Miracles all around...

Some cool things happening around the base these days. Two stories for you (not directly involving Torben and I, but really cool...:

Twin Dangers

There is a family here on the base who has one year old twins. The twins are actually the youngest of 10, so this family is used to babies. They're living in the second floor of a house here in Kiev, so they're pretty crowded together. And Pam, the mom, is home with the little ones a lot. Well, these twins are usually really easy sleepers. They go to bed easily, sleep soundly, and everything a mom dreams of. The other day, they just wouldn't calm down. They kept whining and wanting out of their crib. After a long time of this, Pam went in and brought them out to the living room. (You can imagine a frustrated mom at this point, I would think). Literally five minutes after that, the roof in the babies' room collapsed. Huge concrete slabs were seriously inside the crib where the babies had been just minutes earlier. Thank God for irritable babies at that point!!

Marina

One of the ministries here at YWAM Kiev, Mother's Care (I've mentioned it before, it's the one that works with orphaned babies) works with many very very sick little ones. The worst case they are in contact with now is a little one named Marina. She's around three years old and has never been outside the hospital. She has three main things wrong with her, I'll start with the least problematic - 1) She was born with a major cleft palatte and lip. 2) A deformity in her hands and feet caused webbed toes and fingers. Last year they developed gangrene and she became very sick. She lost most of her toes and some fingers. After much persuasion, the doctors did a surgery on her that fixed her feet somewhat, but the problem is back. I don't understand all of it, but it's awful for her. 3) Worst of all, she has some sort of a blood disease. The doctors here can't diagnose it, so they can't fix it either. She gets terribly ill very often because of it, and it is something that could kill her at any time.
So, Mother's Care has been lobbying to get custody of Marina with the view of taking her to the States for medical treatment. They already have a doctor and facility to do the operations necessary lined up in America, but they were buckled down for the long run with all the paperwork and loops to jump through here in Ukraine. Things tend to move very slowly here, with a lot of corruption and people expecting bribes if you want anything done. Sonya, the girl directly involved with taking custody of her, was getting the runaround with where she could go to get permission from something like 15 different doctors.
I don't know the exact details, but today, Sonya officially got custody of Marina. She met someone who knew someone high up in the government who could pull the right strings and now, weeks or even months ahead of schedule, they have the custody they needed and could be leaving for the States as soon as June 10!!!
I am so excited about all of this!! I've met Marina and it just broke my heart to see her so sick. This operation will save her life and possibly even give her a future. Now we just need to pray that she and Sonya can easily get visas to the States (not an easy thing for Ukrainians) so they can get there soon!!