Kostya
We just wanted to THANK YOU so much for praying for Kostya and also for writing to let him know about your prayers. He was not accepted to the school but knowing that so many of you prayed was very encouraging. We believe that Kostya can trust that God was in all of it with him and it probably was not His will for Kostya to start attending this school this fall. We printed out all your emails and prayers that you wrote so that Kostya can keep them and re-read your words or encouragement again in the future. If you remember, please continue to pray for Kostya as he and his parents will have to decide what to do next.
Hanna
Many of you asked for more pictures of Hannah so here’s a link for you :) http://picasaweb.google.com/HannahJoyChmiel/ We added a lot of new pictures to the “second month” album and some are now also in “third month.”
Our regular gallery (www.chmiels.com/gallery) is not working properly at this time but you can see some new ministry pictures and some other recent “non-Hannah” pictures here
http://picasaweb.google.com/HannahJoyChmiel/Summer2009?authkey=Gv1sRgCMn83qCFnaC4Kg#
Visas
We also have a prayer request to share with you. Our Ukrainian visa expires this fall so we will need to renew both our visa and our registration. This might sound like an easy thing to do but unfortunately it is not. We just learned today that our close friends Josh and Kelsie (also missionaries in Lviv) will be going back to America for a while and one of the main reasons for this trip has to do with immigration problems that have come up recently in Ukraine. Here’s some of what Josh wrote on his website:
“In May of this year, Ukraine’s parliament passed a new law restricting the amount of time foreigners can stay in the country. In short, the new law says that you can only stay in Ukraine for 90 days out of every 180, unless you apply for an extension. The process of receiving this extension is called “registration” and is not simple or cheap. To further complicate the situation, every government agency that we deal with (e.g. border patrol, foreign affairs office, the embassy) seems to have a different interpretation of the law. There are as many versions as there are agencies, and some agencies do not yet acknowledge that there have been any changes at all! The biggest concern for most foreigners here is that they might make a trip abroad, say, a two-day trip into Poland for supplies, and then be turned away at the border while trying to reenter Ukraine. For those of us who have homes and families here, such a scenario would pose serious problems. Imagine going into Mexico or Canada for short trip, and then, upon trying to reenter the US, being told that you have to stay gone for another three months. Makes you think about how you pack.”
So please pray that God gives us favor with the right people at the right offices and helps us through this whole complicated process! THANK YOU SO MUCH!
Have a blessed week,
Tomasz, Miriam and Hannah
