Mark passed his licensure test!! (day 18)

Mark is officially licensed in the state of MO to practice physical therapy! He took the test last week but I didn't post because he was nervous enough about it already. :) He got his letter yesterday stating that he had passed!! I am so excited for him and proud of him. He has studied really hard the past couple of months to be prepared for this test.

I have a new video for all of you. Check out The Promise, and be sure to watch the video. This is a program in Russia, not Ukraine, but it is a good example of the conditions in the orphanages, especially for children with special needs. Ukraine also sends children with special needs to separate orphanages where they are usually kept in bed with very little interaction. There are a number of groups working in Ukraine to combat the stigma of special needs and to improve conditions in the orphanages. One I am fond of is His Kids, Too, a US based non-profit that works directly with several orphanages in Ukraine. There are some pictures on their website of one of the orphanages they work with called "Home of the Forgotten Children" (starting at the bottom of the page). You can look through their many picture albums of their mission trips to see the work they have done and how much still remains.

We are at day 18 (thanks for the reminder, Nataliya! :) ), but we don't anticipate hearing anything for a couple of weeks. We do know of two families who have received appointments, one who submitted July 16 and one who submitted July 30. They both found out within the last week and a half, so we are anticipating another couple of weeks for us. We'll let you know as soon as we find out!!

Tomorrow is the Jeremiah Fruin vintage base ball festival in Lafayette Square Park, so we will be at the park most of the day.As long as it doesn't rain, we should have beautiful weather since our temperatures have finally started dropping. Autumn seems to be settling in, and I would love a nice long autumn before we head to Kyiv in winter! ;)

***Oh, and I took out the links to the pictures from Ohio Cup from the previous post and just posted the pictures. Sorry about that.