Our plans (as always, subject to change!)
We are all hoping to fly to the UK in the very near future, where Sergey will stay for 2 or 3 weeks and then return, leaving Beth and Lex to stay. Sergey hopes to return for a longer period, around Beth's due date, and Beth, Lex and 'Bertha' (who will eventually receive a more sensible, sex-appropriate name) are likely to stay until after the New Year, depending on when Bertha arrives and her innoculations. Sergey hopes to come to the UK for Christmas and then help his family return to an arctic Kazakhstan. (Btw, it's forecast for minus 10 this week and we've got a deal of snow!)
'Suitcase mood'
We cannot book our tickets to come the UK until Beth gets her Kazakh passport. We have been waiting for her citizenship document for nearly 3 months now, after initial predictions that it would take 1 month! For the last few weeks we have known that said document is 'ready' apart from 2 signatures. However, each call to the office has put us off for another few days. Beth's intial plan was for a visit at the end of February, which turned into mid-March, which turned into us all coming in time for Easter, which turned into us making it for the May Day weekend... which will now be impossible; so you can imagine our current frame of mind: we have a 'suitcase mood' as the Russians would put it. In fact, one suitcase is out and half-packed, but we still have little idea of when exactly we'll be putting it to use.
A call to the office today resulted in us being invited to pick up the document after lunch on Thursday. However, we still need to ring before we turn up... Once we have the document, we still need to travel to the village and apply for the passport, which will take up to 2 weeks to arrive, and then we need to get Lex glued into it (not literally!), which takes another half day. We daren't book tickets till we have the passport in hand! All this results in a lot of uncertainty and while Beth's due date is thankfully a long way off yet, there's lots to be done once she returns to the UK. We're really hoping she'll be able to claim Maternity Allowance during her stay, as she has a British work contract for her writing project, but it's important for her to get the necessary paperwork together for this asap. There are also some long overdue vaccinations for Lex and check ups for Beth, not to mention visiting friends and family around the country.
Please pray for:
- patience, calm and trust
- the energy to do everything that needs to be done before we do leave
- available affordable plane tickets
- the church while Sergey is away
- the journey: 3 planes with a toddler plus airport waits and getting to and from airports!
- smooth border crossings
- health for Beth and Bertha
- Beth's application for MA
- a good time of rest and recuperaton for Sergey in the UK
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