Preparations

God is definitely preparing us to return to Ukraine, which is a bit ironic seeing how long it's taking us to get there. :) In Ukraine, it is considered very inappropriate to set your Bible on the floor. Last night we were at Bible study, and Mark had set his Bible on the floor of the living room next to where he was sitting. I was holding mine in my lap, because every time I set it on the floor I remember Ukraine, and lately those remembrances are coming back more and more strongly. ;) Mark set his down, then turned to me and said "It feels weird setting my Bible on the floor--it reminds me of Ukraine." And he finally had to lean over and pick it up because it was bothering him. :) :) We both miss Ukraine so much and are so anxious to go back. Every day it seems there are more things that bring Ukraine to mind, even smells and sounds.

We have a fingerprinting appt this Friday for our FBI prints (part of the I600A application for our 171H approval). Not much else is happening adoption-wise, although we both need to redo our medical forms. That is definitely the most painful part of the adoption process, and it has nothing to do with shots. Ukraine requires the med form to be filled out very specifically, and it can be very difficult to convince people to do it one specific way, especially when to them it appears to be essentially the same thing between the way they do it and the way we want it done. So prayers for time to do the appts and that they would go smoothly would be great. :)

In other news, we are considering buying a house. It is right up the street from us and needs some work. We would like to buy it and live in our current rental house while we fix it up. We've pretty much decided that we're going to make an offer on it (way lower than what they're asking) but we still need to get financing. That's not a problem, we just haven't looked into it yet. We're not exactly jumping into this house--more easing ourselves in. :) There's currently a tenant in the house, and we don't want to kick anyone out before Christmas. We've been talking about what to do with this family--they have children with medical needs and I'm sure they don't have a lot of income. But the house needs more work than can be done with people living in it. If we buy the house, we can do some of the work with them there, but we are hoping that after the holidays that we would be able to help them find some housing and help them move. So there have been a lot of factors to consider with this house, including the tenants, rehabbing costs, etc. Consequently we've been taking our time making a decision. ;) I think if we are able to get good financing and they accept our really low offer we'll know it's a good decision. We're letting God take care of all of the details with this. :)