Some Prayer/Some Praise

I just got up from taking a nap on the floor on my new exercise mat which I bought so that I could do pilates at the office. I've not been resting enough the last few weeks. Mostly I can't seem to sleep past 5:30/6am, no matter when I go to bed. And it's beginning to catch up with me.
On the other hand, I have to say most other things are going well.

My new rommate, Myriam, has been such a blessing. She's been sick the last few weeks herself, but whenever I am feeling a little too tired to keep going she fixes me up with a cup of tea. :) She's French/British. It's great; I love it!
It's been great to have an English-speaking roommate, as well as someone who is spiritually-minded. We seem to be developing the habit of spending some time chatting and praying in the evenings as well.
Last week we took a trip to Kyiv to the doctor's for both Myriam's and my benefit. We came back with mixed feelings, but as Myriam pointed out--at least they didn't find anything seriously wrong with either one of us! :) I went for my foot and a general physical check-up. My ankle continues to be painful, however, the swelling is gone most of the time and I have more strength in it. I'll head back to the doctor here this week or next to see what he has to say about it. I did by a brace/support sock for it which seems to be helping a lot.

Since Lika moved out things have continued to progress at her apartment. She still doesn't have her stove hooked up as they are waiting for the wallpapering to be done so that she doesn't have to pay for it to be hooked up twice. They also don't have doors on the bathroom or toilet yet. We keep in touch every few days and she and Carmen overnighted at my place Friday night. Lika is still spiritually on the edge. A young man came down to the front and repented the other sunday and she was so moved that she was crying about it and could barely keep her composure later when she was talking to me about it. Please pray that she won't get comfortable sitting on the edge, but that she'll keep making tiny movements forward into God's arms.

The one big prayer request that I have at the moment is again for the finances for our office. We are seriously looking at cutting our staff by about 1/2. Primarily because of finances. I'm not a person to make a decision based on finances as a general rule. I've always believe that God could provide the finances for the work that He wanted done. That said, this is an issue that has been growing over the last six months or so. We've been struggling off and on throughout that time to provide the salaries for all of our staff. Thankfully, this isn't my decision to make, but I am involved with it and affected whichever way it goes. At this point my dad has to make the decision, which is difficult for him since he is in Canada and has been there for the last few months.
Personally, it would be difficult for me to let my staff go. These are people that I have been working with for the last year or more. I take care of them and look after their needs and try to listen to their hearts. I've worked hard to build us into a team, rather than twelve or so people working in the same building. And I've watched them grow in maturity and in faith. And it would be very difficult for me to have to turn them lose, particularly right now when it is a difficult time for everyone financially.
More objectively, I can see that this could very well be the Lord's good timing. I have been really struggling to find work for everyone the last month, partly because of other ministry opportunities that God has brought into my life, but largely because our plans for various courses just haven't come together through one cause or another. By letting half of our staff go it would significantly slow down the operation, which would ease some of my stress as well as mum's for the courses that we are working on. It would also free me to give some of my energies to the other ministry involvements that God is opening up for me. Additionally, we have worked through a good number of courses in the last couple of years and we are now at the end of our list, with all the most difficult courses left. We need more time to work on them in English, but we've also completed the bulk of the work while we've had so many staff. We've been talking about cutting back to a skeleton staff later this year anyway, but were waiting to see where the Lord would lead. We had also lined up a Ukrainian project, where we wanted to try translating several courses into Ukrainian to give them the updated look that the Russian courses have as the people here have only had the old format and old content available to them. However, that project has been nothing but a headache for me. I have really struggled to find Ukrainian translators and we ended up hiring a couple of girls who are inexperienced, but thus are blank slates with the potential to learn. Unfortunately, they just have not been able to conform to the standard that we are looking for. Translation is key to our work. If we don't have good translation then we just can't put out a good quality course. It's the cornerstone. So, it appears that the Ukrainian translation project needs to be put on hold for now as well.
I don't know if any of the above makes real sense to you, but to me it just seems like there are a lot of little things pointing to the possibility that now is the time to cut back a little at least for a time and then see what the Lord wants to do.
I still await the final decision and I just ask for your prayers for this. particularly, that God would give my staff peace, both those that we would have to let go and those that we keep. And of course, for me and for my parents. That God would just make it clear what needs to be done. And perhaps that He would prepare people in their own hearts and even provide other jobs for them. Mostly, that through it all, God would be glorified and honored and that people would understand that He is still in control.