Monday March 17th - Happy St. Patrick's Day

We met with our facilitator at just before noon today and as we half expected, there is no news for us as far as a new referral. Our facilitator plans to be at the State Department (SDA) office when they open tomorrow (Tuesday) morning in the hopes that something new develops towards potential child referrals. It didn't totally surprise me that there was no news; its still been less than a week since we've requested a 2nd appointment. Plus is the sad fact that referrals for little girls are so much more difficult to come by. On the other hand we've been in this apartment for more than a week now and are ready for something to happen.





It seems as though the SDA is going through an overhaul of sorts. During recent weeks a lot of the top brass had been replaced by a new Administration and the effect is currently trickling down. I know that during the day of our original appointment on March 3rd, there was a new Director interviewing a lot of the SDA staff while we all were waiting for our appointment interviews. At the time we didn't think a whole lot of it. Now we've learned that the actual psychologist that interviewed us a few weeks ago has been relieved of her position by this new Director. I do remember that she was one of the people who was being interviewed by the new Director on the same day that she interviewed us. According to our facilitator, she was pretty uptight about it.






We didn't plan any real touring of the city in the hopes that we'd get positive news from the SDA. About the only activity for today was a grocery store run. Since now we know we'll at least be here for a few more days it only made sense to stock our shelves. The grocery store is at the foot of a hill that leads into St. Michael Square. How could I possibly leave this post without including another picture of the St. Michael Bell Tower.




We also saw a sign that Coke has made headway into this former Soviet Republic as well. I wonder what the local babushkas think of all of these colorful western ads invading their motherland.





We'll keep you posted with tomorrow's word from the SDA. Meanwhile we're here in our Kiev apartment, trying to appreciate our once in a lifetime trip to an Eastern European city.





Be well and God bless....









Steve