Tuesday Highlights
Monday night, well after the birthday party for Polina had ended, I was exhausted, had taken Tylenol twice during the day, I found myself in the UEC kitchen discussing day care in the Soviet Union, Israel, the US, and modern Ukraine with Lena's mom.
Tuesday found Lena spending time with her family, trying to show her mom how to apply for a visa to the US. Maybe she will come for a visit at New Year. I was doing UEC business and had decided to make some zucchini bread for the big group meeting Tuesday night. Somehow, and I am still not sure what happened, I ended up in a lawyer's office. David Ralston is arriving on Wednesday and we are trying to give his power of attorney to Vitaly so he can manage legal matters for the UEC. But since Thursday and Friday are official days off this week, we have only a brief window of a few hours to try to get this thing done. It's not simple since it involves a foreigner. An official translator has to be there and a bunch of documents prepared beforehand.
Today Vitaly and I went to prepare those documents. Eventually, I got in a bit of an argument with the lawyer (notarius in Ukrainian). We had another power of attorney, showed it to her, and told her we wanted it to be like this one except change one thing. We wanted a "general" power of attorney with one change. She told me consicely that if you change something, it's no longer a general power of attorney. OK, I said. Well, we want what it says in this document except omit one thing. "Well, it's not a general power of attorney, then." "OK", I murked (that's not a word but I like the way it sounds). I am not a lawyer so maybe you could just write it to say what we want. Well, that's impossible--seemed to be her response. She then said that there is now way we could want to give all these powers to Vitaly. We have to make a copy of the original we had and mark out everything we didn't want Vitaly to have. So we ran around this building until Vitaly found a travel agency who also makes photocopies for poor saps like us. We didn't even have a pen with us so we had to borrow one to mark out things. Vitaly read the translation from Ukr out loud and we agreed to mark out a few things just to make her happy. We are then invited to her throne room and we have another one of those idiotic conversations where she tells us we have to mark out these words, doesn't offer an alternative, and then tells us that we can't do what we want to do even as Vitaly offers other words. Eventually, after she had now humiliated us twice with her superior legal knowledge, she decided to do her job and create the document that we asked her to create from the very beginning.
I was then able to leave. I hope David is able to sign this thing on Wednesday. I then went in search of blueberries. All gone. Yesterday, the streets were flowing in them but today they are gone. Finally, along the street to our old apartment, just as the police were running off the the street vendors I was able to grab a jar full for my blueberry bread for the group meeting.
We had a wonderful group meeting. A lot of people came. We sang and many people shared how they had seen God at work in people's lives. It was a very valuable time, I think. I was able to share some about the history of the church, and how many times I thought the church just wasn't going to make it. But all along, God has led the way and he himself has built this body. He has made a strong foundation, built walls, given it a roof, and even various rooms. He has been faithful through it all.
The evening ended with saying more good byes, to some of our dear friends, to people I respect immensely and admire for the courage and faith. We will miss you Nastya, Anya, Lyuda, Katya, and many others. Others we will see again so I am not going to say good bye yet!
Still looking for an Abilene apartment. Now we are inviting comments about cell phone plans. Any suggestions? Anything to avoid? Comments are now welcome, America readers!
Tuesday found Lena spending time with her family, trying to show her mom how to apply for a visa to the US. Maybe she will come for a visit at New Year. I was doing UEC business and had decided to make some zucchini bread for the big group meeting Tuesday night. Somehow, and I am still not sure what happened, I ended up in a lawyer's office. David Ralston is arriving on Wednesday and we are trying to give his power of attorney to Vitaly so he can manage legal matters for the UEC. But since Thursday and Friday are official days off this week, we have only a brief window of a few hours to try to get this thing done. It's not simple since it involves a foreigner. An official translator has to be there and a bunch of documents prepared beforehand.
Today Vitaly and I went to prepare those documents. Eventually, I got in a bit of an argument with the lawyer (notarius in Ukrainian). We had another power of attorney, showed it to her, and told her we wanted it to be like this one except change one thing. We wanted a "general" power of attorney with one change. She told me consicely that if you change something, it's no longer a general power of attorney. OK, I said. Well, we want what it says in this document except omit one thing. "Well, it's not a general power of attorney, then." "OK", I murked (that's not a word but I like the way it sounds). I am not a lawyer so maybe you could just write it to say what we want. Well, that's impossible--seemed to be her response. She then said that there is now way we could want to give all these powers to Vitaly. We have to make a copy of the original we had and mark out everything we didn't want Vitaly to have. So we ran around this building until Vitaly found a travel agency who also makes photocopies for poor saps like us. We didn't even have a pen with us so we had to borrow one to mark out things. Vitaly read the translation from Ukr out loud and we agreed to mark out a few things just to make her happy. We are then invited to her throne room and we have another one of those idiotic conversations where she tells us we have to mark out these words, doesn't offer an alternative, and then tells us that we can't do what we want to do even as Vitaly offers other words. Eventually, after she had now humiliated us twice with her superior legal knowledge, she decided to do her job and create the document that we asked her to create from the very beginning.
I was then able to leave. I hope David is able to sign this thing on Wednesday. I then went in search of blueberries. All gone. Yesterday, the streets were flowing in them but today they are gone. Finally, along the street to our old apartment, just as the police were running off the the street vendors I was able to grab a jar full for my blueberry bread for the group meeting.
We had a wonderful group meeting. A lot of people came. We sang and many people shared how they had seen God at work in people's lives. It was a very valuable time, I think. I was able to share some about the history of the church, and how many times I thought the church just wasn't going to make it. But all along, God has led the way and he himself has built this body. He has made a strong foundation, built walls, given it a roof, and even various rooms. He has been faithful through it all.
The evening ended with saying more good byes, to some of our dear friends, to people I respect immensely and admire for the courage and faith. We will miss you Nastya, Anya, Lyuda, Katya, and many others. Others we will see again so I am not going to say good bye yet!
Still looking for an Abilene apartment. Now we are inviting comments about cell phone plans. Any suggestions? Anything to avoid? Comments are now welcome, America readers!
posted by Kyivmission at 1:35 AM
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