Living Coram Deo in Kyiv, Ukraine
For Isaac? One lamb for one person.
At Passover? One lamb for one family.
On the Day of Atonement? One lamb for one nation.
At the cross? One Lamb for the whole world!
Dr. Arul Ankitell, Sri Lanka
presented as part of the Lordship lessons from Luke at the HCFI World Conference in Manila, Philippines.
(Thanks, Wayne, for reminding me of these words…)
An interesting concept in Manila.
To prevent having to return bottles, you will receive your specified drink in a baggie with a straw! At least when you purchase drinks from a neighborhood stand!
This worked well except for the youngest among us…he had a hard time realizing that all would spill if you let go to readjust your hand on the bag and straw. And you can’t hold it from the bottom (like a juice box) or again it will be all over!
What fun to rendezvous with a young mom and her children while in Manila. We hadn’t seen Claire for nine years when she came to Ukraine as part of a short-term team headed up by our friends in Salisbury, Gary and Karen Brown. She’s now married to a missionary kid who has taken his family back to the Philippines where he grew up.
Thanks, Claire, for letting us see a bit of Filipino life…and for the delicious Mexican lunch!
And may the Lord richly bless your ministry in Manila.
They say it’s your birthday!
Can it be that I’ve been a grammy for a whole year?
Love this little birthday boy.
HaPpY BiRtHdAy, Milan!
(Thanks for sending the pictures, Mandie!)
The adventure is about to begin. We will be heading to the airport in about an hour.
William arrived in Kyiv around 6:00 this morning and Sasha was close behind around 7:00. Jim directed them to our flat from the train station while I quickly prepared cheese and bacon omelettes. One thing I was pretty sure about: students are always hungry!
Finishing up a little last-minute packing (what else is new?!) and off we go.
Please join us in prayer as we leave and re-enter Ukraine. And pray that our hearts will be ready and open to hear what God has to teach us in Manila!
Soooo, we’re getting picked up in less than ten hours. Are we ready to go spend ten days in Manila?
Well, no change in the visa saga of yesterday, though some great offers to spend time with friends in various countries if we can’t get back into Ukraine on the 13th. (See yesterday’s post if that doesn’t make sense to you.)
A government form that we didn’t know about (stateside) absolutely needed to be filed before we left. The research took most of the day.
We’re blessed with a sweet house guest who arrived today as part of a team working with our friends, the Stoddards. They were short of space (you don’t even want to hear why!) and we offered a spot as soon as we knew. Love meeting new folks here!
Tomorrow morning we have two students arriving an hour apart — 6:30 and 7:30 — and we’re fixing them breakfast. They, too, are flying to Manila, but not on the same flight as ours from Kyiv. We’ll meet up in Doha and arrive in Manila together.
Speaking of Manila: I checked the weather forecast for the next 10 days. Are you ready? Scattered thunderstorms, scattered thunderstorms, scattered thunderstorms, scattered thunderstorms…yeah…all ten days. Thankful that our hotel is connected to the conference site. I think.
Another Manila thought: Manila is only five time zones away. And yet we will take three flights to get there…and one of the flights is nine hours long. What’s up with that? Need to get the globe out.
Guess I should be about packing.
Not sure what the internet connections will be while we’re gone, but I hope to keep you posted on our adventures!
Laws can change quickly here in Ukraine. And usually that’s not a problem for us.
But currently visa laws and interpretation of the laws are changing. And that might prove to be a real challenge for us.
We have multi-entry visas that expire in 2012. No problem. We just received an e-mail from an official who said that the visa will be honored until its expiration date.
Foreigners staying in the country for longer than 90 days of any 180 days need to be registered in their area. Typically not a problem. BUT our visa TYPE is not going to be available after September 10 and the office doesn’t know how to register us.
Normally we’d sit back and see how this plays out. But we are leaving the country on Saturday and won’t be back until a couple of days after the new laws become effective.
As of yesterday we felt confident that we could return on our current visas and then would have 45 days to register. Surely the registration office would know how to actually process us by then.
And then today we received this notice from the American Embassy:
If you have a valid visa and OVIR registration but not a residency permit you can stay in Ukraine as long as your current registration is valid. Once you leave the country, however, you will need to obtain a new visa abroad to qualify for legal residency under the new system. Regardless of the expiration date, “old” pre-September 10 visas will no longer be valid for entry into Ukraine after September 10
Not much we can do ourselves at this point. But God remains fully in control.
Please pray that we will not be turned away at the border when we return on the 13th.
The Heart of the Matter 