Moving

We're leaving tomorrow! Please pray for us as we travel.

Once we get to Ukraine, please be praying for us to find an apartment that will be good for our family and ministry.

Also, once we're there, Will needs to get to Russia and back, to bring our things from there before May 10. Please pray for him traveling and for the logistics of that trip.

Thank you!

Friends' visas

I'm still praising the Lord that He gave us our visas early this time. That reminds me to pray for all our friends who are waiting for visas, though. It seems like there are a lot of them in that position right now. Please pray with me for

• The Mankins: hopefully headed back to Papua New Guinea tomorrow, but waiting for paperwork
• The Beairds
• The Dulins and the S family: trying to get temporary residence permits in Russia
• The Palmers: visas for Australia didn't come in time, so they're waiting again

Almost hard to believe!!!

OUR VISAS CAME! Now we really can leave on May 1, and we don't have to live with the suspense of waiting for visas any more. PRAISE THE LORD!

(Please be praying for our friends the Beairds. They have tickets to go back to Russia April 30, but no visas yet, as far as I know.)

Got it

Asya's Social Security card came. It was a little too late for taxes, but it's very nice to have it in hand.

Buying tickets

We just sent off the check for our tickets. We should be leaving May 1! Please just pray that our visas get here in time for that. (I hate the suspense of having tickets before visas. We've said before that we'd never do that again, and now here we go. . . . We really do need to leave as soon as we have visas, so it's better not to wait.)

Here and gone!

Our invitations just came in, and Will's already sending them off to apply for visas! Praise the Lord for one step that happened just on time, and keep praying for speed.

Tickets

We have started looking at plane tickets to Ukraine!

The short version: Please pray for us to get tickets at a good time.

The long version: We should have our visas on April 28. It would be best if we could leave as soon as possible after that, so that Will has time to enter Russia and move our things to Ukraine, before his Russian visa runs out on May 10. The earliest that one travel agency could give us was May 5, which is cutting it close. Please pray for good tickets, good timing and good prices!

On their way

Our invitations were ready, and DHL picked them up, so they're on their way to us. We just found out that they'll be here on Monday! Then we can apply for our visas.

Next step with invitations

Will got a hold of Sasha in Ukraine without any trouble last night. Sasha said that actually, our invitations should be ready on Monday; he doesn't have them in his hand yet. He will email us on Monday to let us know, if they're there. Then, Will can schedule a DHL pickup for Tuesday. So, the prayer request is that they really will be ready on Monday!

Invitations

Our invitations are ready! Now we have to get them from Ukraine to here. Will's getting up at 1:00 in the morning to call and arrange that.

Hurrah!

Will's back. They're going to give Asya a number! It will take a little longer, because her birth certificate has to be checked and translated by Homeland Security. (Can't have any baby terrorists in America, you know.) But they are going to accept it. Thank you for praying!

Pray for mercy :-)

I couldn't get anywhere on the phone (although, I talked to some really smart computers!). So, Will's going to go to the Social Security office. It's really not that far away, which is funny, because we're so far out in the middle of nowhere. Please pray that they'll accept the documents we have. We should have two, and we do, but one is Russian. The American version of Asya's birth certificate is still sitting in Moscow. Pray that they'll take that and her passport as her two documents!

SS# update

We got an answer! I don't know if it's good news or not. Asya's application is officially lost. That means we can apply again, but I'm not sure we have everything we need to do that. Pray for me today as I try to get someone who knows something on the phone.

How's Jaan?

He seems to be doing better today. (After I wrote yesterday, he got worse, but never as bad as Raia.) Right now we're trying to hold him back from eating everything in sight. Pray for patience, as we try to be wise, and he whines for food!

(By the way, we're not starving him. He did have toast for breakfast. We just aren't giving him everything else that he was asking for.)

Visa update

This is what I posted on our blog:

Our friends Pavel and Tanya are in Ukraine, visiting relatives. Pavel has been working on getting us invitations. We sent all of our information to Sasha, a relative of his in the Baptist Union. Sasha just wrote, saying that he would pass it on to the missions department for them to apply for our invitations, and that it only takes 3-4 days for them to come through. So, if he turned them in right away, we could have invitations ready by early next week! Then, he will mail them to us, and we will apply for our visas. Please pray that all would go smoothly and quickly!

Happy news

Jaan must have the older sibling version of rotavirus. The other family who had this ended up with their toddler in the hospital; when his big sister got it, she just threw up once. Jaan's already doing much better, running around and eating crackers. Thank you, Lord!

Will's also up and moving around.

More sickness!?!?!

Jaan just started throwing up.

Raia had a little relapse yesterday, but I think it was just from eating solid food too soon. She's improving. (Her little, round belly is gone, though. I asked her where it went, and she said that she "coughed it.")

Will has been down with something. We're not even really sure what, but he has definitely not been feeling well.

Asya and I are still healthy!