passport and Yana's orphanage

After our 10 day wait, we were back on the road to Ochakiv. To be honest, this leg of the journey was looooong. It's a good thing that some of those rough memories fade into the background with time. So now, I'm just remembering that it ended well, with Andrew's passport in hand, and the Ukrainian side of his adoption completed (thanks to Yana, our amazing translator and paperwork queen).

 

 

At that point, God did something miraculous. He opened the way for us to visit Yana's hometown (Melitopl) and orphanage (Berdyansk). As you may know, Ukraine is at war with Russia. The area where Yana is from is just 70 kilometers from the fighting. Though we were eager to visit these places, we were pretty sure that we wouldn't be able to do that on this trip. But, God made a way!

 

We encountered a number of military vehicles along the way, but felt perfectly safe. Thank you, Jesus!

 

 

The visit to Yana's orphanage was incredible. To think, she played on this playground!

 

And sat in this very classroom.

 

 

She ate lunch in this lunchroom.

 

 

And it is now obvious where she got her artistic start.

 This amazing woman remembered Yana and was with her when she originally went to court. What a precious lady! She was so excited to see Yana again and was incredibly sweet to us.

 

The city of Berdyansk.

 

We thought that this day could hardly have gone better, but God had something even more amazing in store for us. I'll share the details in my next post. It was truly a miracle!