Camp photos, Day 3

Again, I didn't take these photos.

Camp photos, Day 2

 More from the talented camp photographer.

Morning exercises

Activities

Bible story time

Crafts

Games during club

Camp photos, Day 1

I'm sorting through the pictures from the photographer at Capernaum camp. They're so good! I'm choosing some to share, mostly where you can see our family and the specific kids we work with. Remember, Capernaum is YoungLife's club for kids with special needs. We help with this club throughout the year, and camp is the highlight of it all.

Bogdan's buddy checks in

And Will's buddy

The twins are my buddies

Sunday school graduation

The first camp of the summer was amazing. While I'm waiting for photos to come from the photographer, I'll just back up and share the first Sunday school graduation that this little church in Ivano-Frankivsk has had, the first one that I've organized, too.

Just before we left for camp, we had our last Sunday school classes of the school year. Three of the teens are at a point where they're moving on into other ministries, and I wanted to officially recognize them. Actually, one of them pretty much graduated herself last year and has been helping with the little ones all year already. I read a little to them, gave certificates, and the pastor prayed over them. They played games together afterwards, which is something they often enjoy.

The very next day all three of these teens headed out to work hard all week, serving at camp.

(And for a glimpse of camp, do check out Capernaum's Instagram page. Also, this mother posted a lot.)

Kherson non-taxi story

Here's a publicly shareable Kherson story. After we picked up our residency cards and turned in Jaan's new application at one Migration office, I wanted to go to another to talk to an expert there. He wasn't answering his phone, so we went into a coffee shop to have a place to sit while we waited for him to call back. I heard someone speaking American English in that tiny coffee shop, so I did something very out-of-character for me: I asked who he was and what he was doing in Kherson. He answered that he is an American blogger, and he had just arrived that day, because he wanted to tell the world the truth about what's going on in Ukraine. Then he asked who I am. I said that I live in Ukraine, and I'm American, too. And then the Ukrainian man sitting with him looked up and said our last name. What?!?! I had never seen him before. He said that he knows people at Migration and had heard of us. A few minutes later I clarified: does he work for Migration? He said that he works with them. Hmm. The blogger said that he hadn't been able to get into the city, but that this nice man was helping him. Okay. We drew our own conclusions. It was a rather bizarre interaction, but a good one. I'm glad to see anyone curious about Ukraine coming to see for himself.

And that's it for now. We're off to camp in the mountains. 

Taxi story #2

This one isn't even my story, but I just love it. Zarina Zabrisky, who is a journalist well worth following everywhere you can find her, posted this great video clip of a singing taxi driver:

Document details (slight update at end)

More taxi stories coming soon. For now, something else.

I keep asking people to pray about further progress on our documents, and that's enough, if you aren't interested in more. But if you are interested--if you want to understand just a bit of what it's like to always live under the shadow of immigration status and laws--here's more.

We actually have it pretty easy here on migration. The standard way for foreigners to stay long-term is to get a D visa at a Ukrainian embassy in another country, then come into Ukraine and use the next six weeks to apply for temporary residency that lasts for a year. For many years we would then renew that every year without leaving the country. We didn't have a basis for anything longer term. Then in October 2023 they added five years of legal temporary residency in Ukraine as a basis to apply for long-term residency. Finally! But at that point we were living in the legal limbo of Resolution 1202. (Our residency cards had expired, but didn't need to be renewed.) I just hoped that after the war, we would be able to figure something out with the new rules.

Jump ahead to now: the law changed, and we have new short-term residency cards. We're completely legal for a year. But we're already trying to figure out what comes next. And it's a little complicated. As time went by, the understanding of Resolution 1202 came to be that expired documents were legal for entering and living in Ukraine, yes, but not for everything else. Not for opening a bank account, for example. No one knows yet if the years that we were here legally but with expired cards count toward the five years of legal residency in Ukraine that we need. Migration in Kherson is consulting with their lawyers, and people are trying to figure out what to do with us.

This also affects my plans to apply for citizenship. If the past few years of residency don't count, I might just have to live here for five more years, before I can even apply. We can pray that it won't go that way, though.

Will is supposed to call the man we've been talking to in Kherson tomorrow. They should have answers by then, and I'm really hoping that our most recent five years count, and that we can go ahead with working towards citizenship (for me) and long-term residency (for Will). If not, we can keep renewing every year for five more years.

(Quick update: nothing new from the phone call. We're supposed to try to connect again next week, if that will be possible at camp.)