will re-inflate them when we get there.  I've been reading about all of the health problems these kids suffer from because of lack of physical activity.  It's heartbreaking.  

We’ve heard from Victor and have a better idea of how our week will go.  We arrive in Donetsk Sunday afternoon.  Victor will pick us up at the airport and drive us to a hotel in Enakievo, near the Uglegorsk orphanage.  We’ll get to spend all day Monday at Uglegorsk.  Other adoptive parents have talked about a 3-4 hour time limit there, but since the kids are not having classes, we shouldn’t have those restrictions.  I’m so glad, as I was starting to wonder if just three hours at Uglegorsk was worthwhile.  The Uglegorsk kids leave for summer camp Tuesday morning, so Tuesday we’ll pack up and Victor will drive us to Zaporizhya, about four hours away.  He’s arranging an apartment for us.  We’ll be visiting Orphanage #3 in Zaporizhya.  It’s supposedly more modern than Uglegorsk.  I’m guessing we’ll spend Tuesday, Wednesday, and Thursday in Zaporizhya and will drive back to Donetsk Friday morning, as our flight leaves in the afternoon.

So, my point in mentioning all this is that I don’t know if we’ll have internet in our apartment in Zaporizhya.  I’m pretty sure we’ll have wifi in our Enakievo hotel, but don’t be concerned if you don’t hear from us the rest of the week.

до свидания!