Capernaum Christmas

Now that Christmas is winding down,* I'm going back to celebrations in December. A few of these photos are mine, the rest are from the day's photographer. (I don't know how long she'll keep all the photos available there. Here are more on Instagram.) At our first Capernaum club in December we practiced for a Christmas program. That program was the second club meeting of the month. All the parents and other friends were invited, and we acted out the Christmas story. 

After the program a local business gave the kids Christmas presents, very generously buying up lists of their individual needs and wants. Then we all ate together. 

(*A big pet peeve of mine is when people try to end Christmas on December 26. No! We're still singing Christmas carols and greeting people with "Christ is born!" Christmas is a season, not just a day.)

Happy New Year!

We just got back from a whirlwind trip to Poland to meet up with Will's family. His parents and sisters and one sister's family came over, and we had a little reunion. If you follow Will or any of them on Facebook, you've probably seen photos and read about it all. I hardly took any pictures myself. It was amazing to see everyone and fun to be in Krakow. The photo below is a compilation of us in the same spot there in 2012, 2020, and on this trip: 

Now Raia is here with us until she heads to Lithuania. There's lots of sniffling and coughing going on from whatever everyone picked up while traveling, and we're pretty exhausted. But we're thankful and headed into the New Year now, glad to be together.

A wonderful New Year present was a phone call from Kherson first thing this morning, saying that Asya's residency card is ready. I thought maybe she dreamed it, because I can't believe that Migration is working today, but apparently it was real. So, now we have another trip to plan, to go get that picked up and register her.

More Thanksgivings

Here we are almost to Christmas, and I still haven't posted what I wrote about Thanksgiving. I was sick for a while and then just busy. Here is what I wrote a while ago:
After Asya and I got back from Kherson, I had a really busy week of working on my to do list--details for an upcoming Christmas trip to Poland, Sunday school planning, Capernaum club, and more. 

Then on Saturday (December 6) we were planning to have our family Thanksgiving a little late, after a winter Capernaum club meeting. I had prepared food most of the day before. Power outages reached the point of more off than on, which is my personal limit for when they start to seem hard, but I tried to work around them. We had a wonderful club, even without electricity. Towards the end I started to feel like I had a fever, though, so I hurried off as soon as I could and went to bed. The rest of our family pulled together all the food--what I had already made and their own additions, too--our guest came, and I joined everyone at the table. We had a very good meal, talked about what we are thankful for, and enjoyed being together in the candlelight. 

(Apparently this is a second Thanksgiving with especially heavy outages. Not to mention the Thanksgiving when we were evacuated from Kherson after several weeks without having electricity at all.)

Photos from both our Thanksgiving and that day's Capernaum club in the dark:

Jaan kept his buddy happy with phone light on swirling glitter.

The darkness didn't stop Bogdan and his buddy.

My buddy twins were fine in the dark.

Residency update

Here's an update on Asya's document process: after the miraculous visa trip, we didn't stop working on what was next. Finally we figured out that we needed to apply for her residency in Kherson. Will pulled together the documents we needed to turn in, and I got tickets and permission for her to enter the city. (Several times along the way here, I've gotten compliments to whomever was doing all the writing, it was obviously done by professionals. Um. Thank you very much.) 

Again, we had almost miraculous interactions. Getting into Kherson can be complicated, but it wasn't hard at all this time. We went to Migration as soon as we could, and this is where we ran into complications. We got there first thing in the morning, to find all the workers standing around, unable to do anything. Because of shelling the night before, their phones and computer system were out. No one had any idea when it would be fixed, or what we should do. We went to another office, in another part of town. They gave us a full consultation and checked through all our papers, but couldn't accept them, because we're not in their district. 

So, for the rest of the week, I called every morning to get an update. We spent time with our friends and helped out around church some. Finally, on Friday they said yes when I called. Asya got a call from the other office then, too, telling her that our branch was back in business. She had plans to help with a children's program that day, so she was not happy that we had to rush across town and turn in her paperwork right then. But we did. It took a while. She did make it back in time to be with the kids, though. 

Her residency card should be ready right around Christmas. We'll probably go back to get it and register her at the beginning of the new year, and then we'll be done with this until the end of martial law. Please keep praying about it until we get to that point. Thank you!

So thankful

Asya has a visa to get residency in Ukraine! I feel like a huge weight has been lifted. We recently asked for extra prayer for both Raia and Asya. We're seeing lots of answers to those prayers. Please keep praying for both girls, and for all of us.

On Thursday Asya and I got on a bus to travel to Krakow. Our trip was long, but went smoothly. The border guard on the way out hassled Asya a little about supposedly overstaying in Ukraine, but he couldn't fine us, as he seemed to want to. We spent the night in a hostel, and the next morning was just miraculous. We have never gotten a visa so easily. Never. Please remember, Raia's visa application was turned down two years ago, so we went into this with a lot of fear and trepidation. It's been hanging over us for quite a while now. Raia had other plans and options, so being refused was sad, but not a disaster. It felt like Asya just had to get this and didn't have much of a chance.

We got to the Ukrainian embassy right on time for Asya's appointment, they took our documents, and told us where to go pay. At that point we got a little turned around, because my phone wasn't wanting to connect to Polish internet to follow their map to the bank. But we figured it out, paid, and went back. They took the receipt and told us to have a seat because there was someone in line in front of us. A few minutes later they called us back, we thought to ask questions and go over all the papers, but no, the man told Asya to sit for her photo and do her fingerprints. And then I saw that he was already printing her visa! We just couldn't believe it! Like I said, always before there have been questions, or something that needs to be added or changed, or even just "come back later to get your visa." This time he didn't ask a single question and printed the visa out and stuck it into her passport right then! He laughed a little at how excited we were.

After that we celebrated by going to a modern art museum (Asya) and walking along the river (me) and dinner at a restaurant (both of us, of course). We spent another night in the hostel, and got back on another bus for another all-day trip.

So strange to see!

Lots of memories here

And here. She was shocked by how small the dragon is.

The next morning we hosted 80-90 people at our house for the church Harvest Holiday/Thanksgiving. To quote our pastor we were "on the vibes of thankfulness," even if Asya and I were exhausted from our travels. The holiday was beautiful. Honestly, I didn't even see much of it, because I was so busy with the kids. I only had a little planned part in doing a cooking activity with all the Sunday school kids, but I also kept the little ones whose parents were running everything busy and happy the whole time. I know there were a lot of people, there was praise and worship, a short message and small group discussions, and lots of good food. An amazing wedding photographer from the church took photos and posted them here; I'm picking out some of hers and some of ours for this.

Leadership team

A little visitor I have babysat

Two of my biggest thankfulnesses right now are for Asya's visa and that we can live in this house, where we can be a part of a beautiful day like this.

Now that Asya has a visa, we'll need to apply for her residency card. That means gathering another set of documents, figuring out where to turn them in, and then registration. It should be all downhill from here, but you can keep praying for the process.

Hoverla

I had the best birthday celebration ever! My actual birthday was back on August 18, but on August 27, we climbed Hoverla, Ukraine's highest mountain, to celebrate. The climb was hard, but so worth it. And our little blind dog heroically kept up with us. Bogdan only carried him for a few minutes, when it was absolutely impossible for Leo to get through the boulders he couldn't see, and Leo cried that whole time, because he wanted to be walking by himself.

This is something I've wanted to do for a while. At first I had thought that I would have to hire a guide and just go by myself, or with Bogdan. But then we found out that our Ivano-Frankivsk friends have done this before (of course!), I asked them to show us the way. That made it all so much more fun. We started out early on a bus to the town closest to Hoverla. There we hired a transfer car, went to the base, and ate our breakfast. Will and Asya stayed there. The rest of us went up, and yes, it seemed like straight up. Tanya planned for us to take the shorter, steeper way up, then the longer, "gentler" way down. That worked well. 

Leo and I were the last of our little group to make it all the way to the summit, and our friends greeted me with a Hoverla medal, a cupcake, and a birthday candle. Then we took tons of photos and started back down.

My view for most of the day

Coming out of the tree line

Berries!

Lunch break, almost at the top

We made it!

Bogdan's friend slept like this most of the way back.

I should get more of Asya's photos. She and Will had a great time in the beautiful forest around the base.

Many thanks to my parents! This trip was their birthday gift to me.