Change in plans

It feels like everything changed yesterday. I had figured out that my first step toward Ukrainian citizenship could be getting the electronic signature I need to sign up for the language test. I had tried to do it various ways by myself, but it was complicated by our strange expired/not-expired residency status. I finally enlisted the help of an immigration lawyer in Lviv. Yesterday was my day to meet up with him. (Also, unknown to me, Jaan--whose immigration status is the same as ours--was also working on big plans that are also thrown off now.) As the train pulled into Lviv, I opened Facebook on my phone to read the lawyer's directions to where I was supposed to meet him. That's when I saw a post from Migration, announcing a new resolution.

We have been legally living on our expired residency cards. There was a Resolution 1202 (I just typed the number from memory, I know it so well), which said that passport and residency cards that were legal at the beginning of martial law, would be legal until 30 days after the end of it. Yesterday's resolution walks that back for temporary residency.

So, I had my appointment with the lawyer, I did get my electronic signature, and we also discussed this new development.  In a way, it actually makes things a little easier for the moment. We know exactly how to get temporary residency again, there's nothing difficult in that, just a lot of work. (We just finished about 4 months of work to do it for Asya.) So we have a specific, simple direction to move in, instead of citizenship, which feels like a tangled mess of yarn that I'm just picking at, looking for an end piece to start working from. Even the lawyer admitted that yesterday: this is complicated.

This new development won't hurt my quest for citizenship, it only throws me off from it temporarily, taking time and money in a different direction for now. Hopefully getting residency renewed can move me along the citizenship path, too. 

Oh, also after a long, long day of travel to and from Lviv yesterday, I was exhausted. But this morning I was woken up by distant explosions and a new schedule of severe power outages. Sometimes all of this is just hard. I hope that doesn't sound like complaining; I'm stating the way it is.

Please keep praying for us, as I know you do.

Thoughts about citizenship (a very few)

 As promised, my letter to Kate Tsurkan:

*"A citizen is not one who has a passport, but one who is in Ukraine today."

Citizenship

People who pray for us or who have talked to me any time recently, know that I am working toward getting Ukrainian citizenship. I really appreciated today's "Explaining Ukraine with Kate Tsurkan" from Kyiv Independent. In fact, I answered her newsletter as soon as I finished reading it. I don't even know if she'll see my response, but I sent it. I invite you to go read what Kate Tsurkan wrote (and subscribe to free Kyiv Independent newsletters!), then come back tomorrow and read what I said in answer, which I will share here.

Sunday school Christmas

Next after Christmas at Capernaum, we had Christmas in our Sunday school. Unfortunately, most of the little ones weren't there, but the bigger kids had a great time. They made sure to decorate cookies for the younger kids to have later. We had a short devotional about the Christmas story, then decorated gingerbread men that I had baked, played games, had cake for Jesus' birthday, and gave out presents. It was a great time to be together and celebrate that Christ is born.

After that, our Christmas plans were pretty much done. Asya and my other Sunday school helper had prepared a song with the younger class to sing in the church service, but since most of the kids weren't there, they didn't get to do it (yet?).

Next we just had to pack for Krakow and get on the bus Christmas morning.

Capernaum Christmas

Now that Christmas is winding down,* I'm going back to celebrations in December. A few of these photos are mine, the rest are from the day's photographer. (I don't know how long she'll keep all the photos available there. Here are more on Instagram.) At our first Capernaum club in December we practiced for a Christmas program. That program was the second club meeting of the month. All the parents and other friends were invited, and we acted out the Christmas story. 

After the program a local business gave the kids Christmas presents, very generously buying up lists of their individual needs and wants. Then we all ate together. 

(*A big pet peeve of mine is when people try to end Christmas on December 26. No! We're still singing Christmas carols and greeting people with "Christ is born!" Christmas is a season, not just a day.)

Happy New Year!

We just got back from a whirlwind trip to Poland to meet up with Will's family. His parents and sisters and one sister's family came over, and we had a little reunion. If you follow Will or any of them on Facebook, you've probably seen photos and read about it all. I hardly took any pictures myself. It was amazing to see everyone and fun to be in Krakow. The photo below is a compilation of us in the same spot there in 2012, 2020, and on this trip: 

Now Raia is here with us until she heads to Lithuania. There's lots of sniffling and coughing going on from whatever everyone picked up while traveling, and we're pretty exhausted. But we're thankful and headed into the New Year now, glad to be together.

A wonderful New Year present was a phone call from Kherson first thing this morning, saying that Asya's residency card is ready. I thought maybe she dreamed it, because I can't believe that Migration is working today, but apparently it was real. So, now we have another trip to plan, to go get that picked up and register her.

More Thanksgivings

Here we are almost to Christmas, and I still haven't posted what I wrote about Thanksgiving. I was sick for a while and then just busy. Here is what I wrote a while ago:
After Asya and I got back from Kherson, I had a really busy week of working on my to do list--details for an upcoming Christmas trip to Poland, Sunday school planning, Capernaum club, and more. 

Then on Saturday (December 6) we were planning to have our family Thanksgiving a little late, after a winter Capernaum club meeting. I had prepared food most of the day before. Power outages reached the point of more off than on, which is my personal limit for when they start to seem hard, but I tried to work around them. We had a wonderful club, even without electricity. Towards the end I started to feel like I had a fever, though, so I hurried off as soon as I could and went to bed. The rest of our family pulled together all the food--what I had already made and their own additions, too--our guest came, and I joined everyone at the table. We had a very good meal, talked about what we are thankful for, and enjoyed being together in the candlelight. 

(Apparently this is a second Thanksgiving with especially heavy outages. Not to mention the Thanksgiving when we were evacuated from Kherson after several weeks without having electricity at all.)

Photos from both our Thanksgiving and that day's Capernaum club in the dark:

Jaan kept his buddy happy with phone light on swirling glitter.

The darkness didn't stop Bogdan and his buddy.

My buddy twins were fine in the dark.