Thank you so much to all of you who are keeping us in your prayers! Your prayers are a great source of encouragement to us. We are starting our sixth month of living out of a suitcase and right now we are staying in our sixth temporary place since we left our Minneapolis home this winter. We were able to stay at the L’viv church when we first came to Ukraine in March, we enjoyed staying with Miriam’s sister, Miriam’s parents, and Tomasz’s parents when we were in Czech for a while. And we are thankful for the two temporary Ukrainian apartments we have been able to use lately. But we probably do not need to tell you how ready we are to be somewhere more permanent.The good news is that we found an apartment to rent long-term! We found it more than a month ago but there were a lot of things that needed to be fixed (e.g. there was no water in the kitchen during the day) so we are still working on those. God willing, we hope to move in there some time in August. Lately we have had big water problems at our current apartment – the water is not always on even during those morning and evening hours – so moving into an apartment where there is water 24/7 will feel like luxury. We can’t wait!
If you would like to write to us, you can already use this address:
Tomasz and Miriam Chmiel
vul. Ohienka 7, kv. 9
L’viv, 79007
Ukraine
vul. Ohienka 7, kv. 9
L’viv, 79007
Ukraine
Or for those of you who would like to try to do it the “real way,” you can write our address like this:
Томаш і Міріям Шміль
вул. Огіенка 7, кв. 9
Львів, 79007
Україна
We are also continuing with our Ukrainian lessons and we are enjoying being able to communicate more and more each day. Not everyone in Ukraine speaks good Ukrainian (a lot of people still speak Russia) but we are told that L’viv is one of the best places to be to learn good Ukrainian. We love to listen to L’viv people when they talk and we really wish to one day sound exactly like them. We will see if that happens.This summer we are also blessed to have two different short-term mission teams with us here in L’viv. We already said good-bye to the Albuquerque team and now we have couple of days with a team from California. If you would like to see pictures from our week with the ABQ team, you can click at http://www.chmiels.com/gallery/abq_team/ And if you would like to hear what the “Praise Ye the Lord” song sounds like at a Ukrainian children’s camp, go to our video page http://www.chmiels.com/videos.htm and click on “Children’s camp Gloria.”
Thank you again so much for praying for us and for Ukraine. There are so many things that we encounter every day that are not right (cheating, bribes, dishonesty, very poor work ethics, corruption, street children on drugs etc. etc.) Our hearts break when we see these and we feel so helpless when we are not able to do something about each of the problems. But we realize that these can only change if people turn to God for forgiveness and help. And that is what we are praying for! Please join us!
Blessings,
Tomasz and Miriam
