In Sevastopol!

Well, we finally made it to Sevastopol, Ukraine and are loving it! The past week has been filled with lots of traveling, language learning, taxi cabs, marshrutkas, meeting new people, Ukrainian food, Ukrainian versions of American food, moped rides, apartment searching, jet lag, sleep, lots of laughter, and even more prayer! All of our travels went well, and we made it without any delays. We got lots of sleep on the flight from New York to Kiev, and our flight on the Ukrainian air carrier, AeroSvit, from Kiev to Simferopol was safer and smoother than we expected. We picked our baggage up from an outdoor baggage claim with its conveyor belt covered with snow, then crammed into a large van with Andy and Jaimee and a total of 8 large bags and 8 carrier-on bags.
The first two night in Ukraine we stayed in Simferopol, which is in the heart of the Crimean Peninsula, with Andy and Jaimee's good friend Tanya. Tanya lives in a soviet style house (one sink in the whole house, no dish washer, sporadic hot water, and no kitchen) with a spunky old babushka. We soon learned that sour cream (smyetana) is added to everything and that the local meal of choice is borsch. The borsch that Tanya made for us was quite delicious, and was made of potatoes, shredded cabbage, beet root, and an assortment of spices.
After staying in Simferopol for two nights we took another taxi-van to Sevastopol, where Andy and Jaimee operate their outreach to local orphans. We stayed for two nights in a decent apartment/hotel while looking for an apartment. After struggling to get the local apartment agency to give us more than one or two listings at a time, and after checking out several apartments that were not worth their price in Grivnas or American Dollars, God blessed us with a great apartment in a nice location. While it does not have the luxuries of a standard apartment in the United States it is spacious and clean. We have since been meeting the orphans Andy and Jaimee have "adopted," learning how to get around on the local public transportation system, learning Russian, catching up on sleep, getting used to the new food, and trying to understand the culture.
The City of Sevastopol is a tapestry of graffiti on every wall, cement telephone poles, Russian and Ukrainian Sailors, crazy taxi-cab drivers, colorful city markets, strolling vodka drinkers, national monuments, traffic circles, soviet style apartment buildings, and thousands of God's beautiful people walking the streets. We are so excited to be here. Our hearts are growing in the love of God, our understanding of the world is changing, our friendships are being strengthened, and we are excited about life. Being here has only increased our desire to learn Russian, and we are experiencing new things on a daily basis. We are looking forward to developing relationships with the orphans and beginning to implements and pursue ideas that will help provide hope for the 100,000 orphans of Ukraine!
Thank you everyone for your continued prayer and support! Please send us any prayer request you may have, post comments on our blog, and feel free to ask us about anything that may peak your curiosity about Ukraine! We will be posting more pictures and updates later this week - stay tuned!