Redirection

I was just thinking, what if I planned my life and it happened as planned? What if I made all the decisions for myself? What would my life be like? I made plans and some plans happened the way I wanted them to and others – not so much. But, I am really starting to be thankful that I have decided to give up my plans to God. How can I grow as a person or in my faith if I do everything MY way? God has taken me places that have truly stretched me. I’m not just talking about Russia, but just life in general. If I left out the trials or the “tough stuff” then who would I be? I am starting to think that having my plans changed or re-directed isn’t such a bad thing.

While this has been tough, I am glad that I did not know ahead of time how long this would take. I think God has given us enough strength for each day. When I think about the fact that this could still be another month or two, I start to fret. But, when I say, “Lord, I need to get through today”, I can get through. This is definitely a learning process and I am nowhere near the end. But, I feel like I am better prepared for redirections or changes in the future.

Onto Tomsk news . . . The couples in Tomsk were able to get everything done very quickly. They actually flew to Moscow on Wednesday and will arrive in the United States today. That is about four or five days sooner than they thought. I hope it goes that quickly for us! I did ask Tandy all about the uncharted waters that we haven’t faced yet. Such as, on the flight to Moscow, there is no special meal for kids, but both boys seemed to love the bread and vegetables. Tandy’s son is wearing 2T clothing, but they are a little big on him. She thinks Nicholas is about the same, while the other boy is bigger than both of them. Finally, the boys had to have their medical appointments in Moscow before they could get their visa appointments. It seems like the doctor was very thorough and answered a lot of their questions. There will be a big weight off my shoulders once we reach that stage. I can hardly wait.

Tandy also is a very detail-oriented person, which is something I love. She told me everything we would need to know about going to the United States Embassy in Moscow for Nicholas’ visa. She told me what window to go to and which paperwork to make sure I absolutely had with me. I feel very prepared for when we make our next trip. It would be nice to go this month. More things start to expire next month, which means more documents to re-do and more money to spend. Evan took some documents to the Secretary of State Thursday to get them apostilled. Then we mailed them to Leslie, so she and the people in Tomsk can be reminded of our existence. That will just leave three or four documents that we still have do (maybe five if I need the unemployment letter from the social worker). These particular documents are not hard to prepare. We are just making sure our financial statement doesn’t change again before we do it. You never know when the perfect part-time job will appear. :)

What we are working on now is watching Season 4 of “The Closer”. My parents suggested this television series and we took Season 1 with us to Russia last Fall. We were going to watch Season 2 when we went back, but too much time has passed and our curiosity got the best of us. So, we should be all caught up by the end of the weekend. Now, we are looking for a new television series to take with us when we go. We have a lot of free time while we are in Russia, so watching movies and tv shows on our laptop is definitely a lifesaver. If anyone has any good suggestions, let us know. But, now it is back to “The Closer”. Thank you (a little Closer humor for those that watch).

Kristin