Planes, no trains, and automobiles

It's Sunday evening now and we're packing up to go to Alex's part of the country.  This will be a 3-4 hr drive in the morning (we're not driving, one of the facilitators is!).  Then we find a social worker, get her or him to come along and go to Alex's institution.  (The first visit must be mediated by a social worker.)  We visit Alex (typing that seems a bit surreal), we accept the referral, and we go to a sort of nearby large town with a notary to fill out paperwork and file it, so we can get the court clock running.  Then we get put into a new apartment, which we will be sharing with a facilitator for a couple of days (it's a three-bedroom apartment).  There is no wifi there yet; it needs to be connected...soon.  We do have a modem for the computer that should work if this small town has 3G mobile phone service.  But it is possible that we will not be in touch immediately, as much as we would like to be.  Don't worry about us, but please pray this goes well. 

This meeting with Alex will likely be short.  But we will receive a schedule for visiting him the following days--almost certainly daily and somewhat longer visits.

I'm kind of looking forward to the drive because we have been walking all over the capital city the past three days, and I'm sore!  This is a very walkable city and the weather has been beautiful.  It feels a lot like NYC in the boroughs to me, but safer.  Everyone has been friendly with our middlin' Russian.  Jerry has downloaded some pictures but we've barely had time to do anything with them.  If there is time tonight we'll get some up.  In the meantime--blessed Pentecost to you all and I hope you hear from us soon.

Peace, Susan

p.s. Chris, yes, I've had borscht and vareniskies (like peirogies), among other things.  Not a huge fan of borscht but it was better here than at home, and the vareniskies were excellent.  But the capital city (esp the tourist center where we are near) is pretty cosmopolitan and we've eaten a spectrum of things and made sandwiches at home.  The yogurt here is amazing.

p.p.s. to all my fellow theology geeks--yes, we've been doing the church tours here.  I hope that will be another post, just for fun.