Decisions, decisions....

It's been another incredibly tough day...probably the toughest since we got here. Such a hard decision to make and we've wavered back and forth so many times. We got the information regarding the child we're interested in. It is not as positive as we had hoped for, but more positive than the information we received on the last child we visited. Today we had to decide whether or not we wanted to go see this child or wait another week to view more files at the adoption center. There are risks associated with either decision we make.....If we go to see this child and we feel we are not able to adopt them, we do not get another appointment at the adoption center. If we wait for another appointment, they can not guarantee that there would be any other files for us to view once we get there. The selection of children for foreigners is very small, and we feel if we pass on this one that we're interested in and wait another week, we may miss out altogether.

So we've decided to take a step of faith and go see the child we have been proposed. This child is much older than we expected and we know that if we go ahead with the adoption there may be some issues. We are just hoping those issues are not too much for us to handle. We will find out when we meet them.

We will be leaving Kiev early tomorrow morning for the Sumy region in northern Ukraine. Thank goodness it will not be by train...we have hired a driver. The only downside to that is that it will cost us about 5 times the price of a train. We will leave at 6 am and are hoping to arrive at the orphanage around 11am or noon to see the child. The area we are going to is basically a very small village. Our facilitator thinks there will be very little chance of us having internet at all. Not even an internet cafe. So communication may be limited for the next couple of days. If we have no internet contact at all, we will be phoning family with information. We hope this is not the case, as long distance is extremely expensive. We'll have to see. Please continue to pray for us.

On a lighter note, I have included some pictures of Terry's haircut today. He was pretty desperate, as he hasn't had one in a while. We found a tiny little salon where a haircut cost $100 hryvna (about 20 bucks) Despite out somber moods, I almost peed my pants laughing when Terry got out of the stylist's chair. He looks very Ukrainian now! He will fit right in! As for me, I still stick out like a sore thumb. We've seen maybe 2 people with curly hair the whole time we've been here. Oh well, maybe I'll set a new trend!

Tara