Yippee!!!

Yesterday morning, I was feeling stressed because we needed to leave tomorrow for Mongolia to renew our visas and were preparing to be gone up to a month. We hadn't bought train tickets yet because you're not allowed to until the day before, our plans to stay at a Christian guest house had fallen through, and every time Leif tryed to pay for a hotel for us to stay in for the first few nights, the travel agent was busy or out of the office and he wasn't able to. Besides that, Anneka still has a little bit of a cough and I'm still sick and my energy is just LOW. I hadn't packed a thing (other than throwing a bunch of Anneka's clothes on her bed) and it just seemed looming to try to remember everything that we wouldn't have access to for a few weeks. So when Anneka was down for her morning nap, I took a few minutes to just sit and read my Bible. And this really stuck out to me in Jeremiah 32:17, "Ah, Sovereign LORD, you have made the heavens and the earth by your great power and outstretched arm. Nothing is too hard for you." I knew that God was telling me that He is way bigger than any visas or paperwork or government officials. And that if He wanted to, He could make it so that we wouldn't have to go to Mongolia. But even as this crossed my mind, I seriously doubted. For that to happen, it would mean that we would obtain our temporary residency in less than two months after turning in our paperwork- and I've never HEARD of that happening! It is supposed to take 6 months. (and in my experience here, everything always comes right down to the wire) But I confessed my doubt and acknowledged that if God wanted, He could definitely make things work so that we wouldn't have to leave the country. And if He didn't, I could trust that He wanted us in Mongolia for some reason and would give us the strength we needed.

Well, Leif went down to the immigration office today and they are giving us our temporary residency NOW and we don't have to go to Mongolia!!! This truly is a miracle. What's even more amazing is that our letters of invitation aren't finished (we would have needed these to take with us to Mongolia tomorrow to get our visas)... and they're going to give us our money back for the paperwork process on those. If we didn't have our residency, we'd have to wait for our letters of invitation to be sent to us in Mongolia and THEN wait another 2-4 weeks for our visa processing. We could've been there a couple of months!! And the only money we spent was on photos for our visas, but I think it was worth it because Anneka's is so cute- she's grinning from ear-to-ear in it. Some of our friends from Ulan Ude are trapped in Mongolia now and were declined visas. What's worse is that they can only stay in Mongolia for 30 days, and after that they have to go on to China or Thailand. They joke that they're banished from Siberia- the place that criminals used to be banished TO. They have five kids. Pray for them!

So, this has turned out to be kind of long, but I know that this was God showing His power and reminding us that He's in control of everything. I'm so thankful that we're in His loving hands!

Oh, and by the way, our balcony is the one right "under" Leif's hand.