After church this Sunday, Father Jacob asked everyone to pray for Mark and me. We knelt in front of him and everyone gathered behind us. He prayed a beautiful prayer asking for God to help us on our journey, to help us find the right children and to keep us all safe. While he prayed, I felt hands of little children on my back and arms, softly patting me in a sweet way. It made me cry a little because it made me think of Mary Evelyn and her sweet little hands and how much I miss her, but it was good because I felt like she was there too, reassuring me and loving on me a little before our trip. There really were a couple little kids right behind me, so don't worry, I haven’t lost my mind.

We have one week before we leave and our house in is an organized chaos. I just painted the potential boy’s room today. I only painted 3 walls because the 4th has a cute farm mural. We’re getting new carpet upstairs on Wednesday, so the new to us children’s bedroom furniture is downstairs in the hall along with boxes of stuff from upstairs. The eat in kitchen area is full of the last boxes of Mary Evelyn’s things. Last week, my friend Tami came over and helped me finish packing them up. “You don’t need to look at that now, you can look at it later” she’d say when I started to flirt with grief and so by steadily working, we finished it.Those boxes will be stored in Mark's parents' basement and we can go through them again when we're ready.

Tami and I had fun organizing books and things for the new kids. Once the carpet is in and we move the furniture upstairs into the bedrooms, it will be really exciting to see how it all looks. Mark’s 15 page list of home improvements is getting finished and tomorrow I’ll be writing a new one: the get packed and ready to go list.

I’ve been picking up on Ukranian travel tips. Today I learned not to order the Ukrainian specialty called “salo” because it’s sliced salted lard. I’m looking forward to some adventurous eating, but not that. I'll try the “holubtsil” which are cabbage rolls made to look like doves and of course pirogues and borscht. I can't believe I'll be there next week!

Thanks for your continued prayers! PS If you are interested in adoption, Perimeter Church is hosting a Discovery Seminar on April 17th to teach people about the process: http://www.promise686.org/