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.