Heat, Health, Safety and Stability: praises and prayer requests

I have heat in my apartment! They turned it on on Tuesday sometimes. What a blessing. It makes such a huge difference not to come home to a cold apartment and just be focussed on keeping warm all evening. Hopefully it will also stop the mold growth. I'm having someone come to clean that while I am away this weekend (I can't be around with the chemicals they use), so hopefully that will be the end of that.
Unfortunately, a number of my friends do not yet have heat in their apartments. Hopefully they will get it this weekend.

I mentioned a couple of posts ago that Ira and Alia were both sick. Both recovered quickly and were back at work on Monday. Lena has been working half days this week until they turn the heat on in the kindergarten so she can send her daughter back to school. Lena's mum looks after her granddaughter in the mornings so that Lena can still work.

Dad and a coworker are traveling tomorrow. He is in Russia presently and due to some complications was not able to get registered while he was in Moscow (he was only there for a day or less). Please pray that he does not have any problems crossing the border back into Ukraine, that he is not hassled or fined. Mum and I are also traveling tonight on the train to Kyiv for a women's conference this weekend. I'll come back by "bus" on Sunday, but mum will stay in Kyiv with dad until he flies out to the States early next week. Then she will also return by "bus". Please pray for travel safety for all of us.

Pray for Ukraine as a whole. You may recall that I had talked this summer about the exchange rate dropping from 5hr./$1 to 4.60 hr./$1. Now things have reveresed. Yesterday morning the exchange rate was about 6.15 hr./$1, by yesterday afternoon it was 6.70 hr./$1 at the same bank! While convenient for us foreignors, this does not bode well for Ukraine. We are again/still in a state of political upheaval. Pray that God would use this time to help many people to seek Him.