Monday, December 22, 2008

Sunny Day

We finally saw the sun today. Everyday here so far has been gray! It is drying up some outside, so we could play outside with the kids again. It is mostly sand so that sticks to everything, but luckily you can brush that off when it is dry. We've noticed the kids where the same clothes for about 7 days. I think they only bathe on Saturday.

We pushed the kids on some kind of rounded teeter-totter. Lots of other kids come to play with us too and they all call us mama and papa. Then the caregivers always come and shoo them away. There are some really cute kids here!! We try to give them their snack when the other kids are playing somewhere else. Today, we brought them juice boxes and cookies. Yesterday, we brought bananas and it is so cute, Jillian had to look in hers to make sure ALL the banana was gone before she let us take the peel. We only brought them a half a banana because they eat so fast we didn't want to make them sick. I think they will be okay with a whole banana!

We got some disappointing news and of course they leads to a prayer request. We sent our papers to the SDA. They have to approve them and send them back. The main lady that does this is out on "holiday" already. They have received 50 packets this week, so I don't have a lot of faith that it will be here in time for court on Thursday Dec. 25, maybe Friday, which we could still use our plane tickets, but if not this week and it ends up being Monday, we will have to change our tickets AGAIN!! It is essential that we have court by the end of the year. If we don't, we will have to wait until the middle of January, making this process even longer, but not a surprise I guess, just discouraging. If it ends up being next year, we will have a whole bunch of new rules we will have to follow. Everyone here wants it done by the end of the year. So please pray hard that we will find favor with the SDA officials and someone will have time to get it back to us here by the end of the week. Thanks so much for your faithful prayers.

I had a couple of questions if I liked the caviar that I wrote about yesterday - It wasn't the worse thing I've tasted, but I am glad it was hidden in a "tortilla". It has a strong salmon type fishy taste - I guess just as you can imagine what fish eggs would taste like. If I would have seen it on a cracker or something, I don't think I could have eaten it, but I did get it down. I think a lot of the taste was hidden by the sauce I dipped it in. I do like to try new foods, I couldn't get Monte to try it though. He is doing well with his pureed potatoes and chicken.

Since we don't have a lot to write about again, I will tell you about the exhange rate. On our first two visits to Ukraine in 2005 and 2007, the exchange rate was always 5:1 (five grivna - Ukrainian dollar - to one US dollar). When Randy, Ruth and Roy and team were here this summer, it was 4:1. When we got here, it was 7.4:1. It kept going up a little bit everyday to 8.3. One day, it jumped to 9.5 (we're sorry we didn't capitalize on that). Then it dropped to 7:1. Today, it was 6.5:1. So you can see how unstable their economy is. The higher the number, the better for us. For them, it is difficult because some people have car loans and mortgages in USD. They have to trade grivna in at an even higher rate to buy USD (if they can find any).

We forgot to tell you about another paperwork issue we had. The social worker found an error on one of our papers. It says Tibbetts all over it, many times, in one of those spots it is spelled with just one T. That one little mistake could stop everything. So, on Friday, we took it back to the notary to be corrected. She had already left for the day. We tried it again today, they didn't have any electricity in their office. She was able to correct it for the social worker several hours later after it got light enough to see in the office - right in the middle of our lunch, George got up and left and ran to her office to pick it up and left us sitting there. We were finished by the time he came back to eat his lunch. We still need to get a new copy for the SDA, but they need electricity for that - maybe to fax it?? I am not sure why, but that is the way things happen here.

Well, that's it for now. We covet your prayers as we go through this process!!

3 comments:

Melinda Joy said...

Monte and Cheryl,

Your post is a reminder of how much we take our prosperity for granted. We think of a banana and if the kids don't finish it we save it for a bit and then it might get thrown away after it turns black. We have more clothes than needed for any given situation but we are always looking for what we should wear. We would complain if we didn't have hot water for a bathe or shower whenever we want to take one. Thank you for being Jesus' loving arms to Ryan, Robin, Jason and Jillian. For showing them the most important thing in this lifetime, a loving relationship with Jesus.

We are praying for favor to be shown with your paper process. God has great plans for you and your forever family. We will pray that for whatever reason things would happen, doors would open, hearts would be moved and Jesus would be given all the honor and glory! We love you guys! We can't wait to see all of you!

Karen/Kira said...

Yep, 2 days of sun here too.....but more snow on the way. Great for all of our snow plowing friends!!! Oh how I appreciate them. Melinda is so right about taking our prosperity for granted. Thank you Lord for the reminders!! Prayers continue. Blessings to you all.
Love, Karen

Melinda Joy said...

Give the children extra hugs from all of us back here. Wish them a Merry Christmas and tell them they are loved by each one of us and by the Father who made them! We continue to pray for you each day! We love all of you! Merry Christmas and God Bless You!