Libby's turn

We just watched our weekly fireworks show out the window.  A fun tradition here is to have fireworks at the end of the wedding reception.  The hotel where we are staying has a large room for parties and it has been in use every weekend we have been here, sometimes with mid-week celebrations,too, like birthday parties.  Ukrainians love to dance and sing and shoot fireworks.

When we walked down to the orphanage today to see Julia there was a group of teen-aged boys standing by the door.  They were so proud of themselves for saying hello in English . That was fun.  I feel like we are getting to know some people here in town.  I recognize a few of the kids from the orphanage and the guys the Foxes have introduced to us, Andrew and Vova .  It is starting to feel not so foreign now that it is almost time to leave.

Julia seems to be happy about coming home with us and is opening up more and is braving her English speaking more and more.  She can read it much more than I thought but I am not sure she understands what she reads.  But just being able to know the abc's is a big deal.  I wish I knew the Ukrainian/Russian abc's .  Then I would not feel so helpless and out of place.

Andy just brought me something that I love in Ukraine:  chocolate!  They have great chocolate.  Tonight we did not feel like going out into the cold for dinner, so we had a cozy meal of crackers with Laughing Cow cheese and instant soup.  We had salami and cheese sandwiches for lunch.  We are blessed to be able to buy food and have a warm room and a fun, nice place to stay.  The people in the hotel are very friendly,too.  There are two waitresses who are really nice to us and help us figure out how to order.  They probably call us the cabbage family because we order the coleslaw every time we eat there, which is often.  It reminds us of Linda McDaniel's amazing slaw.

While we are very anxious to get home and can get discouraged when things get bogged down and take longer than we thought they would we have had a very pleasant experience here and lots of fun.  We have had great fellowship with the Martins and the team they serve with in Odessa and with the Fox family and with the people at the baptist church where we worshiped last Sunday. We have enjoyed getting emails from folks at home.  We love that we can stay in touch most of the time and some of you have been so kind to write to us newsy updates from the home front . Yesterday on our way home from Sumy the sky was ablaze with the glory of God.  We watched the sun set for most of the trip and the sky got more and more beautiful as we watched.  Julia signed her new name for the first time and she said in English, "my name is Julia." We are so blessed!