Eleven days since I last came to this space. Wow! Days are flying by.

Since I wrote the last post about being still and trusting that God is on our side we've gone through some stuff that made living out those words pretty stinkin' hard. Sheeesh. This fighting for the orphan thing is rough stuff! But, worth it. But still rough. 🙂 There are seasons of heartache and seasons of joy in every life, right?

Our family as a whole is doing just fine. Our work may be heartwrenching at the moment, but our family is good.

Here's what's been up with us:

• This is the last week of school for Addy and Ez, and then Christmas break! Their schooling plan will change after the new year, so stay tuned!
• Havalah and Seth go to a private little kindergarten (Hava won't let me call it “preschool”) twice a week while Jed and I are at Romaniv and they love it. Today when I picked them up the teacher said they understand her so well and that Hava speaks a lot of Ukrainian in class. Yay! Comin' along, comin' along.
• We are right in the middle of renewing our registration. We have to renew every year in order to keep our temporary residency. Stamps, stamps, and more stamps…woot! Ukraine loves stamps.
• My cousin, aunt and uncle will be in Uzhgorod (a city in western Ukraine) this weekend and we are trying our best to get there for a visit. We were waiting to see if we could get our residency paperwork done in time to be able to leave town, and we finally got done yesterday…but now there are no available train tickets! The lady at the ticket counter told Jed to come back and check tomorrow morning. The train is really our only option. A bus ride would be at least 12 hours over rough roads and Hava gets super carsick on the short, smooth, two hour ride to Kyiv! We can't torture her like that. The train ride is 16 hours…yikes, but worth it to see family. 🙂
• Next week is Christmas!!!! We've been rockin' the Christmas music pretty much nonstop around here. This will be our first Christmas alone, just the 6 of us, so that will be really different. Last year Jed's parents were here visiting. Did you know Ukraine doesn't celebrate Christmas until January 7th? Fun fact.
• Our favorite Tom and Emma are coming for a visit on New Year's Eve! They'll be with us for a week and we're counting down the minutes till their arrival. Eeeeeeek! Tom and Emma visited last February and it was so amazing to have them with us. Best Christmas present ever.
• My mom secretly asked a bunch of people to send us Christmas cards. Oh my word!! It has been such a special treat! I really can't tell you how special it is when we get mail. Our whole family screams and hoots and hollers and jumps up and down. Seriously. We love mail! Thanks Mom 🙂 And thanks everyone who has sent us cards. It makes our day. Big time.
• We're working on a couple special Wide Awake videos for Christmas. In the videos we'll introduce you to two of our special boys. I can't wait to share them with you!
• I've been working hard to get all the details figured out for the boys from Romaniv who are available for adoption. After Christmas we will start really advocating for them and I'm so hopeful we'll find them families. Stay tuned for that too. Children were made for families, not insitutions. 🙂

Welp, I guess that just about does it.

Maybe next time I write it will be from Uzhgorod…if we survive the 16 hours on the train, that is! Ha!