We have passports with visas and Doctor’s clearance!

October 19, 2008

Dear Partners,

First of all, the vampires at the lab analyzed the blood samples and
declared me "normal!" At least something about me is normal. :) The
muscle relaxers that the doctor gave me to help take care of my
charley horses and muscle spasms have been working and the symptoms
have been slowly disappearing. The MD is convinced that it was
either some kind of weird virus which is working its way out of my
system or(since he does not know me at all) that I am a hypochondriac
(although he did not say so point blank). :) They declared that there
was no reason for me to not continue on our journey and enjoy it
all. I am very grateful and thank you all for the prayers!! Please
pray that it all does go away completely.

Then, on Friday we arrived here in Fremont, CA to see our passports
with lovely visa pages glued into them for both Russia and
Kazakhstan. Yeah! However, while we were granted a Letter of
Invitation for one year to Kazakhstan, the Embassy only granted us a
visa for 6 months. It will expire May 1, 2009. There was no
explanation given. They have the power to do whatever they want and
exercised it! We plan to be in Kazakhstan again in April, May and
June. This will be one more thing to deal with in the spring.
Meantime, we are ever so grateful for the visas we do have and that
they were received in time to leave for Prague on Thursday!! God is
good and again you are all awesome for praying! We know that God
knows all the plans for the future and it is all His work so He will
take care of it. We will just do the "next step" when it is time.

We have three more days until we leave and I have two suitcases which
are each over the 50 pounds allowed. I have some serious sorting to
do. It is very hard to pack for two different places for 9 months or
perhaps a year, depending on what we find out about how we can
process the next visa for Russia for July, August and September.
Whew! It is especially hard to pack for the winters as everything
takes up so much space and I have special things I want to take to
people in both places.

Please pray for The Mission Society's conference in Prague next week
(October 25 to 30). The purpose is to continue visioning the future
direction of the agency. Steve was at the first meeting in Atlanta
last May and was very impressed by the people who are coordinating
the effort and the method being used. He is not easily impressed
by "visioning" having done it many times in his previous professional
business life. Therefore, we are very excited not only about the
process but the quality of the people chosen to work on this
committee. We really look forward to seeing them as well. They come
from all over the world and we rarely get to see them so that is an
extra blessing.

We will fly to Kazakhstan on Sunday, Nov. 2 and remain there until
early January when we will again head to our home in Khabarovsk.

While in Kazakhstan we will be teaching English and practicing our
Russian language as well. We are really looking forward to it.

Thanks to everyone who reads these emails, to all of you who pray so
diligently and for each of you who support us to be here and do what
we do. I now many of you do all three. You are all very amazing
Partners in this journey for God.

Blessings and hugs,

Carol