Greetings from Ostroda Camp in Poland. Tomorrow I return to Warsaw. I thought I would have left Poland for Crimea by now, but the visa situation turned out to be complicated yet for Crimea. Today is the date I was to be in Crimea according to my first visa application.
I am still in Poland trying to get a tourist visa to Crimea. I failed to get a visitor’s visa [visa to visit someone in Crimea]. I did not qualify for other visas. I (as an American? have run into roadblocks on getting an acceptable hotel voucher for the tourist visa. On top of the $400 I paid the authorized travel agency for the express service and consulate fees, I authorized another attempt to get a hotel voucher, for which the agency is charging me the equivalent of $133. The agent was quick to say that that does not guarantee anything. If this fails and they try it with another hotel, that would be another $133 I presume. Providing vouchers is something new for Crimea, and people are reluctant to do new things less they get into trouble for doing it wrong. Some may be afraid to “vouch for” Americans, too. There are anti-American posters in Simferopol.
I sure hope in the future I can get a visa that gives me multiple entries and does not require hotel vouchers.
 
Crimean authorities came to our bookkeeper today and said that they are taking back kindergartens, including ours.[Though it had belonged to a factory, not to the city.] They will pay something for it, so they say. We had a much better offer recently. But, the city will get their way of course. May God see that we at least net enough to pay what is owed on the new Center. We can still expect the ‘take-over’ saga to continue at the hands of our nemesis.
I count on your prayers for all these matters.

Our team has answered a questionnaire I designed our the Center’s future, and they have discussed among themselves their responses. They want to continue the ministry, but really need a national leader on site, though I think that one of them can be a good team leader — just not the person to inspire and help the team keep the vision and mission clearly in mind in habit of behavior and attitude. The current and recent events lowered morale. An uncertain future in Crimea makes it difficult for them to regain their joyful spirit without a trusted and capable leader who can help them with that. Pray for God to provide, though we have lost to Western Ukraine all known candidates.
They have worked on strategy for the new school year and are optimistic about that, but at the same time find it hard to be joyful. When people lose half or more of their friends to other towns and cities, there is a natural grieving process, and adjustment takes time. When only the camps that will be held outside Crimea will be held, a hole is left in what they planned for the summer. Of course, our English Camp at the Center is not likely to take place, though there is still some talk of trying to recruit students for it.  I really want to be in Crimea to rally the troops, do some concrete planning with them, among other things. It can be done by Skype, but not as well as it can be done in person, on site.
 
Keep praying for LaVerne, too. No changes, except maybe more pains, and thus more tests. No details to share at this point.

I really appreciate all those gifts for my travel and special needs for the staff. I had no idea that the visa would be so expensive, and that I may have to pay for a hotel in Simferopol for every day that I am there. I just hope that this hotel can provide a voucher for the Russian consulate, since it was the least expensive of those I found on booking.com.
Talking with Scott LaRue of Russian Outreach Network, my roommate in Ostroda, it may be that, if needed later, we can get some help from him and those he works with in Russia since they have an association registered with the Russian government. We will look for other ways to network, too. I keep working on options and ways to enhance the team in Simferopol and how we can best serve the Lord there, especially since Simferopol may be short of human resources for some time to come.
Attached is a picture of me with my feet in the Baltic Sea, thinking about how I wish they were in the Black Sea.
Another attachment reminds me of the suffering some people have endured, making my problems lighter by comparison — but no less something to be worked through. Two of the men at this camp or holocaust survivors.
 
Blessings on each of you,

 

Georges

PS You might find this interesting: Propaganda
http://www.examiner.com/list/russia-s-top-20-lies-about-ukraine
Russia’s top 20 lies about Ukraine
I cannot verify this, but I have read some of this before, as it was happening. I do not know what propaganda Ukraine or others are producing, but Russian news sources are all that most people in Russia and Crimea have available to them — unless they have the Internet. There are two workers here from Ukraine (one goes to Ostrog/Ostroh Academy which Yevgenny and I visited several years ago). Both of them have mothers who are at odds with their sisters because of their differences about what is right and best and true in East Ukraine and in Crimea – and what is true about the conditions in Ukraine. Those who live in West and Central Ukraine cannot convince the others that they live in peace without threat from the “Banderas” — and those in East Ukraine and in Crimea cannot convince their sisters that Russia only means a better life for them and that all Russian speakers should be under the Russian government. I could say more, but this is the gist of it, and representative of many families and friends divided over things that they hardly spoke of before Russians took control of Crimea. gpc