We are in Kiev!

Answered prayers!

God has again shown Himself to be worthy of our praise!

In a loud voice they sang: "Worthy is the Lamb, who was slain, to receive power and wealth and wisdom and strength and honor and glory and praise!" Revelation 5:12

I woke this morning comforted by the awesome knowledge that we were covered in so much prayer. In the past 24 hours I have heard from so many people (lots who I don’t know) that were encouraging us through emails, texts, and facebook postings sharing the news that they were praying for us. I can’t tell you how much all the prayers and encouragement has meant, but the last 24 hours have been really special.

I was sharing with Jenny yesterday afternoon (morning for ya’ll) during my lowest/weakest moments here yet, that I was sure I was in the “right” place spiritually but I felt like Job (I was careful to make too close a comparison) and that I couldn’t figure out what God wanted me to be doing. I was truly a broken man. I think she could hear it in my voice and maybe see it in my face while we Skyped.

Shortly after we finished our conversation, I started getting text after text and I knew that people were lifting us up in prayer. I could feel it. When I finally had a chance to read the blog before going to bed, there were more comments and prayers and scriptures. When I checked email, even more prayers and encouragement and this morning, even more. I was a new man delivered through your prayers.

After doing my quite time and “Experiencing God” Bible study, getting my shower and making sure everything was ready to go just in case we got the passports, I went upstairs to see about the kids at 7:30ish. Alona and Natasha were awake and watching TV in bed while Maks was still asleep. I told them I would be back in a few minutes and we would have to get ready in case we needed to go.

At 9:30, I called Anna to ask for an update and she told me that the director had told her this morning that he was checking on the passports and would call her back. “I can handle that” I thought and told myself to not be held a prisoner by the passports and told the kids at 11am we were going to the library and then to lunch. Just then, the door opens from the third floor and Anna and Kostya told me that they received a call from the director and he asked them to come to his office. They told me that’s all they knew and would be back as soon as they could. At 11:45ish they returned with the 3 passports. We quickly finished packing and got in the car.

The kids did great during the 4 and a half hour drive from Khelm to Kiev and we arrived at out apartment around 5pm, I got a load of laundry quickly started so we will have some clean clothes to wear, and then we went across the street and got groceries so we could eat dinner in the apartment. What a shame though because I could smell the McDonald’s that’s only a few blocks away. After dinner, we walked and got ice cream and then took baths, watched some TV and to bed.

Tomorrow we will be very busy. Kostya is picking us up at 8am and taking us to the US Embassy where we will get the paperwork started for the visas. From there we will go to the hospital and get the medicals done and then back to the Embassy to finish the paperwork on the visas. I’ve got some healthy and unhealthy food ready in case we don’t have time to stop and eat.

God willing, this could be one of the last posts from Ukraine. If we get the visas tomorrow afternoon, I will be returning the wireless internet modem I have been using to connect to the web and will not have it tomorrow night or Saturday morning. Words cannot express enough what an awesome journey this has been for me. Tomorrow will mark 5 full weeks on this trip, the last 3 without Jenny to experience it alongside me.

Tomorrow, I will also finish week 8 of 12 in the “Experiencing God” Bible study I’ve referenced a number of times in previous posts. The general purpose or theme of study is to help you develop or grow in your personal relationship with God so that you are experiencing Him in your life minute by minute. God has amazed me how our journey to adopt Maks, Alona, and Natasha has mirrored my journey towards experiencing God. The study has provided me strength and great encouragement to me during my stay in Ukraine.

I wrote earlier about the strength and encouragement I received from so many people praying for us and how awesome and humbling it is. We have received hundreds of emails, comments to the posts, facebook dialogues, and texts. All of them have a very special place in my heart. It is indescribable how it has made me feel. Everyone word carried so much meaning.

I have also found strength and encouragement from my beautiful bride, Jenny and my six children (that’s still hard to write), Keely, Maks, Alona, Max, Isabelle, and Natasha. Getting to spend the first two weeks here with Jenny was great. It wasn’t the “honeymoon” we never took, but for me it was the single most significant period in our lives together so far. I have a deeper love for her today than ever before. God has truly blessed me in my marriage to her. She is an incredible wife and mother and more importantly, a follower of Christ. I am also so proud of my six children. For Keely, Max and Isabelle at home, thanks for all your prayers and encouraging conversations on Skype. I am so proud of you and can’t wait to see you. For Maks, Alona, and Natasha, thanks for all the very special memories that will never be recreated. You have been a joy to spend these 3 weeks with.

Greater than all the support and encouragement I received from friends and family through emails, comments to posts, facebook dialogues, texts, and Skype, has been God and His Word. I have truly “experienced God” throughout His rescue of these three children. God has revealed Himself to me and the world in so many incredible ways. God had a plan; to rescue Maks, Alona and Natasha, from a life as orphans and He accomplished that plan by using the Borden family with the help and support of some many other people. God is good and worthy of my praise!

In closing (at least for this post), I ask for your prayers regarding the completion of the medicals and visas by close of business Friday, May 29, 2009. I ask for your prayers for both selfish reasons and possible eternal ones. Selfishly, I want to come home and unite our family and that will happen. The possible eternal reasons are far more important right now. I have been told by every member of the team that getting this done is VERY unlikely and to not buy plane tickets for a Saturday departure. We were also told by the team numerous other times that certain events were very unlikely to occur in the timeline and God showed up and accomplished them. You see, there are eyes watching and ears listening and hearts open to what God has been doing in His rescue of Maks, Alona and Natasha. I told you about a conversation I had with Anna regarding her comments about “believing God, but not the way I do” and asking then for your prayers about how I might be able to witness to her (and thank you for those). Other than me giving praise and thanks to all God has done including the delivery of the passports today, I’ve not done much, but believe there is still a chance. In the “Experiencing God” study, it talks about encounters with God are God-sized saying “The only way people will know what God is like is to see Him at work in their world” it goes on to say “The assignments God gave in the Bible were always God-sized. They were always beyond what people could do in their own strength because He wanted to demonstrate His nature, His strength, His provision, and His love to His people and to watching world. That is the only way the world will come to know Him”.

God’s rescue of Maks, Alona, and Natasha is certainly God-sized and could not have been accomplished by man alone and it is taking place right in the middle of “their” world. It’s a world that is built on distrust, deceit, greed, and darkness. I believe God has opened “their” eyes, ears, and hearts through His power to rescue these three children. I said my good-byes to Anna this afternoon in case I don’t see her again. I have her email address and will stay in touch with her and will witness to her as the spirit leads, but wouldn’t it be awesome if I had one more chance to witness to Anna and the team about His greatness by praising Him for getting the medicals and visas completed in one business day? Please don’t get me wrong, there isn’t anything that will happen that will diminish in my eyes, ears and heart what I have seen God do if we don’t get the medicals and visas tomorrow; but it might just open their’s a little more in “their” in world.

Well the next step in the journey will start again for me in a litte over four and a half hours when my alarm goes off. Thanks again for all your prayers and encouragement!

God willing, I look forward to seeing many of you very soon at home. “We’ll see!”

"For He will rescue the poor who cry out and the afflicted who have no helper. He will have pity on the poor and helpless and save the lives of the poor. He will redeem them from oppression and violence for their lives are precious in His sight." Psalm 72:12

Blessings <><,

David

Passports are in my hands!

PRAISE THE LORD!!!!!!!!

It's 11:47am and Anna just returned with passports and we are rushing to get in the car to Kiev. Now I'm praying that we have safe travels and get to Kiev in time to do medicals done.

Blessings <><,
David

Thursday morning @ 8:45am

We are up are ready to go get those passports should they come. While I had a few minutes, I thought I would post a few pictures form the last few days.

BTW - I did get to sleep before 11pm and didn't get up until 6:30am. Thank you all for your prayers, they are greatly appreciated and felt.


a message of love by Alona. It says "I love Jeeny and Devd" in the heart and there is a piece of candy next to it
sidewalk chaulk
Ukrainian Indians performing on the street
playing in a pile of sand outside apartment
Natasha on swings at the large park
at large park with Julia
Alona and Julia
Maks, Natasha, and Julia at restaurant
kids break dancing on street
kids at apartment

As David is sleeping...

at least I'm praying David is going to be sleeping shortly. I just skyped with David. The kids were watching a little television, and then David was going to get them a snack and put them to bed (10pm their time). If you know David, you know he's already got a schedule going for those kids ;)!

David is physically tired as I'm sure you can imagine taking care of our three new children, and is emotionally tired waiting to come home. As we have clearly seen, he can't trust what he is being told as far as when these passports come. We do trust in God though! To remember all He has done for us, the great things He has done for us, we know He is still in control. When the kids go to bed, David is going to go ahead and try to get to sleep versus blogging and facebooking.

He is weary, but wants me to let you know that God is sustaining him through the comments, texts, emails and prayers. He also said there are still many beautiful moments with the kids, and he's getting some great pictures.

We are so thankful for you all. God is great, and know that nothing can separate us from the love of Jesus. Oh how important it is to know Jesus not just by name but by close, personal relationship so that when you are up you learn how to praise and cling to Him so that when you are low you know how to praise and cling to Him.

Please continue to pray in boldness for those passports to come immediately! Love, Jenny

Romans 8:37-39 No, in all these things we are more than conquerors through him who loved us. For I am convinced that neither death nor life, neither angels nor demons, neither the present nor the future, nor any powers, neither height nor depth, nor anything else in all creation, will be able to separate us from the love of God that is in Christ Jesus our Lord.

Wed. 5/27 @ 2:00pm Khelm time

Please continue to pray for passports! It's 20pm here in Khelm and we still don't have passports. I called Anna at 11am after not having heard from her and asked "when are the passports going to be here?" She said that she spoke to the guy and he said that they weren't here. She told me that when she knew something she would call. At 1:45pm I called her again and tried to push her for more info. I didn't get anything out of her. I have called one of the team leaders in Kiev and am waiting for her to return my call.

I'll try to update everyone again later today.

Blessings <><,

David

Tuesday

I want to thank everyone who is praying for us as well as the emails, facebook comments, and comments to the posts, etc. They all bring me lots of encouragement and are cherished!

The days are going by rather quickly now that I am a “stay at home away from home dad”. We had a good day despite finding out at 10:30 that our.

At around 9am I got my shower then got the kids ready to go to the park and an early lunch so we could be back by noon to meet Kostya and Anna. Before we headed out the door, I called Kostya to ask when they would be arriving and he told me that they had spoken to the director of passports here in Khelm and he said they were in Kiev and would be in Khelm on Wednesday morning. “Unbelievable” I thought. I really would do as well to not even ask! I told the kids that we weren’t going to get the passports today and Maks said “maybe tomorrow, pop?” There are doing great with all this waiting and uncertainty.
We headed to the park and on the way, Maks asked if they could drive the small battery powered cars they rode the first day they visited with me. Sure I said and they took off running. After the cars, we walked to the park where they went straight for the swings! From the swings, they went for the merry go round and just as they got on, a 2-3 year old with her mother walked up and wanted on. I got Maks’ attention and motioned to go slow because of the little one. He understood and did a good job to keep it slow. When the little girl got off, I told him he could “go fast!” And they did. So fast in fact that after about 5 minutes, Maks was stopping it and got off telling me he wasn’t feeling well and wanted to go to doma (house). I asked the girls to come over and explained that we needed to go. Since Maks didn’t feel well, we weren’t going to be able to out to lunch and we didn’t have much to eat so I asked Maks if he could make it through a quick stop at the grocery and he agreed. We hurried through picking up 2 couple of tomatoes, a few apples, a bunch of bananas (the really small ones – I don’t think I had ever had them before, but they are pretty good), a few pears, some juice, Coke Light, dried fish (this time) some Ramon noodle soup packages, chips, bread, gum, peanuts in the shell and sunflower seeds. By the time we were done, Maks was done.

When we got back, Maks lay down and I fixed lunch for the girls. They had a whole hodge podge of stuff we had just bought. After lunch, I went downstairs and the girls went in their room to watch TV with Maks. When I came back up, Maks and Natasha were asleep. I wanted to do my Experiencing God Bible study so I invited Alona to go outside with me and suggested she could work on one of the “workbooks” we had brought with us. They have math, spelling, and readings activities in them. We had a good hour or so together and even got to Skype with Jenny for a few minutes then Natasha game out.

This is going to sound crazy, but its 12:30am again and at the pace I’m typing this it will be 2:00am before I’m finished so I’m going to quickly wrap it up.
Maks got up around 3pm and felt a little better. We had dinner at 5pm. At 6:30 they started getting their baths which are getting longer and longer each time! At 7pm, Tatiana’s husband (I think it’s Antonio) came up and asked us to come downstairs. We went and he had prepared a very nice dinner of roasted chicken, potatoes au gratin, fresh tomatoes, and cucumber. It was all on a tray ready for us to carry up. It was a very nice gesture and a very good meal. Maybe the best meal I’ve had while I’ve been here! The kids didn’t eat much of it so I enjoyed their leftovers. We watched more TV and at 9:45pm we sang songs, said a prayer, and light out. I skyped with Jenny and the kids for a while and then tried to get things packed back up in case we are going to Kiev tomorrow.

Anna and Kostya are here and they are supposed to call at 9am to check on the passports. Please pray that God’s will be done regarding them.

Sorry no pictures for the 2nd day in a row. We’ve taken some, but by the time I’ve started posting, it’s late and the connection is very slow and it takes forever to upload them.

Blessings <><,
David

Memorial Day!

It’s not Memerial Day here in Khelm, but I did my best to enjoy the holiday from miles away!

Quick post tonight since it’s 12:30am and I need to get some sleep. Please continue to pray for Gods’ will to be done with reagrds to the passports. I spoke to Koysta late tonight and it appears that the passports won’t arrive before noon. We will call again tomorrow shortly after noon and check on the status.

The kids slept until around 7:30 which was nice. I wasn’t sure what to expect. At around 8:00 I asked if they were hungry and wanted to eat something. Now yesterday (actually, Sunday since it’s Tuesday) we did pretty ggod about getting groceries excpet I forgot about breakfast. The choices most suitable for breakfast that I had was oatmeal and fruit. I asked if they like oatmeal and everyone said yes. The only one to eat it was me! Jenny, don’t stock up on oatmeal.

After breakfast, we watched some TV and called Julia (a young lady who helps teach some of the children at the orphange English) to see if she wanted to meet us at the park and have lunch with us. As it turned out, it was her day off (she is an English teacher at the local university) and she would love to join us. So we met here at around 11:00, played at the park and had lunch at a really nice café. It was nice going somewhere different and having someone translate the menu.

After lunch, Julia suggested that we might go to a very large park just a few bus stops away. “A bus ride” I thought. Well how bad could it be, I’m with a local person who does this all the time – right? Actually it was fine, thanks to Julia knowing which of the 100 buses that stop to drop off and pick up passengers every minute to get on and where to get off.

The park was very large and lots to offer. There were lots of different playgounds and paved walking paths. There was even an area where they had lots of swans and in a in a big round cage like at a zoo were two bears. There was even area ike Coney Island in Cincinnati with carnival rides. The kids got to choose one thing they wanted to do and Natasha choose the swings and Maks and Alona choose to jump on a big inflatable.

At around 4:30pm, we headed back to the apartment and watched some TV and had a snack. At around 6pm, I fixed some dinner for them with Maks help cleaning the fish. They had fish, cucumbers, bread, cheese, canadian bacon (something like it) apples, and chips. I had a piece of bread, and a few slices of apple. (A little later I had a Slim Fast bar.)

After dinner the kids got baths and I painted the girls fingernails and watch TV. At arounf 9:45pm, we sang songs and I prayed, then said good-night.

It was a long but fun day. The kids are doing really well. I’m enjoying being with them.

Blessings <><,

David