Such a thrill!

Seriously, although I am nearly buried underneath a mound of paperwork, I'm on "Cloud 9."  Yesterday, Bill, the kids, and I drove up to Bethesda, MD.  Now, if you're from the East Coast, you know this means that we had to go around Washington, D.C. which means that Mapquest, although useful for directions, was absolutely useless for timeframe.  What should have been a 2 1/2 hour drive was a 3 1/2 hour drive, but I was so excited that I didn't care. 

We arrived at this gorgeous home and there were little Ukrainian kids running everywhere and people chattering in Russian and English.  At first we saw NO ONE that we recognized, but I knew were in the right place.  Soon we connected with Maggie, Vinny, K.T. of Frontier Horizon ... and DIMA!!!! 

"Now, why all the excitement?" you ask.

Dima is our FACILITATOR and we were able to meet him!!!  This is the guy who makes it happen in Ukraine.  He translates all of our documents into Russian AND Ukrainian and then holds our hands through the whole process.  That we were able to meet him before traveling to Ukraine is just huge and we really like him.  He's sharp, but not intimidating.  And the kids like him too.  :)

We also met Oksana, Svieta, and Ira - all names of other Ukrainian friends.   Ira (that's Ee-ra), will transport a little care package to Katya for us.  This is what kept our six kids busy all the way up to Bethesda.  They drew pictures, wrote notes, and talked about Katya the whole way up.

One of my favorite parts was sort of being "part of" a conversation between Ira and Dima.  You see, Dima needs our "Power of Attorney" to find out exactly when Katya will be available for adoption.  Since he flies out of the U.S. on Wednesday, the easiest thing to do is get this taken care of before he leaves the country.  But, Dima doesn't fly out of Dulles and so once we go to Richmond to get our POA apostilled, we'll hand it off to the Fausts from Buena Vista, who will give it to Maggie at Dulles, who will give it to Ira before she gets on the plane to head back to Ukraine.  Ira will carry it, along with the care package, all the way to Ukraine and the hand it off to Dima in Kiev before she heads to Odessa.  At this point Dima is then authorized to "represent us in all matters related to the adoption of a minor child."  So, here's my favorite part.  Dima was explaining that Ira would not only need to deliver the care package to Katya, but would also need to serve as courier.  Dima was speaking in English, but Ira wanted him to speak in Russian.  He wanted to speak in English for my benefit, but spoke mostly in Russian because making sure Ira understood was more important.  So, there was a quite bit of Russian exchange and then Dima turned to me and said, "It's taken care of."  :)  I loved it.  It reminded me of when we were in Ukraine back in the spring.  Our hosts, translators, etc. would have these l-o-n-g conversations in Ukrainian and then turn to us and tell us in three or four words all that we needed to know.  Sounds kind of strange, but this little exchange brought back the memories of how I fell in love with Albina, Pietra, Oleg, Luba, and so many more. 

So, things are happening and I'm energized.  We still have a TON of paperwork to do, but seeing these precious kids, the translaters, guardians, and folks from Frontier Horizon was just thrilling to me.  Thank you, Lord!!!