Will's parents are arriving TODAY for a two-week visit. Praise God for this, and pray for a wonderful time together. Please pray especially that everyone would stay healthy.

Right after I asked for prayer about the gas water heater, they finally got to the end of the process. It works! 

Our neighbors have had even more health problems lately. Saturday night was the worst by far; they (and we) actually thought that their older toddler died. The paramedics got here quickly and revived him, but he's back in the hospital now. Please pray for his health and for us to be able to reach out to them somehow.

Jaan is really not enjoying music school here. Please pray for him to adjust and even start to like it.

The Fedorchuks had a safe trip back (and hit the ground running). We're still trying to catch them.  You can pray that we would have a chance to spend some good time together and talk. Will's had one day in the Agape office so far, and done more work for them from home. Please continue to pray for us to find how we can best help out and fit in here.

I thought of a few more things, more for other people, but closely tied in with us:

Our neighbors have been quite sick, too, and their little guys have been in and out of the hospital. Nothing serious, but hospital time is stressful for parents, even when it's just because the babies have colds, like they do now.

Alex and Vera Fedorchuk (Agape director), are headed back to Ukraine with their new baby and four older children. Pray for safe travel.

Our landlady and her helpers have been trying to get gas hot water put in here since May. (We do have an electric water heater for now, for baths. We're not suffering.) It has been a very long, frustrating process, even involving lots of tears. Please pray that they could finally finish!

Jaan just started at music school today. Thank God for His help in that process, and please keep praying that all the teachers Jaan ends up with will be just right for him (and that we might get a place for Raia, too, if that would be good for her).

Pray for our health! Everyone has been sick, and it's still lingering with some of us.

Tomorrow Will is leaving for a week in Kiev at a session of Agape's school for teachers. Please pray for a good trip and good studies for him, and for the rest of us here without him.

School is already going well, but you can always pray for us in that area. Also, our children joined a children's choir at the church we're attending, and they loved their first time with that. In the week ahead we want to work on getting Jaan (and possibly Raia) into music school. Please cover that with prayer. Pray that we would get the very best teachers possible for their own personalities. Jaan's piano teacher is Dneprorudnoe was an incredible answer to prayer. Ask God with us for another like her.

We are still unpacking and settling in. It's very nice to have time to work on that, and it does seem to be going well, even if we're slow at it.

We have not hurried to get started with Agape, although we're looking forward to that sometime soon. Will and Bogdan did go in to the office one day this week, just to sign us up for training in October, and Will will probably start again on some translating for the web site now.

We made it to Kherson! Praise the Lord! Please pray for us as we unpack (slowly) and settle in here. 

We're starting our homeschool year tomorrow. Please cover that with prayer. I'll have three students for the first time ever; you can pray especially for Asya as she starts her formal education.

Praise the Lord for the house He provided for us to live in. It is so incredibly wonderful. Please pray that we would be able to live well with the family in the other half of the house.

Thank you so much for all your prayers, and even more, thanks to God for answering!

Church camp last week was great! I really enjoyed it, and I know the children did, too. We pray that what they learned will grow in them, and that they'll come to Sunday school and other opportunities to carry on with the relationships that were started or nurtured last week.

Please pray for us and the church here, as we say goodbye and move away. Pray that we finish well, and that no one would be hurt by our departure.

Praise God with us for the home that we'll be renting in Kherson. Please continue to pray as we plan the details of moving.

Pray for our health. After the busy week of Will in Kherson and camp for the rest of us, we're not feeling great.

Will is in Kherson for a few days, looking at housing options. Please for for him to find a good place for us!

Church camp starts tomorrow. I will be teaching the preschoolers.

Camp was wonderful! Thank you so much for your prayers! It was also very challenging and exhausting, so we needed your support even more than usual. We came back sick, but we're starting to feel better now.

Next up here we have two different focuses: Will is working on finding a place for us to live in Kherson. He'll probably make a trip soon to look at different options. I (Phyllis) am getting ready for day camp with the church here. That will be August 5-9. I'll be leading the preschool group, and our own children will be taking part too, of course.

Also, one of our landlords showed this apartment to prospective buyers. Please pray that we'll be able to stay here until we're ready to move to Kherson. It's not likely that he could sell it, because the whole situation is such a mess, but please pray!

We're leaving for camp early Wednesday morning!

The family I mentioned last week, the ones I visited with in another region, made it home. Now please pray for them as they adjust to their new life together.

Also, please be praying for us as we work toward moving to Kherson (next month?!), communicate about this with our supporters, and take care of practical arrangements.

Thank you for your prayers! It will probably be a few weeks before I have another chance to update here.

Chicken pox... are over! PTL!

Another praise: I had a wonderful trip to visit an adoptive mom. It was such a treat for me, and she says that I was able to encourage and help her, too. You can be praying for her, as she wraps up her time here and then travels home with her two new sweethearts, and for her whole family as they adjust.

Next up: missions trip! Those of you who are our faithful prayer supporters will want to read this blog post and maybe print out the prayer guide. For now, please be praying specifically for us and for all the team members who are preparing for camp now. We have a lot of lessons to get ready, and others are working on inviting people and other practical jobs. Pray for the hearts of those who will be attending the camps, too.

Thank you again for your prayers about our Kherson trip! It really did go well. Even though there were many hard moments, there were many highlights, too. Please continue to pray for wisdom in future plans.

And then chicken pox... Our three younger children have it now, so it's kind of overtaking our life. Please pray for endurance and quick healing. I'll be very glad to have this behind us!

This first half of this trip to Kherson was quite hard and quite good. We could really tell that people are praying for us. We're staying for another week now. Please continue to pray!

Please pray for our family's health. Jaan is just recovering from chicken pox, and it would be so nice if no one else comes down with it before we get home! Will and I can't get chicken pox, but we're both quite tired, so please pray for our strength and health, too.

We're leaving tomorrow to travel to Kherson.

Also, I wanted to tell about an answer to prayer: it may be funny to pray about computer problems, but God definitely cares about what is worrying us, and there was one that was worrying me terribly. I updated software for the Ambleside Online forum that I administrate on Monday, and it wasn't working right after that. It seemed like an impossible mess to me, and I wasn't getting answers from the people who usually know how to solve those technical problems. On the second day that the problem continued, I asked people to pray, and I prayed a whole lot myself. And then I was able to find and fix the problem! Praise the Lord!

Our prayer requests this week are pretty much the same as last week.

You can also pray for Will, as the lovely spring seems to be making his allergies even worse than usual.

Thank you for praying!

We had a great Easter! At the last minute we also got to visit a village church with an Easter program for them, too.

After lots of last minute rushing around to pull it together, Will actually went to a training session put on in Khmelnitsky by Agape, the mission that he had been trying to get in touch with. Our whole family is also going to Kherson May 24-30 for a special program they're doing.

I am meeting with someone almost daily for counseling and even Bible study. This is the first time that she has ever been open to that! It is very draining emotionally, though.

We've been busy with music school end-of-year busyness. Please pray for Jaan and all of us and his teachers in the midst of it. Jaan still has one more recital, and then he'll pretty much be done for the year.

We're still stuck on getting through to people about meeting up. It's crazy how hard it can be to get in touch with people.

Easter is just two weeks away. Please pray for the preparations in our home and church.

Please continue to pray that Will can get in touch with the head of the ministry we would like for him to visit. Will caught him briefly between two international trips, but obviously this man is very busy and they have not been able to set anything up yet.

We did have a wonderful visit with Anna! It was just too short. Like I said before, you can continue to pray for her travels.

Please pray that we'll be able to get in touch with people about visiting their ministry soon. We finally found out that the one man Will had been writing to was out of the country, so that's why we weren't getting answers. He's back now....

Honestly, I don't know what to ask you to pray for specifically. It's been a quiet week here. (So nice!)

Will's sister will be here next weekend. You can pray for her ongoing travels and for us to have a wonderful time with her.

Bogdan has made it through the past four nights without crying or nursing! But he's still getting up way too early for the way our family works.

We're an inch away from being done with our reregistration! Thank you for all your prayers. The only last step is that we're waiting for the head of regional immigration to come back from Kiev, to add his signature. As a special bonus, Will and I got to go to Zaporozhya by ourselves last week to sign papers.

Bogdan is still off and on with sleep. It's really weird. But he's a big two-year-old now! We're so thankful for him.

I got a break from the emotional situation I was in, because the person involved went away for a week. She's back now, so please keep praying.

We are starting our family preparations for Easter. Please pray that our hearts and minds would be especially turned towards Jesus in this time.

We are still waiting to hear anything about our documents.

The family that was adopting made it home with their new son! Please keep praying for all of them as they settle in and start their new life together. There are several more adoptions in progress that we're especially excited about now, too: cases where we've met the children or where they're in our region now.

Bogdan is back on his crazy insomnia streak. Please pray for sleep! He's keeping all of us up most nights.

I (Phyllis) have been putting a lot of time and emotional energy into counseling and supporting someone through some very heavy issues. Please pray for wisdom and strength for me.

Be praying that Will will be able to make a trip to visit Agape ministries, an organization that we are interested in possibly working with.

Will got everything turned in for our reregistration (as far was we know). Thank you for all your prayers. Now we just have to wait a little. It would be nice if they don't need anything more from us to process it.

The adoption adventures that I have been asking prayer for are continuing, so please pray for wisdom for all involved.

I'm starting to feel more rested, even if I may be the only one feeling that way so far. Bogdan was having trouble sleeping, but that seems to be passing. Hurrah!

Jaan is really doing well at music school these days, and that is such an answer to prayer. He has loved the piano part since he started there, but the rest has been a real struggle. I am just so excited to see him enjoying it all now.

Will picked up his new passport yesterday and made some progress on reregistration. That will be his focus in the upcoming week.

We had a lovely time meeting part of the family that I mentioned before when I asked for prayer for their adoption. Please keep praying; they're in the home stretch.

We've had some fussy, sickish days and long nights lately. It's nothing serious or really out of the ordinary, but please pray for rest and health in our family.

Please keep praying for the church here!

The biggest practical thing that we need prayer for right now is our documents, although everything does seem to be going fine there. When Will went to Vasilevka (what I called the "county" level) they told him that he needed a new passport, so he rushed off to Kiev and applied right away. Now we're waiting for that to come in, before we can do anything more. Pray that it will come quickly. It was very nice to find out that the lady in charge in Vasilevka seems to be nice and professional, like the one in Zaporozhya; praise God for that!

Also, please pray for peace and unity in the church here. Even though we are pulling back in our involvement, we still love the people here very much. The church is really going through a hard time now and needs lots of prayer.

Will just got back from the summit. He had a good and safe trip. Thank you for praying! You can add prayers that we'll all be able to rest up now (it was a full trip for him and some tiring nights for me here) and have opportunities to talk through anything from his time there.

I think the adoption in progress that I mentioned last week is going well. Please keep praying for them.

Coming up: Will needs to work on our reregistration now, in the week ahead.

This is insignificant, but could you please pray for me to find time to work on a few projects myself?

Document update: registration is transferring from Zaporozhya (which is like the state capitol) to Vasilevka (which is kind of the county seat?). Please pray that Will will be able to figure where and how to register us there. The lady at the "state" level is such an easy-to-work-with professional that it's going to be hard to say goodbye to her!

We're having trouble with our landlords. Or, actually they're having big trouble. This apartment is owned by a divorced couple. Please pray that they can figure things out between themselves.

Will is leaving for Kiev on Tuesday to attend the summit I had mentioned before. Please cover his travels and time there with lots of prayer. Pray that he'll make good connections with people and get insight into where we should be headed. Of course, you can pray for us at home without him, too.

Also, there's an American family adopting in our region right now. I can't give details, because their story isn't ours to tell, of course, but they're very heavy on our hearts and minds right now. Please lift them up with us.

(I think I fixed the return email address for this blog. If you're getting this by email, you should be able to reply now.)

I spoke too soon last week when I said that we were well. We've had another week of sickness; even our poor cat had a trip to the vet. But now we really are back to normal and very, very thankful for the great health that we're usually blessed with!

Will's going to Zaporozhya on Tuesday to see about reregistration.

We've decided that he'll go to the summit I mentioned before by himself, instead of our whole family trying to attend. Please pray that it will be a really good time of connecting with other people and learning.

Health is getting better around here. Thank you for praying! We're still not quite back up to 100%, though, so you can keep praying.

I can't think of anything else that's new.

How can we pray for YOU?

Updating again

Once again, I ask: is anyone still reading here? I'd like to start updating once a week again, instead of only mixing prayer requests in with my general updates elsewhere. I'm going to try for every Saturday here.

So, first, some longer-term prayer requests:

• residency renewal in March (shouldn't be any problems or fuss or travel involved, but we should still pray)
• decision making: just that we would be able to think about where to move to! and that we would be wise

I probably won't update those any time soon.

And then right now:

• praise for a wonderful Christmas season
• everyone (except me) has colds right now
• maybe going to this summit next month?