You Haven’t Lived in Ukraine Long Enough If…
You step outside at 9:00 AM on what you expect to be a normal, hustle-and-bustle Tuesday morning and find the streets and sidewalks almost completely empty and quiet. One of these days (years) the calendar of Ukrainian holidays will finally sink in deep enough that I'll actually know it will be a holiday before that moment of stepping outside for the first time that morning.
For today, happy Ukrainian Labor Day, everyone!
Much to Learn
Earlier this week, April 26, it was again the anniversary of the Chernobyl tragedy. I wrote about this in a post on the blog last year. This year, as part of the boys' schooling (we'll call it History and Culture), I took Malachi and Silas to the Chernobyl monument here in Kharkov to tell them about what happened, and to respectfully observe how the occasion was being marked by people here around us. After looking at the monument and reviewing what it means, we went and sat on a nearby bench to watch and listen as other people came and laid flowers in front of it.
One of the interesting things I noticed was how political parties were showing up to wave their flags while they brought their flowers to the monument. Below on the left, with the red flags, is a handful of people from the Communist Party of Ukraine unloading from their van (yes, the communist party is still very real and active here, although they are a minority). A little while later we saw a different political party, Front Zmin, come through with their bright green flags.
All of this was a reminder of how much there is to learn here. What was a defining national event for Ukraine (for the worse, not for the better) like Chernobyl is still something we are learning about -- not only about the event itself, but about how things like that have impacted the people and culture here. 26 years later, the anniversary of Chernobyl is something that brings people to monuments and brings political parties out of the woodwork. They wave flags that represent platforms and initiatives and visions for the country, but the nuances of differences between some of the different political parties here is something I haven't yet learned. Another year from now, may I be that much more aware of the meaning and impact of Chernobyl and other events like it that have made Ukraine what it is today.
A Year Later
We've been back in Ukraine for almost three months now. In all, our time in the US ended up lasting six months. We returned to Ukraine in mid-January, almost exactly one year since we came back to Kharkov in January 2011 from our furlough that year. In some ways, our January 2012 return to Kharkov felt a little like a do-over to me. When we returned in January 2011, it was on the heels of a furlough in which we had spent time with the leadership of our then-sponsoring church talking things over and (we thought) correcting some things that had just not been working well in that relationship. So we returned to Kharkov that January 2011 looking forward to two more solid years of work to do before the next furlough. We got through jet lag, got plugged back into our relationships here, got some good new things started...
And then the hammer fell.
It was March 19, 2011 that we got that fateful call informing us that we needed to start looking for a new sponsoring church. We reeled for a long time after that, trying to figure out how to cope with that and what to do next. At the same time we were midway through a pregnancy and needed to have some stable plans for where we'd give birth and so on. We stayed in Ukraine for a few months, trying not to let our circumstances pry us away too abruptly from the work. But by mid-July we were back in the US to see what else the Lord might have in mind as far as partnership arrangements go. Anything to help us stay in Ukraine through the end of our commitment, at least.
Despite the inherent uncertainties of our situation, the Lord blessed us a lot in those six months in the US. Through many of his people I think he rehabilitated us in some important ways (I'm looking especially at you, you, and you). I know we're still far from completely recovered. But we've moved on enough to be able to say that the time it has taken me to write this post is the longest I've thought about these things in one sitting in a while.
The work here is worthwhile and good, and by God's grace we're back here. And March 19th, 2012 has now come and gone and we're still plugging along with forward progress in the work, instead of scrambling about our support. Yes, 2012 does feel like a do-over of the 2011 that could have been.
P.S. I'm hoping to get back to blogging a little more regularly now. My evolving feelings about online communications in the context of ministry may become a post or three of their own, but hopefully it won't be as quiet here on our blog as it was the last few months.
Service with a Silas Smile
Today Silas (who just turned 4 last month) helped me change a flat tire on my mother-in-law's car.
Click here to see some footage. He looks like a natural.
My favorite part is the end of the video though. The smiles and facial expressions there are 100% genuine Silas.
It’s Great to be Home (Home Away from Home, That Is…)
As temporary, by design, as this house in Fort Worth has been for us, it's been our home base for right at five months now since we arrived from Ukraine in mid-July. So in that way it's gradually become home, even though it's actually home away from home (in Ukraine).
Earlier this afternoon we stepped back in the door of this house for the first time in a while... again. We've been in the Lubbock area for the last three weeks spending time with our new sponsoring church and dealing with visa document procedures. Before that we had spent some time out in California. Before that we had been in Lubbock visiting with the Shallowater church the first time.
All together we've been "home" at this house for 7 of the past 49 days. That means we've been away -- on the road, staying with a variety of others, more or less living out of suitcases -- for 42 of the last 49 days. Yes, 42 of the last 49 days. Further, if you count back to the birth of Ezra, it's been 110 days since he was born. We've been away from our Fort Worth home for 59 of those 110.
We had originally planned to be on a plane right at this moment on the way across the Atlantic Ocean. We would have loved to be back in Ukraine this week, but that turned out to be outside of our control (no big surprise there). Our visa documents were so delayed that there was no time left to actually apply for our visas. So last week we had to push our tickets back. Due to a combination of uncertainty about visa processing times and trying to minimize ticket change fees, our tickets have been changed to a January 15th departure.
All that aside, we are very glad to be back here. This is the third time we've returned to this house since we left it on Oct. 26th, but this will be the first time we actually bother to unpack all our bags from the previous trip. We have no plans on the immediate horizon to go anywhere, and that is just fine for now.
Waiting Is the Hardest Part
While I don't think Tom Petty has ever had to deal with Ukrainian visas, he might have been on to something when he penned those lyrics.
We're waiting for our departure back to Ukraine. Which is waiting on us to have visas in hand. Which are waiting on our visa invitations to arrive. Which are still not here yet. Let me explain.
As we've said before, in order to live and work in Ukraine for longer than 90 days, we have to have visas issued by a Ukrainian consulate. Those visas have to be issued outside of Ukraine; we cannot obtain them while in Ukraine. Our visas have always been valid for one year at a time, and when the year-long term of our visas is nearing expiration, we are required to leave Ukraine and apply for new visas at a Ukrainian consulate somewhere else. In this case, our most recent visas expired in August while we were in the US, and now we need new visas to be able to go back and spend another year in Ukraine. Since we are in the US, we will be applying (by mail) to the Ukrainian consulate in Washington, DC.
Since our purpose for living and working in Ukraine is religious (missionary work), the law of Ukraine requires that we have an invitation from a religious organization registered in Ukraine. This is no problem; we are closely partnered with Ukrainian Bible Institute in Donetsk who have been nothing but wonderful in issuing those invitations for us. It's a simple process for them of just drafting up a one-page letter listing our names and passport numbers and making a few statements about the nature of the work they are inviting us to Ukraine to do.
The thing is, after our good friends at UBI draft up that letter, we cannot actually use it to apply for visas until it has been approved by the Department of Religion in Kiev (the capital city of Ukraine). So our liaison at UBI sends it off to Kiev for them to review and approve. How long it takes the bureaucrats in Kiev to do this has been unpredictable. Average maybe two weeks, but it has been done in as little as one day in one case. And in another case -- which is our invitation letter this time around -- it can apparently take almost a month. We had sent all the relevant details to our liaison at UBI in late October, hoping that we'd have our invitation letter approved and in hand by mid-November, or at least by about Thanksgiving. That would still give enough time to apply for our visas at the Ukrainian consulate in Washington, DC, which as of October was estimating visa processing times of up to 15 days.
Our tickets to return to Ukraine are for December 13th. That's this coming Tuesday.
The first hang-up was that the invitation letter took so long in Kiev this time. Our liaison at UBI got the invitation back from Kiev and was able to quickly ship it off to us, but this was on Nov. 30th. That left us with a very tight timeframe for visa processing in DC before our Dec. 13th departure. Meanwhile, last week I checked the webpage of the Ukrainian consulate in DC and now they are saying visa processing times are up to 30 days!
However, there was a glimmer of hope that we might still have a shot. The shipping company in Ukraine had told our liaison that the documents would be delivered to us here in Texas in 3 business days, and I called the consulate in DC and was told that if all of our documents were in order and correct, then they could do the processing in "maybe 3 days." So there was still a chance, if we had everything overnighted both directions between Texas and DC.
Hang-up number two is the fact that it's now Dec. 7th and our invitations have still not been delivered to us here in Texas. This morning I got a phone call from a middleman shipping company asking for the correct delivery address, since our friend in Ukraine accidentally filled out the Texas address wrong, leaving the house number off altogether. Thankfully she included our phone number so the shipping company was able to call. So now we are being told that the invitation "should" be delivered tomorrow.
I'll still get it off to DC with our visa applications, passports, and photos (all part of the visa application requirements) right away, but it is crystal clear that we will have to change our tickets. The question now is -- what date to change them to? We can't afford to change them any more than absolutely necessary, since the change fees are hefty. It would be foolish to count on the optimistic 3-day processing possibility mentioned over the phone by the DC consulate worker, but on the other hand how cautious should we be? Should we allow for visa processing to take 9 days? 15 days? 30 days? The DC consulate worker had told me "maximum 15 days" (if there are problems with our documents) but the website still says up to 30. What should we plan on? And what about the looming holidays, since the consulate is closed for all US and Ukrainian holidays? Will they even be doing much work in between Dec. 25th and New Year's? And what about in between New Year's and Jan. 7th (which is Ukrainian Christmas)?
If Tom Petty is right, though, at least it should all get easier from here on out. Right?
Thanksgiving Without Granny
For the 11 years since Denyce and I got engaged, we've been doing the usual thing common to most young couples — juggling which holidays to spend where and with which side of which family. With Denyce's dad's side? With Denyce's mom's side? Or can we make it to California to be with Rob's folks?
But one thing was very consistent — Thanksgiving was always with Denyce's dad's side. For reasons few can probably explain, Denyce's dad's side of the family has consistently had exactly one whole-family get-together per year. Not Christmas, or Easter, or any other holiday. It was Thanksgiving or bust.
The center of this tradition was Denyce's grandmother on her dad's side, whose grandmotherly name was Granny. The Thanksgiving get-together always took place at Granny's house on the outskirts of Abilene, TX. And boy, did Granny work it. She was a veritable powerhouse of energy, of non-stop cooking and visiting and wrangling relatives all together. But her bustle had strictly defined time parameters. It would begin about 4:00 in the morning and last until sometime around 7:00 in the evening (or 8:00 if she was pushing it). Then she was off to bed, no questions asked. The rest of us could be up playing games late into the night, but Granny was in bed because 4:00 the next morning was coming up fast.
Because of the reality I mentioned above -- that Thanksgiving was the family get-together -- Granny had a unique way of conducting Thanksgiving day. Her little house would be fully decorated for Thanksgiving well in advance, and her Thanksgiving spread of food covered all the requisite staples of Thanksgiving fare. She did Thanksgiving to the tee. But let me tell you, as soon as the last fork from the last eater's last bite hit their plate, Thanksgiving was over. And it was now Christmas season.
Before the dishes would even be cleared from the table, it seemed, Granny would have magically produced the boxes of Christmas ornaments and decorations and would have half the women helping her put up the Christmas decorations. Once the decorations were up, it wasn't much longer into the afternoon before Granny would circle everyone up and distribute her Christmas gifts to everyone. After all, no one even pretended that they would all see each other for Christmas. In this family, we did Thanksgiving, period, and so Christmas had to be given a time slot on Thanksgiving day.
Granny passed away earlier this month, on November 5th. She was 81 years old, closing in on 82. This year wasn't our family's first Thanksgiving without being at Granny's -- we had to miss it in 2007 when Denyce was 37 weeks pregnant with Silas, and again in 2008 and 2009 when we were in our first years in Ukraine. But this year was the first Thanksgiving with no family get-together at Granny's at all, because Granny was no longer with us. Her passing was not unexpected, as both Granny's health and mind had been gradually deteriorating for the past year or two. Last year -- 2010 -- was the last Thanksgiving at Granny's house, and after missing it for three years our family made it to that one. We had just flown in the night before and Thanksgiving Day was the first day of our furlough.
We are very grateful to have seen Granny multiple times in the last couple of months before her recent passing. We had just been with her at the hospital the week before she died. Perhaps that is one of the silver linings of this crazy year we've had with our support losses and unanticipated time back in the US to find new partners. We got to see Granny a little bit more in her last months with us.
There are so many pictures I could have included with this post, but I decided to select photos of Granny with each of our boys over the past few years:
Granny holding Malachi at age 1.5 months, October 2005
Granny with Denyce and Silas (in Denyce's lap) at age 9 months, September 2008
Granny with many (but not nearly all) of her great-grandchildren, Thanksgiving 2010
Granny with Ezra, October 27, 2011
The GMC and Onward
Last week and weekend we were privileged to participate in the Global Missions Conference in the DFW area. It was actually hosted by Legacy Church of Christ and coordinated by Missions Resource Network -- the two groups of folks who have probably been most instrumental in keeping our family healthy through recent months and positioned to get back to the field long-term.
The GMC included lots of great messages and sessions, some of which I was able to sit in on and be encouraged by. More than anything else, though, it was a hub of missions people and a great time of visiting between them. I got to sit down and have conversations with a number of great people from various missions congregations, former and current missionaries, and the like.
Our family was given a booth area in the exhibition hall to set up a display. I threw this together in the last two days before the conference and it turned out great. It was a great spot to visit with people and for people to find us and learn more about the work. Here's Malachi checking it out:
This weekend we are the Lubbock area to meet with a church here that is considering supporting us. It seems like a really neat possibility, and we're looking forward to spending time with them.
Ezra at One Month
Ezra turned one month old two days ago, and we resumed our family tradition of taking our baby's photo every month on his "day-of-the-month day" (in other words, every time he turns another month old). We've done this with each of our kids until they turn two years old. The photos often end up happening late at night on the special day each month because we forget to take them earlier in the day. So in those cases we have a sleepy or cranky boy who would rather be asleep. But the photos often turn out memorably no matter what.
For each boy we've chosen a stuffed animal to include in the photo each month, which provides a fun way to see their change in size over time. Malachi had a frog, Silas had a hedgehog, and for Ezra, well, see for yourself:
More photos in the full post below...
Pressing On
Our search for partners has been going slow. It's hard enough to find a new sponsoring church on such short notice while in the middle of our on-field commitment. But add to that the current economic climate of uncertainty, and most churches I've talked to are in basically a holding pattern with their missions projects. I haven't come across a single one that is actually looking to add something new. We have, however, picked up a couple of new support commitments from individuals and families we know, which is encouraging.
We originally had tickets to return to Ukraine October 1st. We've known for a long time now that a return on that date wouldn't be possible, but didn't change our tickets until today because we didn't know what date to change them to. November? December? Or even farther out? There is a sizable change fee per ticket each time we change them, so it's best not to have to do this repeatedly. We met with the Legacy church's missions ministry team this past Sunday, and they were a wonderful source of practical, grounded, caring, and understanding advice and input. They, like everyone else at Legacy, have been a saving grace.
So for now we have changed our return tickets to Ukraine to December 13th. Until then I'll be continuing to work on looking for support partners. We had grown pretty discouraged and it was hard to be enthusiastic about the search for support, but I'm putting some new energy into it now — sort of a second wind, perhaps — and we'll see what God goes in October and November.
We didn't raise support to be support-raisers, and this is far from what I want to be doing long term, so it's nice to have a tentative end date set for it. At some point, if it comes down to it, I think Denyce and I would be at peace with just going back to Ukraine and staying as long as our current on-hand support funds make that possible. On paper it might only be about a year and a half, but God can do anything and He could provide in His own way, in His own time, for us to stay as long as He wants.
Any partnership leads or contacts would be gratefully appreciated. We'll be in Tulsa the weekend of October 9th, and plan to spend at least a weekend in Houston (dates not yet scheduled). We'll also likely be making another swing through West Texas, and are willing to travel anywhere else where there might be suitable opportunities. Thank you for your prayers.