What to say? I am on a train to leave the country and apply for a new visa to replace the one that expires tomorrow. The good news is I am leaving the country on time in order to not get blacklisted (shut out of the country for a year). The bad news is that I do not yet have the documents I will need from the Ukrainian government in order to apply for a new visa.
The Problem
Mr. President (Viktor Yanukovych) decided to disband the Committee of Religious Affairs a couple weeks before we tried to submit our documents. So where do our documents go now? Most people, even lawyers, had no clue. Thankfully, my wonderful girlfriend Lesya started making phone calls, going from one number to another and piecing together clues about how to make the process work now. Someone along the chain of phone calls gave her the personal number of one government official who was able to direct her to the temporarily correct place for our type of documents to be submitted.
As things stand right now, our documents appear to be in the right hands. The biggest problem is that those hands are swamped with work, partially due to the disbanding of the Religious Committee. They say it could take up to 30 days to get approval. We pray it will be much less!
The more immediate problem is that they want one additional document with information regarding the church. Honestly, this shouldn't be a huge problem but every day counts right now. We sincerely hope our youth pastor will have the time to get this document turned in tomorrow. This could be the difference between spending Christmas in Ukraine or in Poland.
What To Pray For (Please!)
Please pray for quick document processing and approval. Please also pray for government employees to be attentive to their jobs and quickly inform us of any additional details or information they decide they will need. We have already lost time because of this. Things are very much at the whim of human nature. Thankfully God is ultimately in control of everybody involved.
Once the documents are done they will be sent to us in Poland. "Us" is me and the other New Life intern, Jenny. We have hostel booked for eight nights and hope that will be enough time to get the documents done and overnighted to Ukraine. If so, we will make it back on Christmas Eve!
What I Will Be Doing In The Meantime
I will try to make the most of this time that is out of my hands. This will be a time for extra talks with God and asking Him to line up all aspects of my life in order with His plan. I will be seeking out that plan and the next step of His vision for me. I can get through some piles of Russian homework. I will do some Skyping with friends from the US. I'll have opportunities to enjoy not-so-everyday things like going to the movie theater because most movies here are shown in English with Polish subtitles. I will take pleasure from a few Mountain Dews and some peanut butter sandwiches (cheap solution to food but a delicacy after eight months in a country that lives without peanut butter). During all of this, I will be missing my amazing Lesya. But I know God uses different times for different purposes and brings the most out of each.
Then
After we get our visas there will still be a lot of work to be done. Under the new visa law (which has been extremely confusing and which trickles down to different government agencies months after going into effect), we get 45 days in the country. Within that window we need to get temporary residency in Ukraine. This means we need to find someone who will let us register at their apartment. The problem is, this means someone accepts that we will have a say in matters such as the sale of the apartment during that time and that this person can become liable for our actions. So more prayer requests may follow soon!
As things become clearer or confirmed in my understanding of God's vision for me, I will post to this blog and let you know what will be coming up. Thank you as always for all different kinds of support. These have been essential and I appreciate the ways they have enabled and guided the circumstances that have helped me grow over the last eight months.
Contact Me
If you want me to give you a call and want to hear personally what has been going on in Ukraine, let me know! I have a Skype account that allows me to call your phone number with no long distance charges. You receive the call from a US phone number. Send me an email at joshuaingram@gmail.com if you would like to find a time that coordinates over our seven to eight hour time difference. I'd like to tell you about my life and hear about what I've missed in yours.
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