Guests

Visitors
Originally uploaded by From Russia With Love1

We had guests this evening. Our friends from Lomonosov stopped in for tea. Andrew and Nastya were in St. Petersburg visiting Nasya's sister Ulia and they gave us a ring. We love it when we get to hang out with them. They're fun to be around.

Yep...Our God is Good!!

We got news today that our visa applications were accepted and we are good for another year. Praise God! The best part is that we don't even have to leave the country to get them renewed and it's only going to cost us about $250. The Ovir just extended our present visas. That is so awesome! Natalia, the director of the Swiss center, is still in disbelief that it actually happened. We are so excited about this news because it's one more testimony we have to build our faith and trust in the Lord that we're doing the right thing. Thanks for your prayers.

Walk in the Park

Walk in the Park
Originally uploaded by From Russia With Love1

It was so nice this evening that we decided to take a little walk in the park. The weather has been pretty rainy and the temperatures have been in the 40's. Today it was like 62. We were waiting for a plumber to come and fix our faucet because it's been leaking. It was so hard waiting because it was so nice out. We called our landlord to see what time he was going to come and she told us that he wouldn't be able to make it until Wednesday. So we were out the door. I love going to the park. It's so quiet and nice.

Churches

We've been visiting some friends at different churches around S. Petersburg. This is the church in Sosnovy Bor. We have some great friends there...like Leosha. I love to hook him up with new music from time to time. We really enjoy visiting with all of them there.


This is Misha Kotoff's church. It's probably the largest church in St. Petersburg. We visited his church Sunday. We liked it. They had a man from Finland speaking that morning. Our translator was with Ian in youth group and Jen was with Eve in Children's church. So there I was...hearing 2 languages...and I couldn't understand either one of them...it was interesting. The worship was great and Misha displays such a passion when he preaches.

Russian Graffiti

056
Originally uploaded by From Russia With Love1

I haven't seen any dead people yet but apparently someone has...and they wanted everyone to know.

Not Child Friendly

We had to get AIDS tests to renew our visas. Eve was not very happy about this at all. She kept asking me how it would feel and reminding me that she hated needles. She asked me afterwards, "Daddy, are you proud of me...I didn't scream." That's my girl. She was very brave. No screams, just a little bit of tears. It took 4 hours to get tests done. By the time you walk to the station, ride the metro (stop at this little shop and grab some of these yummy chocolate things that they call potatoes...yeah really, that's what they call them.) take the bus, and find the creepy place where they do the testing...get back on the bus, ride the metro, walk home from the station...you are now pretty wore out.

The place we had to go to was not very child friendly though. I thought, "Stven King must have designed this place. I didn't know he lived in Russia." (little known fact: We used to live close to Steven King and the town they filmed Pet Cemetery in was about 5 minutes from our house.)
This place is not very settling on a child's nerves when they know they will have to get stuck by a needle when they go inside. I was even creeped out by this place...definitely not child friendly.
Ian said this place looked like a level in the video game Half Life...I was looking over my shoulder the whole time after he told me that.

So that was our experience at a Russian Testing Center. I hope we don't have to do that any again any time soon. However, the test results are at the Ovir's office and we await their response. This has been an interesting experience, dealing with the Russian government and a lesson in faith building...hmm, I wonder if God is trying to teach us something??

We're Here

I never thought the day would get here and now we've been here for almost 2 months. We have internet now so we can post updates. I've never been a regular poster in my blogs but I will try to keep this updated with pics and thoughts on a regular basis. I told everyone that we would put in the original post about our visa situation on here so I will do that. I'll also put in the post we used in case you don't get our newsletters. Please sign up to be on our mailing list if you haven't already.

Original Post:
Our Registration got mixed up. We were told to register somewhere we shouldn’t have. Now we’re registered as tourists and not students. Yep, you read right…and we’re coming to find out that it’s more than just going to the Ovir (special division of Russian authorities) and asking, “Can you fix this?” We’ve been told (by Russians) that the Ovir is not human, they are machines. They have no emotions, no compassion, that they don’t care about our predicament. I do believe that our God is bigger than the Ovir though. Amen?! So what they are saying is that we have to start the whole visa process over again. In Russia that is very expensive. Then we have to leave the country to get our visas. We’ve been told we have to go back to America…or Finland…or Latvia…or Estonia. Pray that we get a solid affordable solution to this.

New Post:
When I first wrote this article we had an urgent prayer need. Our registration got mixed up and we were forced with the fact that we were going to have to leave the country and possibly come back to America to renew our visas. Jennifer urged me to meet with the Ovir to explain our situation. Long story short: Natalia, the director of the school went with me and we plead our case to the Ovir. Surprising our director the woman took the paperwork and said she would look into it. Natalia still told me not to be optimistic. Two days later we are in our language class when the director stuck here head in the door and said, “Congratulations, you’ll get your one year visas.” Can you say “We serve a God that does the impossible?” You can read the original article on our website under updates.

So this is a huge praise report. Please keep praying as the situation is still in the Ovir's hands. We had to get some testing done for the renewal and it was supposed to be in this afternoon. The results won't be back until tomorrow and we haven't heard anything today from the school. Pray that the Ovir will let this just pass through when we get ther results from the tests.