Greetings from Ukraine! New school year is in full swing here in Lviv so we will keep this short. As we mentioned in our last update we lost a volunteer who was helping us last year and was planning to come work with us full time this year so we are thankful for all your prayers as we are still trying to figure out what changes to make so that we would be able to manage the ministry ourselves.
We would also appreciate your prayers for the fall weeklong retreat that we also already mentioned in our previous emails. Right now we are working on all the details together with the youth leader of the Lutheran congregation in the Czech Republic that invited us. We are really encouraged to see the enthusiasm of this Czech youth group and the desire they have to share their faith with our youth. That is an answer to our prayers in many ways and we thank all of you who are praying with us for this retreat.
Another prayer request that we also already mentioned earlier is our visa situation. Our Ukrainian visa and registration expires now in October and we are right now in the process of trying to get a renewal. We submitted our documents last week and we should probably hear from the office this week to see if we will be able to get another one-year renewal. Last year it was a headache to get this done so please pray that, if it is God’s will, that it would go smoother this year.
This weekend, the new bishop of the German Lutheran church is coming to Lviv (pictured on the left) and we were asked to host him, his wife and his translator in our apartment. That will give us an opportunity to get to know him better. If you think of us this weekend please pray that our time with the bishop would be honoring to God and that God would grant us wisdom when we discuss some of the details of our work in Lviv.
If you’d like to see some new pictures from our lives and ministry, we updated our summer gallery at http://picasaweb.google.com/HannahJoyChmiel/Summer2009?authkey=Gv1sRgCMn83qCFnaC4Kg#
And of course Hannah’s gallery is updated at http://picasaweb.google.com/HannahJoyChmiel/ For those who like baby pictures :) :) :)
And one last thing, we wanted to really apologize to all of you who sent us emails and got no answer from us. We are REALLY BEHIND with emails that need to be answered so it is possible that if you sent us an email at a time when we were not able to write back right away, the email ended up in a LOOOONG line of emails that need to be answered. If you are still waiting for our answer on something that is important, please do not hesitate to write again and remind us and we will try to email you right back. We are so sorry for this. Every day we hope to get caught up and somehow it is not happening :(
Have a great rest of the week,
Tomasz, Miriam and Hannah
