Dear Co-laborers and Fellowservants,
If you haven’t read my blog, then let me tell you about our trip to London. We received five year multi-entry visas for Ukraine! When we got to London we went to the Ukrainian embassy and submitted our paperwork applications for five year visas. The man behind the window just looked at it and said, “impossible”. I asked what he meant and he said it was impossible to get a visa for more than one year at a time.
So when we went back a few days later to pick up our passports, I immediately thumbed through the pages to the new visa stamp, and saw it was until 2013 – 5 years! We thank God for this.
A couple of events unfolded immediately after our arrival in Simferopol last Tuesday. First, we received an e-mail from Dolly. She told us that she will be returning to Simferopol the first of May (May 4th) with her children. There will be eight in their party and there is simply not enough room for all of us in the house. She was very kind and gracious in her words. Since we arrived in Simferopol, we have diligently explored every available contact and opportunity to find housing – without success to date. This has been frustrating and hard to understand. The Kings have been very kind to offer and let us live in their home and even use their car until we found our own housing and bought our own car.
The second thing that occurred was the e-mail Anita received from her mother concerning her father’s (Lupe’s) health. Through a series of events, hospital visits, and tests, it has been determined that Lupe (Lupe is short for Guadelupe) has 100% blockage in one artery and 50% in two others and will require triple bypass surgery next week. They need to wait a week in order for the blood thinners the doctors had given him to leave his system, which is why the surgery has been postponed until next week.
In lieu of these circumstances, I have been in communication with our pastoral leadership at KCBT. We have concurred that it would be best at this time to take a short break from the field in order for two things to
occur: 1) Anita and I can be with her family during this life threatening surgery, and 2) we can take some time to sit down and evaluate the recent events of the ministry here, such as the passing of Al King. KCBT has even helped us by paying for half of the cost of our airfare. We are already ticketed and will arrive in KC late Tuesday night.
This is an especially difficult time for Dolly and her children. They will all be back in Simferopol next week in the place they all knew as home for many years – but Dolly will be without her husband and the children will be here without their daddy for the first time. Pray for them. They plan to have a memorial service a week from tomorrow. They will all be here for 10 days.
Please pray for us as we seek to use this time to re-define our future and roles of ministry in Ukraine. We need God’s clear direction. We thank God for the wisdom and experience of our pastoral leadership God has put over us. And we thank God for all of you who have been so faithful to pray for and support this ministry. We will be in the US for a little over two months and have return tickets to Simferopol for the 9th of July. I look forward to the opportunity to see many of you face to face soon. Please pray for us as we travel, too.
Pressing toward the mark,
The Nebel Family
Missionaries to Russian Speaking People
www.teamnebel.org
Posted by: David
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