Stranger than Fiction...

The whirlwind hit into a brick wall!! Please pray with us! Please pray for us!
As you know, we traveled by train all nite last nite to meet the children. But, when we got
to Odessa the mayor had shut down the city. No schools, no national adoption, no international
adoptions. The FLU has hit the Ukraine and they are taking drastic measures! The State Dept.
of Adoption has stopped giving referrals to families seeking adoption until the threat of flu has
passed. The inspector of Odessa said, "No appointments at the orphanages!" Zhenya talked to the orphanage director and the regional supervisor. Found out that the children were in different orphanages.

We had been told they were in the same orphanage and that their health was good.
Only to find when we got there that the boy was hospitalized, and had more serious health
problems than we were lead to believe. The day before Zhenya was having great difficulty
contacting the orphanage director. (There are many good orphanages in the Ukraine but this
one seems not to be one of them. And, their files were not accurate. The 3 of us went back to our apartment and talked and talked and tried to discern what to do next. (Was this an obstacle to overcome or a door closing in front of us??)

We felt that God was blocking/stopping this particular referral. There were many blocks from many angles.

SOOOooo, where does that leave us? We are going to officially refuse that referral. We've travelled back to Kiev on bus. And, have decided to stay for another appt. next week, and look at new children's files. At that time we will see if the flu epidemic has settled at all. We need to be prepared to travel home at the end of next week... without any children. And, go back to the Ukraine to finish the process when the epidemic has settled down. We are choosing
to view this as a sovereignly closed door and that there are other children meant for us.