"What is it that you would like for me to do?"

This is, unless otherwise instructed, the only appropriate question to ask of our facilitator once we hit the ground in Ukraine. It has been suggested that I make this my mantra. In other words, it is time to hand over the reins (ie. give up control – as if I ever really had it!) to someone who knows what they are doing. My work (or at least my "thinking" work) is largely done. Now it is time to simply follow instructions. Normally, even the mere suggestion of this would cause me stress but in this case I’m actually cool with it – and looking forward to it! We could not be in more capable hands! Our team in Ukraine is THE BEST and our God is AWESOME. Besides, I have learned that asking questions doesn't always net me useful information. We'll call it cultural, acknowledge it is for the best, and leave it at that.

We are in the midst of a packing crisis and, admittedly, in the grand scheme of things, it is a good problem to have. It means the important stuff is all in order! And we can put our attention on stuff that, frankly, doesn’t really matter (until you get to Ukraine and realize you don’t have enough peanut butter – then, all of the sudden, it MATTERS!).

Anyway, our flight leaves Saturday mid-morning. We chose a cost-efficient but not necessarily time-efficient flight itinerary. We’ll spend the extra time practicing doing nothing which is, apparently, something you do a lot of while in Ukraine. As a side note: it kinda makes me laugh that we think we’re saving money. If you’ve adopted internationally, no doubt you are laughing too. All I can say is, “Thank you, Obama & crew, for the tax credit!”. It certainly doesn’t cover everything, but it makes all of this possible.

Our flights connect in Dulles and Frankfurt. We arrive in Kiev mid-day Sunday where we will be 6 hours ahead of EDT. We’ll have the remainder of Sunday and all of Monday to recover from our jetlag/lack of sleep, adjust to the time difference, and see the sights in Kiev (supposedly with no hope of not being obviously American). We are traveling this leg of the trip with another family from Raleigh (they’ll probably blow our cover by wearing white or, shamefully, tennis shoes!). Our SDA appointments are the same day (Tuesday). After that, we will part ways and head to different regions.

So the logistics for this week are about wrapping up final details of the next two or so months of our lives (ie. stop the mail, arrange for cat sitting, fret over the coffee situation, and have our last non-parent meal with our non-parent friends!). And practicing my mantra…