At around 12:15pm on April 28th, we landed at L’viv International Airport. To me, this seemed like the shortest and smoothest flight we’ve had yet! The kids did very well (slept a good bit) and overall the trip was uneventful. No ash cloud either. :) That said, I did notice that we were cruising at about 38,000 feet - a good 8,000 feet higher than normal. Maybe we were flying above the danger zone?
Having arrived back at home, we were greeted by a whole crowd of smiling faces. The Beal’s and Nathan picked us up at the airport. When we got to our apartment, we found it clean and the kitchen stocked with several meals and snacks. Our friends Tomasz and Miriam even sent over a French Silk pie! (Am I loved or what?) In short, we want to say a great big “thank you!” to all our dear friends here who made our return to Ukraine such a pleasant one.
I’d also like to express our sincere gratefulness to our friends and family on the other side of the Atlantic who were such a blessing to us while were in the US the past 8 months. Of these, I would like to say a very special thank you to my mom, Cathy, who worked like Wonder Woman to help us get our houses ready to rent. She laid tile, painted, cleaned, hauled junk in the van, made phone calls, screened prospective tenants, etc, etc, etc. After we left, she oversaw the process of emptying our house in the US, returning borrowed items to their owners, and signing the lease with our new tenants. There is no way in the world we could have finished all these tasks without her help. THANK YOU, MOM!!
Here in L’viv, we’re still in the process of unpacking and reorganizing, but are making progress. I’m moving my office over to our ministry center, which will free up an extra room in our house. This will probably end up being the baby’s room/guest room. Once we get our feet under us, we’ll be sending out the next issue of Overseas Field Report with more ministry details. In the meantime, we appreciate your continued prayers for us as we gear up for a full summer of ministry.
VISA UPDATE
For those of you who have kept up with the visa saga, know that our troubles in that arena are far from over. The day we got in from the States, I went with a small group of Americans to meet with a representative of the US Consulate from Kyiv. We discussed with him our concerns and some of the problems we have experienced with registration. He was able to give us quite a bit of information which I believe will be helpful in solving the problems we face. There are still several unknowns, but in a nutshell it appears we will no longer be able to use the Type-K (cultural) visas that we’ve all had in the past. Please continue to pray that the Lord would give us wisdom as we search for lasting solutions to these immigration issues.
