Missing Papa

Paul barely made his flight Sat. morning after a white-knuckle ride to Kiev on Friday night.  Normally the trip takes 5 hours, but because of a snow storm it took 8.  At one point, our driver told Paul to put on his seatbelt since the driving conditions were so bad, which was quite unusual because most people in Ukraine don't wear seatbelts in the back seat.  They eventually made it to the airport, exhausted but safely.

The kids are so glad to have their Daddy home and his parents are too.  They have been watching our children for three weeks.  We are so thankful for Grandma and Grandpa!  We are also very thankful for Sherry Ball who brings Jimmy and Nicole home from school everyday and for Sims McCorkle, Kathy Miles, Erin Webster, and Katie Koon who drive Scott to or from school every week.  Thank you also to the many people who drove our kids to sports or weekly events like Kathryn Gerber, Suzanne Rice, Paige Marsh, Leigh Ann Watson, Louise York, Mary Nell Thompson, and Wendy Wright.  Also a big thank you to all the friends that have had them over or taken them somewhere fun like Elizabeth Feeney, Jennifer Taylor, Sharon Wiley, Calvin Carr, Suzanne Rice, Paige Pearce, Debbie Haile, Paige Marsh, Kathy Miles, Sims McCorkle, Cristin Harvey, Eli Pennington, Katie Koon, Terry Jones, Katherine Lea, and my parents.  There are others that I'm sure I've forgotten to mention.  Please forgive me!  We couldn't have done this without you!       

I played with John twice on Sat.  Paul and I would swing him most days and sing "Jesus Loves Me" among other songs to him.  So yesterday he said "mama" and pointed to the swing.  I got on and he started pushing me while singing "Jesus Loves Me".  I couldn't believe it!  He's been so shy about imitating us, but has obviously been asborbing it all.  I've started singing the ABC song also so I can get him ready for pre-school in the fall:).  Now that Paul is gone, I can tell that I'm going to speaking to him much more.  Before I would speak to Paul a lot, but now I'm talking and naming everything John and I do together.  In addition to playing on the swing, we did a lot of slipping, sliding, and falling on ice, which he loved.  We also chipped ice off of stuff and made snowballs.  It wasn't the same without Papa though.  I could tell that John was missing him.   

Today I went back to the church where we know the pastor, his wife, and the American missionary.  Once again the pastor's wife sat with me and translated the entire service (except the singing, of course).  Then I took the three of them out to a nice meal.  We were the only people in the restaurant for the entire two hours.  People here don't go out to eat a lot.  Then I went to the orphanage to see John and was told by hand gestures that he had a temperature and that I couldn't see him.  Please pray that this isn't anything serious.  Our facilitator is going to call the orpahange in the morning to see if he's better and if I can go visit him.