Surprise!

Well. Sometimes awesome stuff happens. 

We have been praying for a couple of weeks that we would be able to go to be with Lena on her birthday in November. Remember how I said it would be a miracle? I was praying for our date to be on, or before her birthday.... Which doesn't seem to be happening. 

Ok, well, when God works, it doesn't usually look like we expect it to, but it is always so clear it is still him. 

Someone has very generously given me a ticket to Ukraine from the day before Lena's birthday, until about 8 days after to go over to see Lena. This will not be our official appointment date, but an extra bonus visit. I will be flying by myself (Julia) and get to spend some time specifically with Lena for a little while. 

You can only imagine how excited I am!! Not only for the chance to see her and be able to finally tell her in person how much we love her.... But also to celebrate her birthday.... It will also just be so awesome to be able to kinda get a preview of the big trip to help me know how to better prepare to take our whole family over there! It's just amazing all the way around! 

She doesn't know about this yet.... So for those of you with vk accounts, I haven't decided yet it if will be a full surprise for her, or if we want her to have something to look forward to. The one thing I want to be clear about when she does find out, is that this is just an extra visit. I would never want her to end up disappointed because She misunderstands and thinks this is the big official trip. So, I am going to make sure that I have a good translator when we tell her..... Whenever that is! 

For the official update: We are still awaiting notification on our dossier approval. (Maybe this week?) And then our travel date assignment for the official trip.... My prayer now is that we will know our official travel date by the time I get to go over there so that by the time I leave, we might be able to tell her when we will be returning! How awesome will it be to be able to hug her when I have to back to the airport and be able to promise a a specific return timeline!