Christmas is Coming

We are getting ready to head to PA for Christmas. For the first time in many years our dogs, Tasha and Dexter will be making the journey with us. My mom has graciously offered to love (and house) our two dogs while we are in Russia. They will be coming to PA with us to settle into their new home.

We have been busy getting everything ready for our trip. We just had a major shopping trip in which we purchased a laptop, printer and some other major items that we will need for our trip. We are thinking through packing...(how do we pack for 5 months)? It has been interesting trying to figure out what we need to make home feel like home and deciding what we can live without for 5 months!

Homeschooling is now in the works. Our local district is allowing us to take the books for our kids and we will use that as a starting point for our curriculum. I'm thankful that we will have some time in PA before we leave to figure out this home schooling thing.

Speaking of leaving...you guessed it, we still do not know exactly when we will be leaving. Our letter of invitation is the works (we hope) and then after we receive that we need to apply for the visa. Our best guess at this point is late January/early February. At some point we are going to have to take a leap of faith and purchase tickets and pray that all the paperwork comes through in time.

Speaking of paperwork coming through...we just heard through the grapevine that RAI (our original placement) just got all of their paperwork signed. Too late for us, so we are trusting that God has a plan for us in Saratov. We are hoping that the smaller town might be a better fit for us than the big city.

The kids are still hesitant. Dylan has some brewing excitement (I think he likes the home school idea)! Katie is mostly upset about leaving the dogs and the long flight over the ocean. Keep them in their prayers as January will be a month of huge adjustments for them.

Hoping to see many of you in PA while we are in. In the meantime, have a blessed Christmas!

Our New Home

We have a new placement!!! Pull out your maps and see how long it takes you to find Saratov... OK - I'll give you a few hints. Our new home of Saratov is on the Volga River, south of Moscow and almost on the border with Kazakhstan. We just learned of this placement late last week. (It was either Saratov or Novosibirsk). We are feeling thankful...Novosibirsk is in Siberia!

Of course this new placement means home-schooling... Am I ready for that? We also are unsure of our leave date...this makes buying plane tickets tricky. We are hoping that our host institution has started the process to get our letter of invitation which we need for our visa's but as we are quickly learning, time seems to move in a different way in Russia. Despite all the new issues to tackle we are grateful for a chance to explore a new culture and are excited to get on the road!

Keep us in your prayers as we try to figure out our home-schooling options, buy plane tickets, apply for a visa and try to wrap up all the little things that we need to take care of!

Life is always interesting...in the midst of all the chaos our phone has gone down YET AGAIN! I love AT&T!

For those of you who read this and are in Lancaster... We will be heading home for Christmas on Dec. 23 and staying for a few days past Christmas. We are coming back to OH to pack and clean and then will be returning to PA around Jan 9. We will have some time to hang out in PA before we head off, hopefully in mid to late January!

Starting Over...

I'm finding my happy place. We just recently learned that our potential host institution RAI did not get re-accredited. This puts us in the unfortunate position of having to find a new place to go. Ken contacted the Russian Fulbright office and they were hopeful that they could find Ken a new placement in Moscow but were unsure if they would provide visa's for the family and it may only be a 3 month placement. FRUSTRATION! Ken told them that we would be open to going other places in the Russian Federation and this seemed to open up more possibilities. Right now they are researching places for us to go (I'm praying that we aren't going to Siberia)!

We are trying to be flexible while at the same time working through the issues that a new placement brings up - new school (maybe home-school) for the kids, new classes for Ken to prep for and teach, new schedules and start/end dates and a whole host of small things that can easily overwhelm.

So, we try to step back and trust God to see us through this time in our life. In the meantime, we put up our Christmas tree (we converted to a fake tree this year in an effort to simplify), we spent a week with Ken's mom and step-dad who came to visit from AZ and we live life as normally as possible.

If you have a moment, please pray for us that we will have a place to be in January!

Being Flexible (and I'm not talking about yoga)!

Well, we are learning about flexibility...Russian Style! On Friday we were all set to purchase our tickets - US to Russia to Paris (for a vacation in Western Europe prior to coming home) to US. I called the travel agent on Friday morning to book the tickets and had to leave a message requesting a call back. By 10:45 there was no return call and I was off to the movies with a friend (Yes, I saw the Twilight New Moon movie). From the movies I headed off to Katie's school for her fall party (I was only a few minutes late and the homemade whoopie pies made up for my tardy arrival).

During the party I get a panicked call from Ken, #1 asking if I bought the tickets and #2 saying, "Don't buy the tickets." Apparently, the Russian visa rules changed and our host institution is going to have difficulties getting us a visa. We can get a 3 month visa (not long enough) or a longer visa that will take 2-2.5 months to obtain which gets us to Russia in Feb. which is much later than we hoped to be there!

As a side note...Upon getting home I had discovered that our phone and internet were not working. I later discovered that they went down early in the morning (maybe God was protecting me from buying those tickets and I was meant to be away from home at the movies!)

So, we are learning to be flexible. We think that we are going to go to Russia on the 3 month visa, leave the country over Easter to travel in Europe, and then come back on a second 3 month visa. It is not our original plan, but it has some positive points...We can leave the bulk of our luggage in Moscow while we are gone, thus eliminating the need to lug it with us through Europe. We are trying to be patient while all of this is sorted out but it can be hard! Meanwhile, I think I am going to go do some yoga for stress relief!

6 Weeks (about) and counting...

Our journey to Russia is approaching very quickly. We have so much to do... register the kids for school, see an accountant, buy tickets, buy clothes - WARM CLOTHES -, buy a laptop, E-Reader, find luggage, get shots, finish the visa application, get adapters, figure out what we can live without for 5 months and the list goes on and on and on...

We are so grateful that our placement with RAI (Russian American Institute) formerly, RACU (Russian American Christian Univeristy) is working out. They have very generously offered to help us find housing and will be picking us up from the airport. We feel very fortunate to have their support!

The kids will start school on January 11, with Ken starting on Jan. 18. We will leave sometime in early Jan. to get settled and adjusted before the kids need to be in school. I'm off to work on the applications for Katie/Dylan's school!

Pre-Christmas update

To update on our last post...

Katelynn and Dylan both had a great start to the school year. Katelynn has a great teacher and is enjoying school, except for the early mornings. She has a small class and is one of 6 girls in the class. Katelynn is still really missing her best friend, Lauren, who moved this past summer. So, please keep her in your thoughts as she works on developing new friendships. We have made progress on the pneumonia front as well. Katelynn has been seeing a pediatric pulmonary specialist who diagnosed her with allergies (thankfully not to dogs) and asthma. She takes 2 daily meds and one as needed and she is great about taking them without help from us! We are proud of her (she is the one who usually balks at medicine).

Dylan is wonderful! He played soccer in the fall and did great. We of course enjoyed going to his games. It was interesting watching kindergartner's play soccer! He is getting along well in school - Mrs. Ruda is always filling me in on Dylan stories. He is definitely putting his best foot forward at school! We are, of course, proud of him!

Ken is working hard on his dissertation (he has his first three chapters in pretty good shape). He is hoping to have his prospectus hearing in Jan./Feb. The end is in sight. Speaking of ends...it is the end of the semester!!!! Hooray! Ken survived this year which was very busy for him. We are looking forward to Christmas and a chance to relax.

Speaking of Christmas...we are leaving cold OH for Christmas in warm AZ to spend it with Kevin, Tawnya, Lena, Suzi, Jim and Ruby. We will miss all of our family in PA but are excited for some sunshine. Keep us in mind on Dec. 31/Jan 1 as we will be flying home on the "red eye".

Here are a few pics from our fall:

Off to School

The two smallest Stoltzfi are off to school today...Dylan is entering kindergarten with Mrs. Ruda and Katelynn is in second grade with Mrs. Neading. We can hardly believe that both of the kids are in school. Please keep both kids in your prayers...Dylan is excited but also very nervous about school. He is worried that he won't be able to do everything! Katelynn is also a little nervous but we are more concerned that she just got diagnosed with another round of pneumonia/bronchitis...not a fun way to start the school year!

They started off their day with pancakes, put on their new school clothes, loaded up their over-stuffed backpacks and took some pics! I managed to not cry but I'm feeling a little lost without them around.

Ken is gearing up for his semester to start. He went to a ropes course with his freshman class today. It's hot and muggy (the humidity is so bad it feels suffocating to breathe!)

Hopefully this blog will keep our friends and family up to date on our latest antics and shenanigans...More later!