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?

Visas

The visa laws have been changing here. Will is going to Zaporozhya on Tuesday to see what he can find out about how the changes will affect us and what we'll need to do to renew. Please be praying for us in this!

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.