The shipping of the boxes...



8 Boxes shipped to Ukraine 12/20/11

 It's official. We are definitely heading to Ukraine. Shipping 8 boxes filled with our possessions definitely makes one realize that the move is actually going to happen. Our parcels were picked up on Tuesday, December 20 at 3pm. Father and son, Ukrainians themselves and co-owners of Meest (shipping company that specializes in sending packages to Ukraine) drove up from Clifton, NJ to collect our loot! The boxes will take a cruise on a luxury boat and arrive at our friend Tanya's apartment in approximately 6 weeks!
Yes, 6 weeks. It was hard to decide what to  ship over since it had to be things that we would not need for 6 weeks. So, it mostly contains Solomiya's bigger clothing and some toys/books, a lot of my therapy equipment, some kitchen supplies, and a stash of blankets and pillows. And if you do not know already how overly, incredibly organized I (Annie) am, this will prove it: I made a detailed inventory list of each box and placed one copy in the box and another copy in our "Moving" file. If my brother is reading this I am sure he is not surprised in the least... (and most likely shaking his head and sighing).




Our niece Sophia teaching Uncle Mike how to count



We are enjoying spending lots of time with our family and friends! I am especially going to miss my sister (pictured on the far left), Chrissy, who has been my closest friend since Day 1. There will be lots of Skyping. Thank God it's free!

Solomiya working on neck extension in prone and getting some weight bearing through her upper extremities. She has mastered supine to sidelying, but still struggles going from supine to prone. She brings both hands to midline and has begun performing isolated movements with digits 2 and 3 on her right hand. (That was for my therapy friends.)

Christmas Photo Shoot



Mikes favorite tea cup.




Solomiya posing as the Chiquita Banana lady.

And... completely unrelated material:

Solomiya's fave winter hat and kung-fu panda shirt.

The calendar came down.

The calendar came down. See blog from October 24th for reference.
The calendar came down because we are so close to actually leaving! I no longer need a visual... it is really, really close. Plus, all the packed boxes around the apartment are a good reminder.
But, I did put up 2 things in its place. These things remind us that we have wonderful friends who are 100% behind what we are doing and believe God is going to use us to do great things in Ukraine!

Thank you so much to Bryan & Laura Wigton who host an awesome home group that we wish we had started going to much earlier than just a couple months ago.   When we arrived last Thursday for the usual home group, we were greeted with a surprise, bon voyage party! Lovely friends, good food, and an encouraging time of prayer. Thank you!

And the visa saga continues...

Yes. At the end of our last post, I was so excited that we had finally received Solomiya's passport and could send off our visa applications. Well, the saga continues. I will the relay the events of the saga in bullet format (only because it's easier for me).

• Visa applications sent to Ukrainian Consulate in NYC.
• 5 days later Mike receives a phone call from the Consulate letting us know that our visas could NOT be approved.
• (I have a suspicion that they were not approved because we asked for 5 years and did NOT ask for an employment visa. They probably thought it was fishy that we would not want to work if we were going to live there for that long).
• Guy at Consulate tells Mike that we should get work visas (because short-term visas are not an option) if we want to stay in Ukraine for 5 years and proceeds to tell Mike how to go about this.
• We contact 'Hope & Life' in Ukraine in explain the situation. Volodya and Oksana begin investigating the possibility of "hiring" foreigners.
• We want a 2nd opinion about our visa situation so Annie contacts Ukrainian Consulate in San Francisco.
• Woman at Consulate says yes, we  can obtain these visas for 5 years. Man at Consulate says no, we cannot obtain these visas for 5 years. We decide to not get a 3rd opinion.
• We do some research on the Internet and get 1st hand advice from American friends currently living over in Eastern Europe. Apparently... Ukraine is issuing 1, 2, & 3 year short-term visas- even though this information is nowhere to be found on any Ukrainian Consulate website. Not a huge surprise...
• We play around with the idea of reapplying but asking for a short-term vs. long-term visa.
• We skype with Volodya and Oksana. They report on all of the investigating they have done and believe that it will be possible for us to get work visas. Only negative thing- the office in Uzhorod where they must complete the process tells them that things will be different in the new year (rules, regulations) and that it would be better to work on this in January.
• We decide to still leave for Ukraine in January (US citizens can legally be in Ukraine with no visa for 90 days out of every 180 days) and work on the visa stuff in country.
• We hear from 'Hope & Life' that it may be possible for us to get 5 year 'Religious' visas vs. work visas (this is good because the work visas are $800 a piece, oi).
• We wait for more news regarding this option...
• The end.

So, this is where we stand visa-wise. Regardless, we are planning on flying to Ukraine in January (a couple weeks later than originally planned) and working on visa-stuff from there. We believe that something good is going to come out of all of this. Like getting permanent resident status! Please do pray for favor in this visa situation.