God Bless America!

This is what we saw when we emerged from U.S. Customs last night at Dulles Int'l Airport!

Some happy girls with their little brother

Many of our friends from Alexandria showed up to our complete surprise making it even more special. Here's Dana with Quintin, Reece and Natalie.

I couldn't believe it when I saw Jim Galambos and Eric Sapp from our old church in Alexandria. The love and support of people like this is more than a little humbling. We love you guys!

Galyna and Anastasia with their Babushka Phyllis

My look at seeing my little little man after a three week absence. Boy, I was ready to come home!

The girls taking their last steps on Ukrainian soil

As much as I hate to admit it, Air France is a great airline. The trip from Paris to Washington on board this giant 777 was the most comfortable long distance flight I've ever had.



In Paris

A couple of new American citizens, arriving on the 400 year anniversary of the establishment of the first English colony at Jamestown. After being away for nearly two months, I have much greater appreciation for the land of opportunity.

Please keep our family in your prayers as we being our new lives together.

Farewell Ukraine!

It wasn't looking good a few hours ago, but after some fine work by Dima and Alexey of our adoption team, I have visas and passports in hand and I am flying home tomorrow with my soon-to-be new AMERICAN daughters!

When I told them the news, Galyna screamed and Nastia hasn't stopped smiling. After our English lessons of late, I think they were ready to kill me, but in the past couple of hours I've never seen them happier. We are overjoyed.

Thanks for all your prayers and the awesome love and support you've sent our way in the past seven weeks. For all your parents in process and those in the process of parenting their newly adopted kids, I hope we can continue to share our experience, strength and hope together.

We're coming home. Thanks be to God.

Despair and Hope

As of Thursday morning, two of the three "problems" have been resolved. If the other issue is taken care of by the end of the day, we're outta here tomorrow! But it wouldn't be Ukraine it the drama didn't come down to the wire, so it will be several hours before I know what will happen.

Wednesday in Kyiv was definitely a rock bottom experience as none of the "problems" had been resolved be the end of the day, and I discovered that if we can't leave Friday, the next available flight is not until Tuesday!

Adding to the frustration of all this is the very difficult behavior of the girls, who have decided to resist all my attempts to engage them or teach them anything. I find myself doing alot of projecting about how much worse it will get and wondering if I have the energy and grace to weather the gathering storm.

I went for a long walk last night, stopping along the way to attend an Orthodox Vespers service at St. Mikhail's Monastery. I have no idea what they are chanting or singing, but this is an amazing place to go and pray. Once you enter the stunningly beautiful cathedral, all outside noise and motion come to a halt. The choir sings from a concealed loft and sounds as if the voices come right from heaven. Of course the real trick is to turn off all the clutter in your mind, and after attending these services daily, I'm getting much better at it.

Afterwards, I walked down to Independence Square. This is one of the most beautiful public squares I've ever seen, and thousands of people come out in the evening to socialize. But what struck me was how many of them were just standing around apparently getting drunk. Everywhere I turned were groups of teenagers and young adults hanging out drinking beer or wine coolers and chain smoking. I felt as if I had descended into the valley of dry bones and it was terribly depresssing to take it all in, as I desperately wanted someone to talk to and confide my own troubles in.

I even began to get angry as I wondered about how many of these youngsters will soon become the biological parents of orphan children. Alcholism contributes to a large percentage of the apalling number of orphans (our girls' mother died of alcoholism) in Ukraine and if you talk to locals, everyone acknowledges the problem. Yet it's hard to find anyone walking around after five o'clock who doesn't have a bottle of beer in their hand. This country has the worse negative population growth in all of Europe and after you've been here a while, the reason is evident.

As I've discovered in the wreckage of my own life, the only hope is through surrender to God. Sunday night in Kyiv's Olympic Stadium, I sat stunned as I saw thousands of Ukrainains confess their sin and surrender to the cross of Christ. Franklin Graham's "Festival of Hope" crusade could not come at a better time as this nation stands at a crossroads.

I had seen these kind of events growing up watching Billy Graham, and it was incredible to actually be present at one. You might say Franklin is more hard core than his father. But in the introductory video, he makes clear that he once lived a life of self indulgence, abusing drugs and alcohol. So Franklin's conviction of sin comes through loud and clear. In a brief message, he directly addressed the social ills that plague this country: alcoholism, drug addiction, sexual immorality leading to an epidemic of HIV/AIDS and other skyrocketing STD's. He spoke about guilt and shame as a man who knew it all too well. This is the insanity of addiction when one has to keep going back to the drug to be relieved from all the guilt and shame. Indeed, the drug of choice becomes God. This is what G.K. Chesterton meant when he said, "Every man knocking on the door of a brothel is looking for God."

But of course the gospel is "good news" and Graham made clear that no matter what kind of lifestyle you've led, the offer of full and free forgiveness is there to those willing to do a U-turn. The scope of that promise is universal and none are exluded. Yes, we are much more sinful and guilty than we are willing to admit, but we are also much more forgiven and affirmed in our salvation than we could ever know! It is amazing what happens when people hear a simple, sincere explanation of the gospel. As Jesus said, "repentance and forgiveness of sins should be proclaimed in his name to all nations."

The Ukrainians in that stadium responded by the thousands. I don't know how many came forward, but it was astonishing, and Graham did not have to ask more than once if they wanted to be forgiven.

Does this not blow you away? Witnessing elderly Babushkas walking down to that field is one of the most inspirational things I've ever seen.

Graham made a special appeal to the members of the Ukranian Army and they came en masse. As I saw them pouring down the aisles I was overcome with emotion. I've been in this country for nearly two months and have come to love these people.

What an incredible thing for our girls to have the opportunity to hear the gospel in their own language, presented in such a beautiful, sincere and powerful way. I've been critical and often sneering of the kind of revival events, but as I watched my 16 year old daughter reading a one-page summary of the plan of salvation, all I could think was how miraculous the timing of this was for our family. Thank God for Franklin Graham and all those who brought great Glory to God for bringing the Festival of Hope to Ukraine.

My prayer is that a day will soon come when Ukrainians will be able to take care of their own children. Please pray for all of us who have been led here to adopt these hurting children, and for healing for this beautiful and stricken nation.

Small Blessings in Kyiv

Hooray! I found a hotel with a "business center" so I can blog again!!!

Today marks the beginning of week 7 in Ukraine. The girls and I have been in Kyiv since last Wednesday, awaiting FBI fingerprint results for Dana and me. But, it turns out that we would still be here anyway as I learned at the US Embassy that Nastia can not be granted a visa until she clears a criminal background check in Ukraine because she is 16! Those results are supposed to clear tomorrow, so the wait continues for these three outstanding elements to be resolved.

Ever since learning that we would be stranded in Kyiv, totally at the mercy of those responsible for processing fingerprints, I've gone through a cycle of emotions: anger at myself for not having taken care of the fingerprint problem before it became a problem; frustration at not being able to do anything about it; loneliness from being away from Dana and Christian for so long, and frustration and anger at the girls for their disrespectful and sometimes defiant behavior.

Yet it has become all too clear to me that this is also an opportunity that the Lord has given me and the girls. I have seen things and learned many things about them that I had never really observed during their hosting visits with us, or during the earlier part of our stay in Odessa.

They have absolutely no boundaries when it comes to sexual morality. I finally cut them off from watching the Russian version of MTV. Some of the videos are close to pornographic, and their favorite ones are the very worst of American gangster rap and hip hop. Their favorite movies are what they call "dance" movies, which glorify the hip hop lifestyle. This is a particular problem for the kids in Odessa, which has got to be the most sexualized place on the planet. I'm not kidding, it makes South Beach Miami look like Omaha! I had a lengthy discussion with the girls and their friends about sex and the reality of what having no sexual boundaries results in. I pointed out that Ukraine has the highest rate of HIV/AIDS, syphillis and other STD's in all of
Europe. Ukraine's HIV rate is on par with some African countries.

Of course they don't get it. One of their friends even told me that "this bunny you have in America (meaning the Playboy bunny)" is not a problem in Ukraine! This was a 15 year old girl! But these situations also present excellent opportunities to talk to them about what the Bible says about sex and I am pleased that we've broken the ice on this topic.

God is also using this time for me to learn many things about myself, as their glaring character defects and unrepentant bad behavior is a mirror for my own sin and daily shortcomings. They have no discipline whatsover, but the truth is, neither do I much of the time. I am much better at hiding my sin. They don't care about what others think, and of course, I spend alot of energy in putting on airs to mask my lame spiritual condition.

What I am learning is that I must confess my sin daily, and ask for God's help in teaching our girls how to live in a family, and live in this world. So, I am happy to report that I am seeing some progress in executing this. I have established a routine where we have an "English lesson" daily, before doing anything else. I wrote down the pledge of allegiance and a proverb on a sheet of paper, and (much to their chagrin) have them read it aloud, several times if necessary.

Anastasia flatly refused on the first day, and I proceeded to put my 16 year old daughter in timeout! She was shocked, but she sat in a chair in the corner for a good thirty minutes. I banned her from watching TV the rest of the day, and a few hours later, she grudgingly complied and read the Pledge, cracking a smile at the end.

Being "tough" on them is the conventional wisdom, but this is much easier to say than do. These kids do not like being asked to do anything, and if you ask them, they will simply say no. So, I have learned to TELL them what we are doing and give them a choice of doing two things.

Today, I gave them an assignment to go out and take pictures of five different historical sites, and to return at 6:30 PM and give me a report on the historical significance of each site. They shook their heads no at this, but when I told them that their choice was either that, or spend the day with me touring churches, Nastia grabbed the camera and smiled!

These are the kind of victories I am savoring. Before they left, I sat down with them, held hands and said a short prayer, asking God to give us His mercy and provide a way for us to return this week. It will be interesting to see how they do on their photographic history report.

Tonight I hope to put up some pictures of the amazing Franklin Graham "Festival of Hope" crusade that came to Kyiv this weekend. For more than two hours, the girls heard great testimonies, music, and a riveting explanation of the gospel in their own language. Do you know what it's like to hear "Just As I Am" sung in Ukrainian by a choir of 5-thousand?

I reckon there's a reason why we're stuck inside of Kyiv, with the Goochland blues again!!!

Goodbye From Odessa

Update: Boy did I blow it! Our "fingerprints" expired last week meaning our criminal background check with the US Embassy is no longer valid. So.....our return will be delayed by at least one week depending on Dana's ability to get her fingerprints processed in Virginia and forwarded to the embassy in Kyiv. Not being a detail oriented person is hazardous when adopting internationally! See you sometime in mid July, I hope!

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This is our final blog posting from Ukraine. After five weeks in Odessa, the girls and I head to Kyiv Monday night and are scheduled to return home to begin our new lives together on Saturday. It has been an honor to correspond with you. Your loving support, kind words and warm wishes for our family has been surprising and we are more than humbled. You have been a very important part of the "process" and I want to express my sincerest thanks for helping to make this incredible journey so special.

Few things are more annoying than an American who travels abroad and suddenly becomes worldly and cultured. It is tempting to idealize a place you've come to love and I know that some of my postings in the past five weeks describing Odessa and its people may seem overly sentimental and over the top. But Dana and I want our adopted Ukrainian daughters to remember their native country for the enormous good and obvious bad, and hopefully this journal will reappear in a scrapbook that their children and grandchildren will read. The sad truth is that the Ukrainian economy remains more or less a disaster and if it weren't so, we would not be here.

But I ask....

Can a country that builds Opera Houses like this....

Where its poorest and oldest people create such beauty....

And its citizens are so crazy about ice cream...

Where even the stray cats strut in style....


And jaw-dropping scenes like this surround you...


Can Ukraine and its beautiful people stay down forever?
Please join me in praying for God to pour out His blessings upon this land.

Where To Stay in Odessa

Adoption families coming to Odessa basically have two options:

A) You can stay near the orphanages and walk to see your kids. This is more affordable as you save tons on cab fare, but you won't have air conditioning and you'll have to take a taxi or bus to go sightseeing. I would not want to do this for an entire month.

Or


B) You can stay in what is known as City Centre where you can walk to fine restaurants, most major sights and enjoy comfort and safety. Odessa Executive Suites came highly recommended to us and we can enthusiastically second that recommendation. Here you are right smack dab in the middle of everything, and when you consider that you are staying in a world-class resort city, the rates are very good (check the monthly rates).

Scott is the American owner who lives nearby and can be seen daily in the office. He knowns how to make Westerners feel at home.

Some of the apartments look down on Deribosovskaya, the main street.

The oceanfront is a beautiful ten minute walk. The kids all know how to ride the bus to get here and they love to visit, often with two or three of their friends.

Manager Masha and assistant Ulyana speak fluent English and are indispensable when it comes to recommending where to go (and not go) and what to do. Their office also serves as an unofficial social gathering spot as guests are seen daily just hanging out and talking for hours. Dana and I met some fascinating people in the OES office!

Vern the ex-pat Texan is a permanent fixture on the second floor. He knows where all the good coffee shops are.

This has been our home for five weeks. I'm gonna miss it!