As some of you may know, Maggie's grandmother (John's mom Eileen Morrison) passed away earlier this week. She underwent a serious and sharp decline in her health at the beginning of this month, and after being under hospice care for a couple weeks, she has gone home to be with the Lord. Although we are sad and will really miss her, we are so grateful that she is no longer experiencing anxiety and pain. And most of all, we are thankful for her faith in Jesus, because that means she is in heaven with God - a much better place than here! An added blessing was that many family members were able to spend a great deal of time with her in her last days, thank her, and say goodbyes.
We wanted to share with you that although we never thought we would take a return trip to the US this year, God has opened the doors for us to go to Texas for the funeral. This is a truly generous and unexpected gift from God, and we are so grateful to Him.
We leave in a couple hours and would appreciate prayers for a safe journey, for a good time of celebrating Gran's life, and that the Lord would make Himself known through this funeral.
We wanted to share with you that although we never thought we would take a return trip to the US this year, God has opened the doors for us to go to Texas for the funeral. This is a truly generous and unexpected gift from God, and we are so grateful to Him.
We leave in a couple hours and would appreciate prayers for a safe journey, for a good time of celebrating Gran's life, and that the Lord would make Himself known through this funeral.
a quick testimony as to the Lord's perfect timing and the way He opens doors...
We started our part of the process of obtaining our temporary residency permits about a month and a half ago. (These documents allow us to stay in Ukraine this year.) Actually, the Blessings began this process even before we arrived in Ukraine, so it's been ongoing for 3 months or so! This time last week, we still didn't have these documents, which meant we would not be able to leave and return to Ukraine without problems. Maggie picked up her permit Friday, and at this time, the government officials refused to give Trey his because of some problems that required a paper from Kiev and would take up to 30 days. On Monday, the day Gran died, for some reason, they changed their mind and told him he could pick up his documents the next day. With documents in hand, there were two more steps that had to happen before we could re-enter the country - registration at the village counsel, then a trip to a town about an hour away to register our documents. We didn't expect to be able to complete these steps before leaving, but Uncle Mark and Victor, the church administrator, made time yesterday and we were able to complete both of these things smoothly in one day! So we are all squared away! This process used to take the Blessings a month or so, and nowadays it typically takes a few days. But God worked it out in 24 hours. He is so good!