First of all, we wanted to thank all of you who came to be with us last night. What a joy to be with all of you again! Thank you so much!
Our domain name expired on Saturday so right now it is not possible to access our regular picture gallery. But we posted some new pictures for you here: http://picasaweb.google.com/chmiels05/spring2008. We know many of you like pictures :)
In our last email, we shared a little update on Miriam’s health situation and us hoping to leave at the end of this month. We asked Miriam’s doctor for her advice and she does not think it would be safe for us to go back to Ukraine right now. She said that, “the ovarian torsion is impossible to predict and could mean life or death…” So we really do not feel peace about taking any unnecessary risks by going back to Ukraine before Miriam is better.
But we are praying for a miracle! Miriam’s doctor said it could take six months before Miriam is ready to go back but we are praying that, if that’d be God’s will, that we would be able to leave at the end of May. And if that would not be His will… please pray that God would give us patience. It is really hard for us to be away from Ukraine for so long. We had pastor Alexander Gross from Ukraine with us this past weekend and even though we love Minnesota and our friends here, by being with him and talking about all the ministry in Ukraine, it made us want to go back there even more.
We have seen some answers to our prayers lately too. One big answer to prayer is that we found a Ukrainian teacher here in the Twin Cities. She will be working with us until we are ready to go back to Ukraine. So that is wonderful! Tomasz actually likes the way she teaches more than the way we learn Ukrainian in Lviv.
Another answer to our (and your!!) prayers is that we got Pavel’s phone number and his new address (Pavel is the 14-year-old boy from our church in Ukraine who is now living with his father because his mom went to Russia). We were able to talk to Pavel on the phone and also send him a little birthday package. We are praying that he will feel God’s love even through some little things like that.
Thank you for praying for us and for those who are waiting for us in Ukraine!
God bless you,
Tomasz and Miriam
PS: Some of you asked about our mailing address. This is our address at least until May 28:
Tomasz and Miriam Chmiel
3136 E Medicine Lake Blvd, Unit A
Plymouth, MN 55441
