ALL ABOARD!!!!!

Well most of you who know me are aware that a train ride was not on my list of things to do before I die - or even before I leave Ukraine. So, guess what, that's right - A TRAIN RIDE!! 11+ hours overnight in fact. The Orphanage Director will not let Viktor come back to Kyiv until our court date. If we want to spend time with Viktor - we go to him. Tonight at 8:30 we leave Kyiv and we will arrive in Kherson sometime Sunday morning. The interesting part about this is that we are not sure how we are returning. Zhenia could get tickets for going but not coming back. We have to be back by Monday to go to file in court (not our court hearing). Zhenia says we will just take our chances at the train station or we may come back by bus. Not ideal, but since we have not seen Viktor the whole 2 weeks we have been here, we feel we need to at least let him know we are here and working on bringing him home. My biggest fear is getting Viktor back in time for a court hearing. Zhenia will find out Monday of our actual court date. He optimistically believes it could be Tuesday or Wednesday. Great for us but if Viktor is still at camp we hope he can get back in time. Viktor's camp is in Kherson - the poorest region of Ukraine. I was hoping maybe some mission teams from the U.S. might be working there, but Zhenia reports he has never seen any Americans at the camp. It reportedly is not a great place and I'm sure leaving Viktor there will be difficult. Zhenia said there were about 400 total kids at the camp - there goes our plan to take them all something. We did buy candy/gum and some other treats for the 35 kids from Viktor's orphanage. Please pray for our journey (clean bathrooms on the train being the most important) . Seriously, I am a bit anxious about leaving Viktor there and how we will be returning. Basically we will arrive Sun. morning, spend the day with Viktor, and leave Sun. night -probably not alot of opportunity for sleep in the next couple of days. This is about the first time during this trip I have been truly glad Phillip and Cassie are not with us. While Phillip would probably be fine with the less than luxurious conditions, Cassie would definately not be. Neither of them would be thrilled with the lack of sleep or bathing (then again not something I am looking forward to either). Lisa and Bart are taking the kids to do some fun stuff this weekend and we so much appreciate the generosity of their time. We will probably be out of internet and phone range for the next couple of days. Will publish pictures when we return. BTW you can still tell what is going on when you watch the olympics with russian commentary.
XOXOXOXO- Phillip & Cassie