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It has been a long time since we have updated the blog. Turns out another kid in the house makes you even busier than you were before. Go figure.
To make up for our long silence, here is a video of Jonas saying his prayers before bed. Enjoy!!!
Prayer time with Jonas from Jason Epperly on Vimeo.
Things are going very well here at home. Jonas is fitting in well and interacting with us and his sisters very well. He struggles around the same things every kid struggles, eating and time for bed :. He is learning english extremely fast (understanding what we are saying). He is making a lot more noise, but still struggles with pronouncing words correctly.
The girls have been doing really well with him and have learned pretty quickly how to deal with any language issues. They have really enjoyed having the new brother. They also like the fact that along with a brother there are a lot of new toys too :)
Jonas has gone through all his medical checks and is now officially "healthy". We are working on getting him in touch with a speech therapist still, so we will let you know how all that goes.
We are home… more updates to come, but right now we have a lot of hugging to catch up on!
We are done here, just waiting until 4:30 a.m. when our driver picks us up to take us to the airport. The flight is scheduled to land in Charlotte at 3:40 p.m., however, we also have to go through immigration. I am not sure how long this will take. I don’t want you guys to be just waiting for hours, so I don’t think anyone should worry about showing up until at least 4:00 (just a suggestion).
We are so ready to go, can’t wait to see all our wonderful family and friends. Friday will be a different kind of day at the Epperly House. Thank you for following our journey, it has been a long 31 days for us and our girls at home (but by adoption standards it was quite fast).
We will keep you posted as to what happens when we get home, but don’t expect post everyday :)
Take care and God Bless!
I want to share some pictures of the people that we have met on our journey.
This is Vanya, he met us at the airport, stayed with us and did all of our running around to get our paperwork done. He was always just a phone call away. What a great guy!
Vanya and his sweet Mom, Olga. TOur first night in Gorlovka we had dinner at their house and it was great! They introduced us to Buckwheat and we love it! This picture was taken our last week here when they came over to our apartment and had dinner with us.
This is us with Kostya (our Facilitator, and dossier expert), his wonderful wife Olga and their son Nikita. What can I say about them other than they are awesome. They had us over many times, took us to the market, called to checked on us, and translated for us in church. We had such a great time getting to know them and spending time with them. We hope that they will visit us soon.
This is Ira, Igor and little Erin (their newly adopted baby girl). They came over tonight and we had pizza. They are an amazing family with such big hearts. Erin is a very blessed little girl.
I wish that I had a picture of our driver Atari. We spent a lot of time in his car and we know he can dodge potholes like nobody else! Most of the time I just sat back and closed my eyes.
I feel a special connection with these great people, can’t really explain it just know that it’s there. God’s timing and the plans he has for us are perfect. We could have been anywhere in Ukraine, but our son was in this region and I am so thankful for that. I just wanted you all (and them) to know how much they mean to us!
Good-bye’s are hard for me, so we will leave it with “ see you later” .
Love you all and God Bless!
We are almost all packed up for leaving in the morning. We leave our apartment at 7am and if all goes as planned we will not be coming back to it. Off to get the birth certificate and passport. This should take the most of the day. We will jump on the train to Kiev tomorrow night.
As a special note to our avid blog “followers” (addicts), we will be moving back into the land of limited internet access. Expect fewer posts, each with fewer pictures. To hold you over, here some pics from the last couple of days.
Prayer requests. We are asking for a smooth paperwork process with tomorrows documents and safe travel as we start making our way back home.
We were able to take custody of Jonas yesterday. It was rough for Jonas to leave his care givers. He was really upset to have to say good bye to the only thing he has really known for 2 years. We got to the car, and we were out of there. Last night was AWESOME. Great time playing together, eating dinner and bath time. He is very curious and likes to touch everything (typical 4 year old stuff).
And then there was bed time…
Bed time was not easy. Jonas was NOT ready, but we are trying hard NOT to mess up his schedule too much, and he is normally in bed by 9. So it was 9, and he has mastered “No” already :) It took about an hour of sitting with him before he gave up crying and relented to sleep.
This morning… more AWESOME. He seems quite ready for all this. Breakfast and teeth brushing went smoothly and now… more playing. Today our girls will get to talk to their little brother for the first time, we know how excited they are for that. We can’t wait until we are all together. Morgan, Emma, and Madeline are going to teach him so much!
What is next?
Here is the plan. We are now officially in the “Exit Phase”
LUFTHANSA 19FEB MUNICH CHARLOTTE NC 1130A 340P
LH 428 THURSDAY MUNICH INTERNATIONAL DOUGLAS
ECONOMY AIRCRAFT: AIRBUS INDUSTRIE A330-300
We thank you all for you prayers and encouragement. Looking so forward to being home. Happy Valentine’s Day.
God Bless!
