Urgent Prayer Request!

I just got several emails today requesting prayer for a fellow missionary in Kyrgyzstan. He has been informed that he is to be deported July 6 for some antiquated law that is pretty much just being used to get rid of him. Paul and Melanie have been church planting there for several years already. Please pray for them and their family and church. And pray that God would reverse this decision!

Pictures!

Here are the pictures from Saron's, Julie's and my day of hard labor, and a couple other evenings.
The only thing I forgot to capture was the strawberry jam.


First up, we have the whole lot. From front center, clockwise: 12" cake, iced and filled; 5 dozen iced sugar cookies; 9" cake, filled and iced; 6" cake, filled and iced; 5 dozen chocolate cream cheese filled cupcakes; and peaking in on the right hand side some cream cheese mints--I only made one batch of those, but there are 200 or so little ones.


Here's a close-up of the lovely icing job that Julie did on the cupcakes.
















And here is a close-up of the 6" and 9" cakes. Saron, very patiently, sifted all the cake mixes and mixed them up for the cakes. The cakes are white with chocolate chips in the batter. Then the filling is raspberry jam with fresh strawberries on top (no raspberries yet). The icing and filling is white chocolate cream cheese buttercream. Hard to beat!
I will ice the cakes properly later with a crisco based icing to help them hold up in the heat and make them a little whiter and neater looking.





And last, we have the cookies. Just normal sugar cookies, but in three different shapes: hearts, stars and flowers, each shape has a large version and a small version. And three different icing colors: cream, rose and mauve (which was supposed to be dk. pink, but had an accident).

Busy Days

I just went to post a picture of some of the work that I did over the weekend and I realized that it is on my computer at home. :( *must remember to post it up from there later
I took Friday off to rest sot aht I could get everything done on Saturday that I needed too. It was a good weekend. Friday evening I baked a couple batches of cream cheese filled chocolate cupcakes and made a batch of cream cheese mints as well. All for "the party", of course.
Saturday dawned early, which meant I holed up in bed for a while trying to catch up on lost sleep, but eventually made my way over to my parents' to do some baking. My friend, Saron, met me over there and helped me bake "wedding" cakes all afternoon and make some strawberry jam. Later in the afternoon we went out for lunch--we are so on Ukrainian time for some of these things! and met my roommate, Julie, who then ended up coming back to my parents with me to finish baking and icing the cakes. Julie patiently iced all 60-some cupcakes while I putzed around putting the crumb icing and filling on/in the two top layers of the cake. Julie and I did the bottom layer together. I am really happy with how it is looking so far. It won't be identical to the orignal cake in the picture, but it'll have similarities and so far this is the best wedding cake I've made, both for taste and for looks!
The cakes and cupcakes and cookies and mints are all in the freezer right now, so I'll pop over there on Wednesday and get some pictures before I wrap them all up in saran and tin foil.

Praises and Prayer Requests/Update

Ziva came home from the hospital today! All of the tests, including the bone marrow biopsy, came out negative for anything scarier than a virus. She's been sent home now to be monitored by her family for the next couple of weeks and hopefully she will recuperate fully.
Apparently, the virus attacked her bone marrow, which affected her white blood cell count. Please do continue to pray for her over the next couple of weeks.

In other, breaking-but-not-so-important, news, I got a boiler at my house yesterday! Well, apartment, and a boiler is a water heater. They typically turn off hot water in the apartments from August through October, but this year it went off a couple of weeks ago. With Julie moving in and able to split the bill it seemed like a good idea when one of her friends suggested it. I enjoyed a very luxurious shower this morning, instead of the bucked and dipper wash of the past few weeks. I have to confess that I feel a little extravagant having spent $100 on the boiler ($200 all up, but Julie paid half), but it is really wonderful to have hot water in the bathroom. I wish we could pipe it into the kitchen as well, but since they are at opposite ends of the apartment...

Last night I also recieved a phone call from my landlord asking about renewing my lease. My present lease doesn't expire for two more months, but I was planning on renewing it next month. However, he is asking to renew it now because he needs several months rent in advance. Please pray that that all works out smoothly and we are able to come to an agreement that is workable for both of us. They are raising the rent a touch, which is not unrealistic, but neither is it necessary. I, on the other hand, want them to pay for me to rewallpaper the hallway, so I'm hoping to work something out with them about that. Please pray that we would work something out. They have been good, normal landlords so far, only interested in the business aspects of the relationship--an anomaly here in Ukraine, but one that I am thankful for as it typically makes them easy to deal with.

Prayer Requests

I just got word late last night that my niece, Ziva, is in the hospital. She is just 10 1/2 months old. Over the past week or so Ziva has had a fever that alternates between being quite high and under normal temperature by several degrees. They took her in to the hospital and they decided to keep her there for observation, so she's been there for a couple of days. They are running a lot of blood tests and other tests, the latest being that they are supposed to take a bone marrow biopsy today because her bone marrow is not responding the way it should and producing enough white blood cells. At this point the doctors don't really know what it is, could be anything from a virus to cancer.
Naturally, her parents need prayers as they try to deal with this all, as do the doctors and many others involved.

I also got a prayer request for Jessica the other day again. She has been doing better, quite good for someone with her type of injury, but apparently she began running a high fever a couple of days ago and there is concern about infection.

Moving and Anniversary Celebrations

I was trying to think about what I've been doing the last few days. Took me a bit.
Over the weekend, my new flatmate, Julie, moved in with me. We painted her room on Thursday night and then she moved in on Saturday. We're still unpacking. It's been great to have her actually living there and the little changes to the household are nice too. We went out and bought a bed for her on Saturday afternoon and while there I picked out a bedside stand and looked at some other minor furniture pieces (which she went out and bought today). It's great to have those things as they are things I have thought about for the two years that I've been here, but have never managed to go out and get! It definitely makes the place just a little bit more homey. Now I just hope that I can renew my rental agreement without too much hassle! :)
The other thing that I've been doing for the last couple of weeks is plan my parents' anniversary celebration. Their anniversary is August 15, but we are celebrating July 19 here as they will be "honeymooning" in Canada in August. They would like to have a "renewal of the vows"/reception on July 19, but since neither of them are here to organize it, I get that happy job. :P Actually, I don't mind, but it does have its stressors. Hopefully it will all come off beautifully and be an event for them to remember. Things are a little complicated since none of my siblings can help out because they are either on the wrong continent or busy up until the day of and just arriving in time for it (but it's not from lack of their desire).

Catching up!

It's been quite the week. As seems to happen frequently. *rolls eyes
Started off coming back from my sister's and thankfully having all Monday off to just get some R&R. Managed to be sick with migraines Tuesday, Wednesday and Thursday--mild ones for the most part, but still enough to interfere with my normal life. Thankfully, yesterday afternoon after much medication my headache/migraine seemed to clear up and I got energy to go with it! This whole week I've been feeling like someone stuck a needle in me and took out my energy, and last night it came back. I was very happy. Hopefully it will last. Today is a bit headachy again, I've been having a lot of pain in my shoulder/neck which ends up in migraines if I don't treat it immediately. But I've run out of the balm that is most effective--hopefully more is on it's way! In the mean time I'm doing the best I can with some other stuff.
Last night we painted Julie's room. I'll have to put up a picture. It is very blue. :) Thankfully, a happy blue, not a dreary or cold one. But also quite saturated. :D A picture is worth a thousand words...
That has prepped the way for her to move in this weekend. Hopefully, she'll be able to pick up a bed today and we can move the rest of her furniture and sundry belongings tomorrow, so that by Sunday she can feel more or less at home.

Oh, I did discover that one of the things that was draining my energy was a mosquito plug-in repellant/killer. The only drawback in my apartment is the mosquitoes. So far, I've only found one plug-in repellant thing that I can tolerate, the others all make me sick--this last one quite badly. Lately I've been having nausea as an allergic reaction (along with tiredness and headaches); I've had it to several different things, but I'm not sure what the chemical is that is causing it. Anyway, I was grateful to figure out that part of my mystery at least.

Needless to say, I do really appreciate your prayers and I do need them. I do the best I can, but sometimes these things are just so inexplicable and I get very discouraged trying to sort out what I am doing wrong--and sometimes it isn't me, or it isn't something I can change (like the weather, I get migraines from weather changes, particularly towards rain, and I get sinus headaches from the molds that thrive immediately after rain). It does make me feel a little crazy at times--like I'm just a hypochondriac. Thankfully, I do have people around me who tell me that I am not totally insane.
A side-effect from my allergies and general pain is that I do struggle with anxiety at times. It isn't fun. This week and last week were particularly bad for that. I'd appreciate your prayers for that too, that I would continue to rely on and trust in God, but not be down on myself for having anxiety when sometimes it isn't really a spiritual issue. Thankfully, I am doing better the last couple of days, for which I am exceedingly grateful and praising the Lord for! It makes me look forward to the next couple of weeks as I prepare for my brother's visit and my parents' anniversary celebration.

Back in Town!

Just a quick note to say that I did make it back from my long weekend. It was great to be with the family for Angel's birthday and to see Matt and spend some time with him. Overall it was good just to have a little "down time". I've been realizing that I haven't been making room for that lately, hence my stress. So I am trying to do that now, but also trying not to feel too guilty about it. Sigh. *rolls eyes
I'm heading into a busy summer. My new roommate, Julie, moves in this weekend, and we need to paint her room first. Then, later this month, my brother will come visit me and then mum comes back from Russia and I'm organizing my parents' 40th anniversary celebration for July 19. After which, I am supposed to be doing a three week intensive Russian course and then heading out for a couple of weeks for vacation--the only problem with that being that I just discovered that my visa runs out during the time I am supposed to be on vacation, so I am hoping to be able to get an extension on that or I may need to vacation someplace else!
Oh, and in the mean time we are trying to finalize two courses for printing here at the office before August 1.
I feel like it is a "hang on for the ride" summer!

Migraines Galore

Apparently this is migraine week. Tuesday I was home in bed the whole day with one, yesterday evening I left small group early with one. Today I'm just holding one at bay. Sigh. I think it is the weather, ... and the fact that I am decompressing from the last few months. :) Hopefully those will be my migraines for this month.
Unfrotunately, I am not the only one suffering from these migraines right now. Kostia is as well. Along with some of my other acquaintances. Please pray for us all for grace and strength to get the stuff done that we need to.
I'm looking forward to a long weekend this week. I am taking tomorrow off work to go to Kyiv to pick up some things for the office and then will spend a little time with my family there. My brother, Matthew, flew in from the States this week, so I am looking forward to seeing him. He's also bringing some more supplements for me, which I am thankful for as I am running low and feeling it physically.

Please keeping praying for Jessica as well. She had surgery to replace part of her skull today (it had been removed to releive brain pressure from swelling) and up to the surgery she had been doing quite well, but apparently she had a seizure while in surgery. She is now on medication to keep her out and on a ventilator again.