Disruptive weeks

Week 1

This was a bit of a strange week. We returned from Turkey to find out that our landlord for our apartment had called our translator and announced that we had 2 weeks to find a new apartment. What happened to our 1 year lease agreement? Well, she is getting rid of this apartment and taking over another one in the same building but up on the 7th floor and if we'd like to rent that one we can but it is being remodeled and we'd be out on the street for at least a week! Meanwhile we leave today for Moscow to get a new Kazakh visa and have no idea how long we'll be there because they have changed the process for our kind of visa. So we talked to her and got a reprieve until Oct 1 since we are paid until then. We are praying for a fast visa trip and a smooth resolution to this apartment hassle.

We attended the closing for our humanitarian project for the disabled boarding school. The Church donated a milling machine to add to their equipment used to teach vocational skills for some of the disabled kids. It was very interesting to talk to the director of the school about the impact of the Church's donations. He told us that before the Church donated equipment he had gone to the government to ask for the same type of help and was turned down. However, since they have received the equipment from the Church and have begun the vocational training the government officials have come to visit him again and can now see the value of vocational training for the disabled and are now going to give his boarding school more equipment and help. He told us that if the Church had not had the vision and heart to help these children, the government would never have changed their opinion.

Two days later was the 30th anniversary of the school and we attended the celebration. The kids put on a nice concert and some very nice art work and crafts done by the children were displayed.

Week 2

This week just flew by. Sunday evening we flew to Moscow for our visa trip. Again folks their told us it would be a week or more because the process had changed and the lady at the embassy was going on vacation mid-week. Yet again, we were blessed to only stay there for a short time - 2 days this time. We stayed with another Humanitarian Missionary couple, E/S Patterson, that live right in Moscow and are returning home in a few weeks. They are the Area Welfare Specialists and we went to the office with them both days and learned some good insight from them and our Area Welfare Manager. We spent 3 evenings with them and thoroughly enjoyed getting to know them more.

We flew back to Astana Tuesday evening with our new – one week old from the MTC Elder Starr – missionary who will be in Astana with us for probably the next 6 months. With 2 overnight flights in 3 days we were a bit tired and it has taken a while to get back to 100%.

The rest of the week was spent worrying about and looking for a new place to live. We did spend some quality time working on our wheelchair project and received the filled in contract from our NGO that we will send to the lawyers for review. I also spent some time on Skype helping another couple (yes it was E/S Reese) with their computer problems. Still have a bit to do to finish that.

We are so blessed to be here serving the Lord and these wonderful people. Little perturbations like having to move just remind us to trust in Him because He knows what is best and we expect that there is a good reason for our move. Maybe we’ll find out later!