Friday July 27th 10:40 am Birmingham Airport -Yall Come!!

It's offical, the girls left Kiev at 12:15 PM (4 AM CST)today and should be in Paris just about now. They will arrive in New York at 6:10 PM EST, spend the night and be in Birmingham at 10:40 AM Friday morning.

Anyone who knows my wife knows she will want to see everyone at the airport. We know it is the middle of a work day so we understand, but hey maybe you need a good excuse to give your boss for an early Friday!

Tenative Early Arrival!!!!!!!!!!!!!!

Lynn, Anna, and Christina are booked on a flight tomorrow out of Kiev at 12:15 pm. There making this flight is totally dependent on the U.S. Embassy providing a Visa at 9:00 am. If this all happens according to plan the girls will spend tomorrow night in New York and fly into Birmingham at 10:40 am Friday morning. When I wake up in the morning I have have confirmation of if they made the flight or not and will immediately put a post out for all of you.

They all would love a welcoming committee at the Birmingham airport so feel free to come! Thank you all for everything you have done. From the grass cutting fairy to the pray warriors and all points in between we are eternally grateful.

Ron.

Seeing the Light

It appears we are in the final steps of beginning our new lives. We know have in our hands Adoption Decree, Birth Certificate, and Passport. Just a trip to the American Embassy to sign immigration documents and medical exam and off to America.

The current flight arrangements are on Sunday the 29th! We can see the light at the end of the tunnel and it is not a train!

Good Morning,

I am here on Sasha's office in kiev on Saturday morning. I was supposed to be on the 11:00 am back to JFK but when Sasha picked me up at the airport he informed I have to go to the American Embassy on Monday.

Chirstina is doing really great, starting to really show her personallity. Yesterday they took me to the airport in Nipro???. It was very tearful, everyone wants to come home and are just plain tired. Anyway, when they got home Christina announced she was going home. The conversation went something like this:

Christina "I go home tomorrow" (and proceeded to pack her suit case)
Lynn " what home?"
Christina "Deddy home"
Lynn "What about your passport?"
Christina (pointing to her face) "this is my passport"
Anna "How will you get there?"
Christina "me speak, Delta, go home"
Anna "How will you find our house?"
Christina "me speak, uncle Geremy, say go home"

This little exchange was much funnier in person but it is so cool for her to begin to reveal who she is to us.

If you are not all too weary and your knees too sore, please pray for the final steps to happen on schedule and that our family will be back together in total next Sunday.

Thank you all for your part in our journey.

Ron

More Miracles!!!!

Hello from Zap, The last few days have not been very busy, so we have used the time to go visit the other kids at camp and today to Dnipro to visit. The kids are doing good. We took them a bunch of food and went back 2 more times for more. They were very hungry because the food is horrible. The beach was actually nice, except for all the speedos, no matter what the body type!! You could pay to ride a huge banana tube behind a boat- we took Christina and some of her friends. It was hilarius. We told her we had that at home, she was excited. Ron and Anna went on the ride, when they flipped, Christina held on and was dragged in the water and almost drowned. There is so much to teach her, even innertube etiquette! When we had to say goodbye to all of her friends it was very sad. They all cried and we told them we would take good care of them. We had been told that it could take 20 days to get a passport, they hadnt seen a crazy american woman that hadnt been home in 7 weeks show her hiney!! Today while we were eating, a woman came in that Christina knew. \It so happened that she was the lady that helped the Slaughters with their paperwork to adopt Tonya, Anya, and Sergey. Christina recognized her and introduced us. And they were talking and our whole passport situation came up, and she became very upset. She banged her fists on our table and said, "NO NO NO, passport 1 DAY!!!!" And of course we were very happy to hear that. So we called Sasha and we have hired her to get Christina's passport for us. She is an attourney that has a document that she can get old passports for kids. This is very good news. This means that when our adoption decree is ready on Tuesday, she can have our passport by Tuesday night. YEA! God is good! We need to go, we love and miss you all. The 5 Gullys.

Pictures

IT'S OFFICIAL!!!! CHRISTINA IS A GULLY!!!!!

Wow! Its official!!!! CHRISTINA IS OFFICIALLY A GULLY!!!!! It happened just a little while ago and we are all SO EXCITED and so thankful!!!!! Nina (our facilitator) was a bit nervous and scared. They asked us alot of questions! Court lasted over an hour. Finally, the judge said there would be no deliberation and he declared the adoption of CHRISTINA LYNN GULLY final!!!!! Everyone was crying! Larissa, Nina...all of us! Larissa had wonderful things to say in court. We are so excited and know that they prayers of all of you were such a huge part of all of this! Spread the word!!!! Love, The Gullys

This is when we need you the most!

Hello everyone!

This is not going to be a long post because my mother cant shut her trap long enough for me to write....haha. Well, and also we are in the internet cafe and there is no air conditioner and it is like the center of the sun outside. Mom looks like she peed in her pants, she is sweating so much! I have had ENOUGH "mom time" for the rest of the year....wait the rest of my life!...haha.

Now, to the serious stuff, it is nineteen and a half hours before i FINALLY have a sister. YEA! We know deep down everything will go ok, but Nina has scared us a bit with her nervousness toward the court, judge, and all of our documents being in order. Everyone back home has been a huge help, but this is the time we need you the most. We have told you all to pray, but we need a army here to lift up the judge to have favor, Denis and Nina to say all the right things, and of couse my parents and Christina to convince the government of this crazy country to allow Christina to become a Gully. Our appointment time is at 10 AM here, and that is 2 AM your time. This is gonna sound insane, but we have to do what we have to do. We would appreciate anyone who is willing, and who has followed our journey and wants to see this amazing girl become part of our family, we ask you this: to set your alarms for 2 AM, and literally get down on your knees and pray for favor from the court. We know from experience that prayer works, and we need your help now. I am not going in the room, but believe me, i will be sitting ourside with my hand on the door for as long as it takes praying for my sister to be in my family forever. Thanks for those who will help us! We love you all. Me and mom!

Hey ya'll, I'm back

Well, here it is a month later and I am still in Ukraine. I have had my ups and downs, because I am so spoiled!! Yes, I said it, I am spoiled!! OMG we take sooo much for granted. I have had to learn to persevere through the hard times, and they are getting less and less. Everyone should go out of the country and experience real Faith.
Christina is coming back from camp today!! I can hardly wait to hug her, she fits so comfortably in my arms. Please pray for her, she is afraid of leaving everything that she has ever known. I have already embarrassed her by talking about her to everyone I meet. She hides behind me, and says momma. Now, she is going to have to get over that.
As you know, we have court on Friday and I get to see Ronny on Thursday. I can hardly wait to fall into his arms. Please pray about court going smoothly and around 12:00 p.m. Christina Lynn Gully being made a part of our family. Nina seems to be a little worried about our paperwork. Please pray for favor from the judge on our case. I met the little man and we got along well. I kissed him and hugged him when he gave us a date on Friday. He asked if I was superstitious of Friday the 13th. I told him no, I believe in prayer!! We exhanged pictures of our children and his grandchildren.
The Kniphers are here and we are so happy to have other americans to talk to. Now Anna has learned alot of Russian and is my translator most of the time. I'm still trying to find a gym with a treaddmill, not high on Ukrainians list. They walk everywhere and so have we.
Please pray about the 10 days being waived, Nina is going to talk to a lawyer about it.
I love everyone and miss you all, I can't wait to see my dog, drive my car, and eat Mexican food. HAHA
Thanks for all your help, support, and prayer and keep the comments coming. I won't name any names but okay friends, I need to hear from you.

Love you all,
Lynn

Lucky Friday the 13th

Great news, we have been granted a court date for Friday the 13th. Yea God!

Praying for a Date

I just spoke to Lynn and Anna, they are doing fine. Lynn is a little under the weather, seems she ate an apple with out peeling it! Word to the wise, don't do this if you are ever in Ukraine.

We hope to hear news either tomorrow or Monday on a court date for our adoption hearing. Lynn and Dennis will be visiting the judge to present out petition to adopt. He could set a date on the spot or he could ask for time to review the petition.

We are all trying not to get too excited until we no a definitive date, but the silver lining is most of the news we are receiving now appears to be positive. Praise God!

What A Ride or Down for the Count, Not!

Well I started this morning at 5:00 am taking the Kniphfer's to the airport. They were excited, nervous, and apprehensive all rolled in to one family package. It seems like a year ago the Gully's felt the same emotions. But hey, you just don't know what to expect when you are on a God adventure. Here is the how today has gone.

5:00 am Wake up call
5:30 am Take the Kniphfer's to the airport
6:00 am Jesse and Ron have breakfast at IHOP
6:15 am Text message from the girls stating they want to come home
6:27 am Phone call girls, they are tired, beaten down and homesick
6:45 am Call to travel agent to book flights
8:17 am On the home phone with travel agent and Lynn on the cell phone
9:30 am Flights confirmed for Thursday July 5th
10:07am text from Lynn to call her
10:09 am On the phone, " we are going to a woman's house to get a piece of paper"
10:27 am Ok so the woman did not have the "the piece of paper it is at some office"
10:32 am text message from Lynn "Dennis just called the office, they have it"
10:44 am The girls are not coming home, "the piece of paper" is a really good thing

You just can't explain it till you live it! The latest news for the Gully's in the pursuit of bringing Christina into our family is this: We now believe Christina's biological mother never registered her (in English, applied for a birth certificate)and the orphanage did. In a weird twist this effectively makes the orphanages her mother and we are now told an extra court appearance is not required. This means I may be headed back to Ukraine soon for the adoption hearing.

Wow this is better than the Goliath roller coaster at Six Flags.

Sincerely,

Cautiously Optimistic (again) Ron.

Sisters and Brothers Under 1 Father

Hey everyone!

Let me just start this off saying our hearts are all very heavy today. We keep hearing bits and pieces of supposed "news" but we dont know who to believe at this point. So far, all we have heard is that Nina ended up not traveling to Kiev with Sasha which is what we thought was the plan, and Sasha hasnt returned any messages because we are pretty sure he is in the meeting with the embassy to try to get Hope's summer program's kids visas approved (so lets not disturb him...) It is hard to trust, but we do understand that this whole process is in God's hands and for some strange reason, we are supposed to be here, and this is God's timing. On a happy note, yesterday morning Mom, Christina, and me all woke up at the crack of dawn to be ready to go to church with Baptist Pastor Nikolai and his wife, Anya and their 2 precious little girls, Tonya and Vala. We were picked up in this huge white van and we met some people on the way there from the church and gave them a ride. It was so mice to be in the presence of Christian people who even though thousands of miles away, still believe exactly what we do. We got to church and they showed up around, it wasnt very big, but they had a kitchen and 2 bible study rooms. The service started at 9 oclock. Of course, all of it was in Russian, but it was still so good to be there. Anya did sit in the pew in front of us and translated some of the service. She is so sweet, we have become pretty good friends. In the middle of the sermon, Nikolai stopped and asked for prayer requests, and then he introduced us, and of course my blabbermouth mother had to say a "few" words. Which by that I mean, this few words turned into a 30 minute speech about our life and church and Christina who by the way was red in the face with embarrassment. But anyway, after the service ended, we were invited for "chai" downstairs in the kitchen. This sweet old lady had prepared not only tea, but a huge lunch for us. She made homemade borsche (which was by the way amazing), and homemade apricot bread and all these little things. It was awesome. We had Anya who helped translate and we got to talk to a lot of the little old ladies and a lot of yound girls who were at the university, it was really fascinting. Then, when everyone was finished, Nikolai asked Mom to pray. Mom prayed and Anya translated. Here is Ukraine, no one is very touchy feely and for whoever knows my mother, you know that she is very over the top in that area. So, she made everyone hold hands, which they do not do here. It was funny. She prayed about a 45 minute prayer which was awesome, but by the time she was finished, me and Christina's arms were about to fall off because we were holding hands across the table while standing up. HAHA. It kinda hurt. But, anyway on the way home from church, Anya told us about this day camp thing they are having this week (Mon-Sun) and it was English lessons in the morning, then kids camp, art camp, sports camp, and at night like a youth concert. She continued to tell us about the whole group of American youth students that had flown in from Texas to lead this camp. We were thrilled and of course wanted to help. Christina took the English class and me and mom just did what we could to help out. It was really cool to meet these people, they were all so sweet, and we also met a lot of American missionaries living in Ukraine. It was a good day. Well, pray that we can keep our heads up and trust that God will get things done, and hopefully QUICKLY so we can come home, we are all 3 ready to be home. Pray, Pray, Pray, that is all we can do. Love to all! Anna,Lynn, and Christina