Ust

"Ladies and gentlemen, welcome to Ust-Kamenogorsk, the local time is 5pm and the temperature is minus 31 degrees, thank you for flying Air Astana"

We are really here, even as I type this we can't quite take it in, tomorrow we meet our daughter for the first time! We are meeting Nadia (our coordinator), our translator and driver in the hotel lobby at 11am and heading over to the orphanage to meet with an official from the MOE and the orphanage director, hopefully a short time after this we will meet the one who really matters!!

Also I need to pause here and make mention of the coolest thing we have experienced SO FAR in Kazakhstan, our driver Victor! He really needs to be seen in the flesh to be believed, he has got an entire mouthful of gold teeth, black suit over white polo neck and shaven head, he looks like a James Bond villain!

He should have been driving a Black Merc S500 with bullet proof glass but unfortunately he was driving a small grey 'mini-bus of death'. When you are driving on roads that are 60% hard packed ice and 40% tarmac most people would take it easy..... not victor, he drove as if James Bond actually was behind him, changing lanes like a slalom skier, approximately 5inches from the bumper of the car in front of him, if the poor drivers didn't have the sense to get out of his way quick enough he would over take, engine screaming and Victor shouting something in Russian out of his side window!!

It was fun!

We need much prayer for tomorrow, its not the sort of thing you can really prepare for, we just trust that God will continue to guide us and that we will meet the child He has planned for us.

Philip & Amanda