Change of Plans & Visa Troubles: You can only be in Ukraine for 90 days without having a visa. My 90th day will be on Sunday December 7th, so I had made plans to travel to Krakow, Poland with my director and his family this weekend to apply for a visa at the Ukrainian Embassy there. That is not going to happen! God has other plans. In order to get a visa, you need a letter of invitation from the Ministry of Culture of Ukraine. To get that, you need a letter of invitation from an organization--in my case, the Baptist Union of Ukraine. Back in early November I started this process by asking the local office of the BU for a letter. They sent the letter to the main BU office in Kyiv, so that office could take it to the Ministry of Culture. Unfortunately, that letter never reached the BU office in Kyiv. This came to my attention yesterday. Normally it takes a month to get the letter from the Ministry of Culture. This information, as you might imagine, was very upsetting to me. I changes of plans make me feel unstable. And with as many implications as this really puts me into a panic. I spent my day yesterday trying to focus on the fact that my Lord was with me. When He is with me, I dont need to panic. I was so thankful to be part of a team like SEND International during all of this. My mind was not clear, but between my team leader, my director, another teammate in Kyiv and our representatives at the Baptist Union in Kyiv, a new plan began to form. Their heads were clearer than mine, so they could rationally weigh all the issues and implications of various actions. While they were doing that, I was praying, crying and listening to/singing 2 songs that the Lord brought to my mind: We Wont Be Shaken by Building 429 https://youtube/watch?v=ww9d_c-MVBw and Refine Me the theme song from our conference in Spain last week https://youtube/watch?v=7xI7IOeSCw8 So, here is the new plan: It will take between 10 days and 3 weeks for my letter to arrive. If I stay over my 90 days I will pay a fine of 900 hryvna (about $60) when I leave to get my visa. That is considerably less than the cost of staying in a hotel for up to 3 weeks in Poland. So, I will stay here in Lutsk and wait for my Letter of Invitation to arrive. When I does, I will go to Krakow, Poland to get a visa. My roommate Ira has a current Polish Visa and has agreed to go with me when the time comes. When I get back with my visa, I will have 45 days to go through the process of obtaining my Temporary Residency Permit to live in Ukraine for 1 year. This will be my 3rd time going through this bureaucratic process, so I am at least familiar with it. Please be praying for my letter to come as quickly as possible. Pray for God to continue His refining work in me. He uses situations like this to teach and grow me. And most importantly, He walks through these difficult times with me. I am not alone!
Posted on: Thu, 04 Dec 2014 09:54:26 +0000
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