How 10 Days Became 15

In Ukraine there is a mandatory 10 day waiting period (in case someone comes forward to appeal the decision). For us, the 10th day fell on Friday, April 16th, so the court decree was not to be issued until Monday (the following business day). We had flights scheduled to leave the US on April 17th (to arrive in Ukraine on Sunday, the 18th) – we would hit the ground running with paperwork on Monday! Well, that was the plan until we started hearing news of volcanic ash shutting down some airports in Europe.

Sure enough… our flight was canceled. We rescheduled for the following Monday and on the way to the airport, Lufthansa finally updated their flight schedule to announce that all flights world-wide were canceled that day. On the way home from the airport, we called our travel agent (Golden Rule Travel – the best people!) and the earliest we could get tickets was Monday, April 26th. By the time we got home from the airport, Lufthansa had changed their plans and decided to operate some flights that day. Ours was one of them. So, off to the airport we went – not knowing what we could do because we had re-booked our flights for the following week. After pleading with the ticket agents, there was nothing more we could do. We weren’t able to get on a flight even though we had tickets earlier that day for the very flight that was operating.

We were extremely discouraged and went home. We were reminded, however, that God is in control and even though it may seem like a strange plan to us, His plans are better than ours!

Our three year old, Caleb, was confused! By the time we arrived home for the second time that day, he looked in the van and asked, “Where’s Zhenya, Katya & Kristina?”. We had to explain that we hadn’t been to Ukraine yet. I said “We just keep going to the airport.” Caleb turn to his sisters and said, “Ohhh… they just keep going to the airport.” – as if that explained everything! If only our faith was that simple! We don’t always accept a change of plans that easily.

I was able to get a cell phone number for one of Katya’s roommates so I could call and let the girls know why we were not in Ukraine to get them yet. Hopefully one day I’ll know what they were thinking – I’m not sure she completely understood why we weren’t there. She had heard about the volcano, but had no idea that meant we couldn’t get on an airplane. I told her to let Zhenya & Kristina know about the situation and that we were trying to get there as quickly as possible.

After the two trips to the airport and no success, we were resigned to the fact that we would have to wait a week. Because of the backlog of passengers due to the volcano, it didn’t look like there would be open seats in the near future. The next morning Jack went back to work and I had planned to get some things done that had been waiting for our return. Around 8:30am I decided to check online and see if seats had opened up on any flights prior to Monday. When I looked, the website showed open seats for the flights we needed that day. I called our travel agent (the emergency cell phone number) and told them what I saw. In about 2 minutes we had gone from waiting for a week to having tickets for that day… now to let everyone know, wake the kids up (they were all still asleep), call Jack home from work and head to the airport. We needed to leave in about 45 minutes in order to get there in time.

Fast forward… we made it! We went from Atlanta to Charlotte. In Charlotte, Lufthansa couldn’t tell us if our flight out of Germany would be operational… they said “you will be responsible for your own lodging and alternate transportation in order to get to Ukraine”. At that point, we knew God had opened a door for us to get there and we should just keep moving. Also, the only tickets that had been available for the flight from Germany to Ukraine was for the following day. We’d have a 28+ hour wait in the Munich airport. We kept praying that the flight would be operational and that we would be able to make it on the flight a day earlier! And that’s exactly what happened. We got to Munich and waited in the Lufthansa check-in counter to find out if we could get on the flight. We did – without even having to fly stand-by and wait at the gate for a seat. Just knowing we would be on our way the same day was such a relief. We knew we would soon see our girls!

After a 2 1/2 hour taxi drive from the airport, we arrived in Severodonetsk at about 7:00pm on Wednesday, April 21st. We were told that we would be allowed to pick up the girls from the orphanage the following morning at 8am. We were both excited and nervous – there was so much to be done. Would the girls be ready to leave (not just have their bags packed… emotionally ready)? Could we get all of their documents in order before the weekend so we could start the paper chase in Kyiv on Monday? When would we get home with the girls?

One thing we knew for certain… God brought us here & He will be faithful. It might not always look like what we imagine and no matter how hard we try, our plans are not concrete. He can even use a volcano to change our plans! For some reason, His plan was for us to arrive a little later than we anticipated. Wonder if we’ll ever know why!