Andriy's car started on Sunday evening so we were able to go to the Christmas concert at his church. The instrumental music and choir were fabulous! It was a large ensemble from musicians in North America. The songs were all in Ukrainian or Russian but I knew some of the songs from their melodies. I especially loved hearing "Silent Night" in Russian. The conductor shared his stories between songs in English and it was translated. I appreciated getting to understand the stories and had fun listening to how it was translated. After the concert, we saw many friends we had made from camp. That was especially fun for Angelica to talk with her new friends again. Then we went to Pusata Hata, the same one that Jason and I went to almost every day while we were in Kiev. The food is so good there and it was even more beautiful than before with all the decorations for Christmas. Prior to eating we watched a car show in the street near the restaurant. It was a crazy driver who was driving fast and then spinning on the ice. Angelica thought it was cool to watch. I was just thankful we were far away from him since he slid quite a bit. Yesterday we walked to the large market and bought groceries. It was so cold that we were frozen by the time we got there and the walk home carrying our heavy bags was even less fun. Angelica wanted to get the ingredients to make the wafer cake, she calls it "cup cakes", that we had at camp. We made our grocery list of what we needed ahead of time to limit what she asked for at the store and then she read the list while pushing the cart at the store. After getting home from the store, Angelica made the cake. She put a special milk that tastes like sweetened condensed milk on a large round wafer and then put another on top. The next one she put Nutella on and then put another wafer with the milk on top of that. She repeated this for 6 layers and then it was time to cut it into pieces like a pie and enjoy. It was very tasty! I think we might need to buy more of the round wafers so she can make it at home for the family. Hopefully the wafers will not be just crumbs by the time we get home. After we all enjoyed cake, we drove to a pony school. We learned how people care for ponies, we got to feed the ponies special treat biscuits, and then Angelica got to ride a larger sized pony. She said it was the first time in her life that she had been on a pony. She put on a safety jacket and helmet and then mounted the pony like a pro. She was all smiles as she rode around the circle with a caretaker holding the reigns. She loved petting the ponies and did not want to leave. It was also fun watching Andriy's almost 2 year old son wear a helmet and ride a pony. We came back home and made pelmeni, pasta with meat inside, that we had bought at the store. This is one of Angelica's favorite foods! We FaceTimed her friends who are being hosted in America and we FaceTimed our family. Please be praying for all the orphans who are being hosted in America right now. They leave on January 15 and the last days can be extremely hard for the host children and for the families. The orphans have experienced great love and attention and have eaten well. Soon they will be going back to orphanage life. I cannot imagine how hard that is for them, especially knowing that they may never see their host families again. I know from experience how hard it is on the host families as well. The goodbyes are very hard. I felt God nudging me to email a Ukrainian woman whom we met at our hotel and at the orphanage. She was trying to adopt an 8 year old girl from Angelica's group but recently found out that another family was also in the process to adopt the same girl. She decided to let the other family adopt her so for the third time she is looking for another girl to adopt. She is single and can only adopt one child because of the space in her apartment. I found our host daughter from this summer on the waiting children Ukrainian website and emailed this woman the link. I shared some information about how we felt the best family for her would be where there are no other young children in the family. Because of this girl's past, it seems like a single mom might be best for her as well. This woman already emailed me in response and was sad that the official database is not showing her as being available for adoption. This seems strange to me so please pray for our past host daughter and for this woman who is ready to become a mother. God knows the details and it is all in His hands! We have continued to pray for a forever family for our past host daughter and I know God will take care of her. Please also pray for God to heal Angelica's cold. On Sunday night she said, "my throat is ouch and my nose is broken". Right before she said that I had noticed she seemed a little congested. Thankfully I brought EmergenC for kids with me so she has had that each day. We are praying she can get completely over it before we go home. I really do not want to bring Ukrainian germs back to our kids. Being in the orphanage she has not been taught to wash hands, blow her nose with a tissue, and cough into her elbow. These are habits I have been trying to teach but new habits take time to learn. I fear the spread of germs from her to the others could be greater due to her lack of these habits. This afternoon she took a long nap so I am praying that will help her body in the healing process. This morning we had a meeting with the US Embassy to start the process of getting Angelica's visa. I have completed the online form except for entering passport information. All documents, except for passport and final medical conclusion, have been submitted to the Embassy. We had been praying for the passport to arrive today but with businesses closed yesterday in observance of Christmas on Saturday, we were told it should arrive to her birth city tomorrow. Then the owner of the hotel where we stayed near the orphanage will pick it up for us and send it on the overnight train to Kiev. Our coordinator will pick it up from the train station on Thursday morning and will meet us at the medical center where we will get the sealed medical conclusion. Then we will hurry to make our appointment at 11:00 a.m. at the Embassy. We are praying the Embassy will be able to process everything and issue the visa by Thursday afternoon. Once we have the passport and visa in hand, we can get plane tickets home! We are praying for good flights and low prices for us to fly home on Friday. Thank you for your continued prayer support! What a blessing it has been to know that so many people are praying for us regularly. We have felt God's presence and are so excited that this adoption adventure is drawing to an end so we can start our new life journey with Angelica! Praise be to our great and powerful God!