Traveling soon

I need to do better with updating here! Is anyone still reading?

Here's an email that Will sent out to both our home churches:

We wanted to ask you all to be praying with us over the next couple of weeks. We need to make a trip to Kiev that we've put off for a while now.

Bogdan still isn't American, and Raia currently isn't either! We need to get a new Passport for Raia and a first-time Passport for Bogdan. The process shouldn't be too difficult, but it isn't cheap, either.

We've been wanting to make this into a little more than a 3-day, there and back again trip, w/two days on trains. We want to have time to do funs stuff with the kids and spend a week or so there. (We haven't done anything like this in almost two years.)

Right now we're looking into housing, which is a bit pricier than we were thinking, but we're trying to look into as many options as possible.

Please be praying with us, as this trip is shaping up to be more of a challenge than we'd thought it would be.

Pray for God's provision:

-as we take our 2nd train trip with Bogdan (4 kiddos now, fun on a 12-hr train trip!)
-in finding affordable housing.
-in quick and problem-free processing of Bogdan and Raia's passports.
-that this could be a 'mini-vacation' for all of us.

Thank you so much for your prayers!

We're leaving on Friday. I think we have a place to stay, but I'm not quite sure about that yet. Please also be praying that we will be healthy before we go and not get sick again while traveling. We all have the tail ends of a cold hanging on.

Going to camp!

Next week Will and Jaan and (hopefully) one other little boy are going away to camp. This friend of Jaan's doesn't have a father; his aunt and grandmother are raising him. He really wants male input, so we're hoping it will work out for him to go. Please pray for those who are going to camp and for me staying home with the younger three of our children.

(By the way, we finally got Bogdan's birth certificate. Praise God with us for that!)

Updates

We seem to be making progress on the birth certificate. Please keep praying.

And I forgot to post here when I got my registration. Thank you for praying!

Registration and birth certificate

Please keep praying. We're still waiting... waiting for court dates for both my registration and Bogdan's birth certificate.

Baby!

PRAISE THE LORD FOR OUR SWEET BOGDAN!

Please be praying that we'll be able to get a birth certificate for him as quickly and easily as possible. There are more details here.

Youth conference

Will just left for a youth conference in Kiev. He's taking a pretty big group with him: 12 people, I think. This could be a little interesting, because most of them are the ones who show up once a year or so, not the regular church crowd. Also, pray for us while we're home without Papa. He'll be back on Tuesday (after staying an extra day to renew my passport).

Answers

We found out that Will can renew my passport for me, so I don't have to go to Kiev. Hurrah! This week is just a whirl of him traveling around working on documents and plans, though, so please keep praying for us.

Documents

Our visa registration will run out right about the time our baby is due. Also, my passport will expire soon after that. The woman in charge of visa stuff for this region seems inclined to figure out an easy solution for us, but it wouldn't hurt to have you all praying. Will is going to meet with her sometime this week to explain everything and get a decision. Please pray that we'll be able to renew my registration, even with a soon-to-expire passort! (Then I'd renew my passport when we get the baby's and transfer my registration or something. The worst case is that I'd have to go to Kiev to renew my passport now; not horrible, but inconvenient.)

K.

We went to visit our homeless friend yesterday, but he had just been taken to a tuberculosis hospital, so we couldn't see him. We thought maybe just Will could visit him, but even that wasn't possible. The general city TB hospital wouldn't take K., so he's out in some small town. Please pray for him! He's been in a Christian shelter all this time, but now he's back with all his old prison buddies.