In the morning Jed will write a post about our day today.  I think you’ll enjoy it.  🙂  We are in Odessa and everything is great.  We spent the day with Alyona and she is fabulous.  What a wonderful woman with such a huge, obedient heart.  It was great to finally meet her.  

I must sleep.  Again, Jed is already snoring.  Are you seeing a trend here?  🙂 

 

Please pray.  Pray that hearts here would be softened and that God would have His way in every situation.  Pray that our steps are ordered and that we wouldn’t miss any thing that He has for us to see or do here.  We have absolutely no idea what this week holds, but if today is any indication it’s going to be pretty amazing.  

Thank you all of our praying friends and family.  Your prayer and support on this journey means the world to us.  

Good night!

 This blog has a couple of purposes.  One of them being a way to keep friends and family informed of the process and journey God’s had us on, and the other purpose is just to have a place to document our thoughts, what God is saying, what God is doing, so that when the going gets rough or we have doubts we can look back and remember.  Today is one of those days I need to read back and remember what God has done and what He’s said to us in the past. 

I hate to be a downer, but today has been pretty emotional for me.  One of our contacts we were supposed to meet today ended up having to reschedule for Sunday, and that’s totally fine, it just means we had another day to wander.  We ended up heading to the spot I wanted to see the most here in Kiev. 

 After much searching, a coffee break and uphill, downhill trial and error we located the Adoption Authority office.  That is the infamous building where families who are here to adopt receive the file of the child they are here for.  At your appointment at this office you officially get permission to go visit your child in the orphanage.  This whole crazy journey we’ve been on started with the dream of going to that office and picking up a referral of our own.  Even though we aren’t here to adopt I just knew I had to find that office.  I just had to give the statue a rub.  I guess I didn’t realize how I would feel being there.  I wasn’t expecting it.  I felt sad, a little confused, a lot aimless.  I mean, there is a little boy in this country right now that I would adopt right this instant if God gave the go-ahead.  He’s mere hours away, sitting in a high chair with no stimulation, no Mama to love him and I’m here, not sure at all what God has in store.  I’m a “doer”, so I guess I feel like if we were here to adopt I would know what to “do”.  But, we are here at this point just to “be”.  That is super hard for me.  Of course later in the trip we’ll have a chance to “do”, but a lot of our time will be just “being”, eyes and ears open to what the Father is saying.  If we get too busy doing, we may miss His still, small voice.  A friend gave us a Word just yesterday that we are to be “Kingdom Observers” here.  We are to observe what is Kingdom work here and bless it.

Today as we were out and about I was looking around at all the people and thinking in this very city there are babes wasting in cribs.  Are the people here aware?  Do they know?  How can we help?  What would God have us do?  I’m desperate to know.

I know we are here for a reason.  I know it.  It just feels a bit sad today that we are not here for the reason we originally thought.  I think I’m mourning that a bit today.  I just have to trust God that He has a great purpose for us here.  His plans are pleasing and perfect no matter if they look how I thought they would look.  Today I need to remember that and trust.  I did tell Jed to take note that we will be returning to that office someday.  And when we do, we will have an appointment of our own.  BAM.  Take that!  🙂

(From Jed’s point of view)

Today has been great.  I just spent all day walking around Kiev, a beautiful city full of history, with my beautiful wife, who is full of passion.  When I watch her I’m reminded of the calling on our lives.  See, I have no problem resting and taking in the sights because I know that we have, and will, spend most of our lives pouring out of the overflow of God’s goodness in our lives.  Today was not that day.  Today was a day of fun.  God loves fun.  He is happy to watch us be happy.  “Happy are the people who’s God is the Lord.” -Pslam 144:15ish.  

As Americans, we are emotionally tied to pursuing happiness.  But, our diet of happiness has left us empty in the Purpose department.  Kim does not lack purpose; she is ready to fly.  But, God is not quite ready for us to take off.  He has us here to see what He is already doing.  We are here to notice His Kingdom breaking into the present.  And I see His Kingdom everywhere.  I see it in Daria and V as they talk about what God is doing in the Churches.  I see it in Eugene’s eyes.  I hear it in the voices of Nastia and Oleg.  I see it as young men give their seats to elders on the metro.  I could point out the oppression we see, but today I am seeing His Kingdom and I am praying for more.

“Holy Spirit you are welcome here.  Come flood this place and fill the atmosphere.  Your glory God is what our heart longs for, to be overcome by your presence Lord.”  -Bryan Torwalt

We were walking down the street, looking at paintings for sale.  It was so nice to see actual paint on canvas.  I mostly just see prints in America (probably says more about me, I’m sure there is plenty of paint in our fine country).  Anyways,  there was a painting of a girl in traditional Ukrainian clothing and she was harvesting wheat.  I was so moved by the picture.  I was reflecting on all of the Ukrainian people who are ready and searching and harvesting.

If our life was a war movie and God was a Captain, today He said, “Smoke ‘um if you got ‘um boys!”  Today I was smoking and Kim, like a Sargent was planning for what we would do after the rest.   We all knew she had rank on me anyways.  

-puffing away,  Jed  (not really puffing, Glen.)

 

Here’s some pictures from our adventures!

Oh my goodness this has been an AMAZING week!!!  God is showing us again that we are heading in the right direction and He’s got it all under control.  I’m amazed by Him.

Back up to August when we first decided to head to Eastern Europe for a “scoping it out” trip, we decided that the best time for Jed to take time off work would be in April.  April became our aim.  
Our local church here is a Vineyard Church, so we thought it would be cool to see if there were any Vineyard churches where we are heading.  We googled it, and low and behold there are 5!  We saw that there is a Vineyard church here in the US on the East Coast that has a partnership with those churches overseas to help shepherd them and send mission teams and such.  Cool!  We contacted a man named Vitaly, the church leader on the East Coast who is in charge of the partnership and found that he’s a native of the EE country and has lived in the States for 12 years.  Jed and Vitaly have been playing phone tag and email tag off and on since September! Jed wanted to find out from him if any of the churches there are doing orphan care and if there’s any church in particular we should try to visit.  


Well time passed and we were never able to really connect with Vitaly.  So, we booked our tickets and decided to just find those churches on our own once we arrive.  We knew of one particular city that looked like it had a thriving Vineyard church, so we planned to make that the last stop of our trip.  Fingers crossed someone there speaks a bit of English, right?  🙂  We already had our appointments set with orphan care organizations, so it wasn’t imperative that we find the church, but it would be pretty cool.  


This is where things get GOOD.  On Thursday Jed gets a call from guess who?  Vitaly!  They talked for a while and totally connected.  I love that about the Body of Christ.  Strangers are instantly brothers when they share a common heart and passion.  Vitaly shared his heart about the local church in EE taking ownership of the orphan issues.  He shared that mission teams are great and do amazing work, but if the local church doesn’t buy in the work doesn’t continue.  We totally agree!  Jed and I are local church people all the way.  We understand that we can bring our gifts and talents, but until it’s culturally relevant it’s only partially effective in making a long-lasting difference. 
So, Vitaly asks what dates we will be in EE, and guess what??  He arrives there the exact same day as us!  SHUT UP!!!!  Yep, he’ll be visiting from the US because starting the last day we are in county they are having a nationwide Vineyard conference -get this- in the exact town where we planned to be for the end of our trip! 
WAHOOOOOOOO!!!  God amazes me.  Apparently all the churches there have orphan care as their main outreach as well.  Sweet.


I contacted our travel agent right away to find out if we could change our departure date so we’d be able to be at the conference.  She said yes, there is availability, but it will cost about $640.00 to change our tickets.  Ummmmm never mind.  Jed says if God wants us there, He’ll let us know.  What’s $640.00 to Him when He’s provided so faithfully for the rest of the expenses for this trip?  


Then yesterday I get a text from a wonderful friend: “Change your tickets, I’m going to fund raise for the extra money, oh and if I can’t raise it all I’ll cover the rest myself”.  Bingo!  We have such a wonderful group of friends around us.  God comes through once again.  Seriously, how many signs and reminders do we need to show us that He is up to something big?  Just when I was starting to panic “What are we doing?  We don’t even know anyone in EE!  I don’t speak Russian!  We are really leaving our kids for over 2 weeks while we fly across the world to ‘check things out?’  We are nuts!”  Just then, God kicks in with awesome acts of faithfulness.  


He’s just plain good.  There’s no ifs ands or buts about it.