The Quest for Our Princess: The Wedding. Post by Shawn!

Yesterday we did something that we never get to do at home, sleep in. The boys make that a daily struggle when we are at home. Just ask Tim and Cindy, they know now. Thank you guys from the bottom of my heart for all that you are doing to make this possible. Eryna didn’t see us Friday, so I think she got more excited yesterday when she saw us. When she first saw Allison she came running down the hall and almost knocked her over. After the big hug, she kept kissing her face. It was a very precious moment. One of the pastors from the church was nice enough to give us a ride to the orphanage. We’re trying to help our money last so this pastor said he could drive us for less than our other driver. We have also decided to go to the orphanage every other day instead of everyday to help as well. So anyway, Eryna and I had a lot of fun together. She seems to be getting more and more comfortable with us and we are as well. We got her new clothes in the market on Friday, so we tried them on her. The jeans fit good, but I think the shirt we got her is a little small. It was good to see what sizes fit and what didn’t. It’s been nice with Eryna now because the caregivers give us our own time with her without the other kids. I enjoy the one on one time with Eryna. She can’t get enough of riding on my shoulders. I enjoy it too, but I don’t know how long I will be able to physically do it. I feel like I need neck surgery already. She is an amazing girl and I can’t wait to bring her home.

Today we went to church and had another friend from the church translate for us. Eva left today on vacation to her home country of Switzerland. This guy is very nice. He actually came from a whole other church just so that he could translate for us which I thought was really nice. That is the one thing that has truly been a God send is all the people’s generosity and willingness to help people they don’t even know. It has made our trip so much more enjoyable and inspirational. I have met some of the kindest people at this church and I can’t even understand what most of them say!! You can just feel the heart of Jesus pouring out of them. Some of the people don’t know any phases in English other than the one phase they learned so they could personally say it to us, “We are glad you are here.” Right after that they say, “that is all I know of English”. But that is enough for me. The Ukraine has some great people. The service in church today was actually different. A young couple had their wedding as part of the sermon. It was very pretty and a traditional Ukrainian Christian wedding. A couple hours after the service was the reception. It started at 3pm and ended at 10pm. Wow! The amount of food they had on the tables was amazing! We haven’t seen that much food during the whole time we have been here. Everything was very different but very good. We wanted to make to-go plates! The reception is so long because they do a lot of things during it such as games, dances, songs are sang to the couple from other people, the bride sings songs to the groom, etc. At the end, everyone went outside to a display of the couple’s name. All of a sudden, the names lit up in sparklers and fireworks went off. The fireworks were really big ones and they were scaring Allison because they were going off very close to us. We had a wonderful time and another new experience to add to our memories.