For the least of these: My Mission Trip Update, including pictures!

So, I don't even know where to start!!! I wish I had access to blog while I was in the Ukraine so that I wouldn't have this overwhelming feeling of trying to get 15 days worth of stuff in one blog!! Haha!!

I think I am just going to give an overview of the trip, with a few highlights and some pictures! Then, if something in particular comes to mind later, I'll post again.

My journey from Raleigh to Kiev was looooong!! I traveled for about 15 hours and part of that was over night on a plane to France. It is so hard to sleep on a plane, especially when you think you are going to be smart and ask for an exit row and it ends up backfiring! I had a window seat on the exit row (of course because I asked for it) and the emergency exit door had a slide in it. Well, the door stuck out to half of my seat because slide was in it. So um...it wasn't very comfortable. And that was the flight from Boston to Paris! Learned my lesson on that one! But it was made up for on my flight from Paris to Kiev because I was traveling in First Class baby!!! AND I had the entire row all-to-myself!!! So, I flipped those armrests up, layed on my neck pillow, covered with a blanket and slept for about 2 hours!!! Yes...I was very excited about 2 hours of sleep!!! BUT I waited until I was served my six course meal because you all know that you sleep better on a full stomach. Holy toledo...when he brought my food, I almost fell out of my seat!! Doesn't it look awesome?!?

And yes...you heard that right....this was airplane food!! Mmmmmm....it was yummy!!

The Paris airport is the most asinine thing I have ever seen!!! When the plane landed, it passed all of the terminals and parked out in the middle of the...of the...I don't even know what it is called! Then, we wait for about 15 minutes until a bus arrived. We all cram on this bus like a bunch of sardines...just when you think you can't possibly get any more people on the bus, 20 more people cram in!!! Then the bus passed all of the terminals going back the same way the plane came in! We get to this one terminal where we get off the plane and load into this "room" where we look at the TV screens and find our next flight. My gate is B27, so I have to get to Terminal 2B. I ask one of the "french" employees which bus is for terminal 2B and she tells me the "yellow" bus. Well, the buses show what terminal they go to but what they show isn't accurate, so you just have to ask...."2B?" "No, no 2B". Next bus...."2B?" "No, no 2B" By now there are about 50 people waiting and the next bus pulls up. She says...in her french accent..."2A, 2C, 2F" and everyone moves like a herd of elephants to get on the bus. I look at the lady and chuckle. She looks back at me and chuckles, also...then says in her 'french' accent..."No 2B". I just started cracking up! Of course not 2B! So finally, the "yellow bus" pulls up and she says, "Now 2B". Oh thank the Lord! And guess what? That bus passes all of those terminals yet one more time to almost go back to the same place the plane stopped the first time!! Ridiculous! But I made it to my gate...B27. What a joke. The gate was in an area all by itself...as a matter of fact, I had to pass through security to get to the gate. The security checkpoint was for that gate only!!! But the gate was small and I was just waiting to see what kind of plane pulled up imagining that a little Cessna was going to be taking me from Paris to Kiev!! Haha!!

When I got to Kiev I was super tired but I forced myself to stay awake so that I would sleep that night! We walked around Kiev for about 3 or 4 hours and I had my first meal in Ukraine............take a long, hard look at this picture and see if you can figure out what I had!!

OK - so I DON'T even eat McDonald's in America BUT my first meal in another country on the other side of the world was McDonald's! Something is just sickly wrong with that!!!

But anyhow, I slept good my first night and woke up the next morning feeling great! No jet lag
what-so-ever!! Wish I could say the same for coming home! I've been home one whole week and I am still not up to par yet!!

We visited about a total of about 12 orphanages and I went to 7 or 8 orphanages and we drove about a total of 57 hours in a matter of 8 days. At least we had a large sprinter and there was plenty of room!! But my tailbone was so sore all of the time! We saw a lot of precious kids and there were several days when I left an orphanage and just cried. Their living conditions weren't really that bad....but just seeing those kids thrive for our attention, longed to be hugged and want to hold your hand was so sweet! There was one 15 year old boy that wanted me to go outside with him so that he could show me his back flip! Then there was another orphanage where I was giving an "English Lesson" to the kids waiting for their interviews and they were teaching me how to count in Russian. 1 - Adeen, 2 - Dva, 3 - Tree, 4 - Cheteeree, 5 - ?, 6 - shest, 7 - ?, 8 - Vo-syem, 9 - ?, 10 -?. OK - so I remembered half of what they taught me...not too bad! They were sooo excited to teach me, too!!! When I thought we were done, they kept going!! Another orphanage we went to was a "special needs" orphanage for children with Cerebral Palsy but the handful of children that we interviewed didn't seem to have CP! Most had scoliosis and flat feet! Not quite sure why they are in a special needs orphanage for that, tho!

Here are some pictures of the orphanages...inside and out. I have more to update because the BEST day on trip happened on my 36th birthday but that will have to wait for another post!!

Besides, I've probably lost most of you already as this post is soooo long! Sorry about that but I figured it would be better to have one long post and give a good overview of the trip than 10 smaller posts!!

I love you guys. Thank you for praying for me and my family while I was gone! They did much better with me being gone than I did with being gone!

Now on to the pictures!

This was a set of lockers in one of the orphanages...totally cute!