Bryan Shufelt

Just wanted to let y’all know that I arrived in America safely, with all my luggage, and only 15 minutes behind schedule
Good night.

Leaving shortly to head to the airport and fly back to Fort Worth. Please pray that the flight will go smoothly and that it will stay on time. Also, please remember me. Today is the longest day of the year for me It’ll last 32 hours
Have a great day, and I’ll see some of y’all soon!

Just wanted to bring y’all up to speed on what has been going on in my life as of late.  The reason you haven’t seen anything posted on here since I asked for prayer about my visa situation is that, up until earlier today, it was not resolved.  I was very hesitant to post on the world wide web that I didn’t have all of my documents in order.  I was stopped in a border region a week ago (on my 180th day), and had my documents checked, so I was a bit gun-shy.  So, here’s the current info:

Josh called today to let me know that my passport had been shipped back to L’viv, and it should be ready to pick up.  After finishing tracting in 2 villages, Nathan and I went to pick it up.  Thankfully, all went well, and it was there ready to pick up.  After taking a breath, I opened the envelope to see if I had been registered (I had not heard for sure).  Flipping through the pages, I found it!  Took up a whole page but there it was!  Finally, I’ll be able to sleep at night  Thank you to all of you who have been praying about this.  It’s been a bit of a pain, but God’s will was done.

For those of you who don’t know, I’ll be flying out of L’viv on Monday heading to the States for a nearly 3 week trip.  I will be attending a discipleship conference in CO lead by Eric Ludy, and I will be attending Patriot Academy in Austin while in the USA.  It will be a full 19 day trip, but I am really looking forward to it!  Plus, I’ll be in town for my Mom’s birthday (which is why no one has heard about it, it was going to be a surprise, but my bank messed up…).  I will be speaking at Fairpark Baptist Church (6000 Crowley Rd, Fort Worth) on Wednesday, August 12th in the 7pm service.  I invite y’all to stop by (if you’re able) and see how the work over here is going.  There should be a Q&A time, so that will be … interesting

Again, thank you so much for the prayers about my registration!  Please keep my trip back to the States in prayer (I’m flying LOT, and have had problems w/ them in the past…), that my trip will be a fruitful trip, and I will learn the lessons I need to  Also, keep in prayer the CMO team.  The project will be concluding while I’m in the States.

Team info Update (click on their name to check out their web page):  The Steele Family will be heading to the States at the end of August for about 8 months.  Nathan Day will be heading back about a month later to GET MARRIED! (Congratulations )  The happy couple will be returning to Ukraine in January 2010.  The Beal Family (or part of them) is going to be making a quick trip to Poland in the next few weeks to get some passport/visa stuff done.  Denise Hutchison is going through the process of registration right now as well, so I’m sure she’d appreciate your prayers.  And through it all, our Bible Course continues to grow (getting close to 400 student! PTL ) and requests for Good and Evil continue to come in!  God is working here in Ukraine!

God bless, see some of y’all soon, some of y’all later, and (prayerfully) all of you in Heaven!

No one but those overseas knows how much trouble this word is…

Let me fill you in on what is going on over here.  Back in May, the Cabinet of Ministers ordered/decreed/passed a law essentially forcing foreigners to either register or be out of the country for half of the year.  Before this point, you had the option of registering or crossing the border every 90/180 days (depending on the latest law).  Crossing the border was way easier and cheaper, so that is what most people did.  Now with this new law, all that has changed.  Now I’m going to switch to my story.

To register you need a letter of invitation, a government document confirming that you live at a certain address, a copy of your passport, and a passport photo.  We have been having trouble with get the address document.  Thankfully, that was taking care of at the end of last week.  Yesterday, I got the passport photos.  All of my documents were in order (at least we thought so…) for this morning’s trip.  I have just over a week left before my initial 180 days runs out.  We went to the OVIR this morning and found out that my letter of invitation was no good, and I had to get a new one.  Since the organization is in Chicago, that means that it’s going to be 5pm this afternoon at the earliest before we can get a hold of them.  This means that we’ll have to wait till the next receiving day (Thursday) to try to register.  Here are a few specific prayer needs:

1.  That we will be able to get a new letter of invitation before Thursday from my inviting organization.  Also, that it will have all of the necessary information in it.

2.  That we will have all the necessary documents in place when we go back to the OVIR on Thursday morning.

3.  That they will accept and approve my request for registration.

Thank you for your prayer support!  God bless!

Yep, this evening I saw my very first opera live…  Allow me to explain…
Evan Hein leaves on Sunday, and we wanted to go to the Opera House in L’viv before he left.  This evening appeared to be the only time we could, so we finished up passing out CBC invites in today’s village, headed to our respective apartments to change clothes, and met down at the Opera House in Center.

L'viv's Opera House 2006

Ended up being the first opera written in the Ukrainian language, so it is special to the Ukrainian people.  It was interesting.  Had a lot of the Cossack style outfits and even ended with a Ukrainian wedding!  It was an interesting look into Ukrainian culture.  We might be going back next week for a symphony of types, we’ll have to see .  The Opera House here is one of the best buildings in Europe!

Met a lot of English-speaking people there, too!  We were waiting to go in when I saw a few people taking pictures of themselves and I realize they were speaking in English.  I smiled to myself and thought ‘Tourists!’  Shortly after that, one of them turned to me and started to ask me in Ukrainian to take a picture of their whole group!  I interrupted half-way through and said I spoke English.  I took the pic and then talked with them for a few minutes.  They were from Chicago and Philly.  I thought it was great that I blended in well enough to be spoken to first in Ukrainian .  My group (Nathan, Evan, Daniel, and I) went inside and found our seats (due to a smaller audience,we ended up with better seats then we paid for!  Yesss!)

After the first act was finished, a couple came in speaking ain English and sat right next to us.  It was great!  Found out they were from Alberta, Canada.  I talked more with them, and we exchanged the normal info – How long have you been here, Where have you been, do you speak any Ukrainian, etc.  It was neat running into both groups of English speakers.  The husband even gave us some background on the opera (We thought we were going to be at a different one, so we knew little about the one we were watching).  The lights turned down and the second act started…

During the break between the second and final act, the couple went downstairs to get something while we stayed in our seats (after a day of walking, it was preferred ).  The couple a few steps down also stepped out.  I had heard a little of their conversation and thought something was different about it.  Then, right before the walked by, I heard the girl say something in English (along the lines of ‘Do you want to talk to them?).  Aha!  Another English speaking group!  They walked in front of us (we had to stand as it was like theatre seats…), and the girl said ‘Dyakooyou’ (Ukrainian for ‘Thank You’).  I replied ‘Proshoe’ (Ukrainian for ‘You’re welcome), then under my breath (loud enough to be heard) I said ‘You’re Welcome.’  She turned and smiled like she just got caught.  It was kinda funny.  After both couples returned we all talked for a while.  The first couple was married and were going to Kiev the next night and the last couple ended up being cousins.  The girl was from Boston and the guy lived in Ukraine.  She was taking language lessons for the summer.  She was American and her cousin was Ukrainian.  We all had a nice chat about a variety of topics.  It was funny that I met more native English speakers this evening then the entire previous 6 months combined!

On the way home on the bus, I was standing in the back, when all of a sudden one of the passengers falls out of his seat on the floor.  Turns out the guy was way past drunk.  No one on the bus was even phased though…  Shows how much of a problem alcohol is here…

We’ll be celebrating Independence Day out at the Beals on the 3rd (We should be heading to the mountains on the 4th).  Hope y’all have a great 4th and remember why it’s called Independence Day!