Wedding News - October 20th at 6pm - Wedding and reception at the One-Eighty Teen Center in Lodi for anyone and everyone who would like to attend. This is going to be a non-traditional, informal wedding ceremony and reception. In fact, please dress however you like and bring some food to share. We are doing this potluck style! There will be live music to close out the evening.
Spread the word! If you know someone who knows us or who has heard our story please invite them to come.
9/20/07 - Well, we are back in the States. Praise God that we made it through customs and imigrations without any problems. However... once we got here I got really sick. It first started with Strepp Throat that ended up putting me in the Emergancy Room. Then I had an allergic reaction to my medicine and my body exploded in this really bad rash. Now, I have Infectious mononucleosis or "mono". So I have basically spent the last 3 weeks laying in bed moaning.
The most frustrating part of it for me is that Sasha has had to deal with leaving her family, friends, home, country, language, culture and everything she has ever known. That is hard enough, but now she has had to put up with me being sick for the first 3 weeks of living in a new country. She has spent more time in hospital waiting rooms than she has in her new apartment.
Sasha is doing good despite all the changes. Some days are easier than others, but she is slowly getting used to things here. Culture shock can be a very interesting and difficult thing if you have never gone through it. And as my dad put it, "People are crazy if they think having a microwave is going to comfort the loss of your family." So please keep Sasha in your prayers. As well, today is her mother's birthday, and Sasha is really missing being with her family.
Aside from all the sickness and homesickness we are doing good and loving life together at last. Take care everyone.
~ Mark
8/7/07 - Praise God! The visa has been approved!!! WHOO HOO!!!
Yesterday, Sasha and I traveled to Kiev to do the interview with the United States consulate to get the visa for Sasha to come to America. God blessed us hugely! We turned in all our documents, and they were all in order. After about an hours wait we went for the interview. Sasha was not asked a single question. They handed us the paperwork, said that everything looked good and they did not need to ask us an questions. We will receive the approved visa in the mail in about 10 days.
Thank you to everyone who was praying for us. The day could not have gone smoother. We were there for a little over an hour and then had the rest of the day to celebrate in Kiev.
We are hoping to return to the US sometime around the end of August. Please keep us in your prayers for safe travel and easy entry to into the States.
California, here we come!
~ Mark
6/26/07 - Praise God! The visa petition for Sasha has been approved, sent to the US Embassy in Ukraine, and Sasha has an interview date on August 6th. Whoo Hoo!!! God is truely amazing!!! Hopefully that means that we will be home in the States by the end of August. Keep praying for us! We need it.
~ Mark
5/24/07 - Praise God! Sasha's internet is working again, and her connection is fast enough to do a webcam. So now we finally have the privilege of actually seeing each other! Also, It is not costing me $12.00 an hour to talk to her like on the phone. Praise God! In case you have forgotten... please, please, please be in prayer about our visa so that Sasha can come to the States soon. We are really missing each other. Just so you know, things between us are amazing! Sasha is an amazing and astounding woman.
Ok, I know I still have not done anything else on our story... at least that you can see! Actually, I have been working on it, but I just haven't uploaded anything to the web yet. Don't worry it will be there someday. Also, Sasha is in the process of working on her side of our story.
~ Mark
5/11/07 - Nothing is easy; is it? During my last trip to Ukraine we spent 2 weeks trying to get a computer and internet set up for Sasha so that she could talk to me over a webcam. Not is it amazing to see each other with a clear voice connection but it is also saving me a ton of money on phone calls to the Ukraine. Unfortunately, yesterday the internet stopped working. I spent most of this morning trying to troubleshoot it with her over the phone, but still we have had no success. So now she just needs to call the company on Monday and have them look into. The part worse than things not working is just the added frustration.
Things are already frustrating enough trying to coordinate an international wedding and move to a new country. This is one of those things that normally wouldn't be a big problem, but seems really bad just because it is on top of all the other pressures.
So anyway, please be in prayer that her internet gets up and running again. Also please be in prayer for the wedding and the visa process. We really do appreciate your prayers.
Oh, and I have had a lot of people tell me that I really need to finish our story. I guess it was kind of a bad tease to start it and not finish. Sorry, I've been a little pre-occupied with more pressing matters. However, I will do my best to get it finished shortly.
Take care everyone!
~ Mark
4/24/07 - I Love Birthdays! At least, I love Sasha's Birthday. Currently, I am sitting here in Ukraine looking over at Sasha. It is early Tuesday morning, and we just finished breakfast at the Semagin's home where I am staying. Yesterday was Sasha's 22nd birthday, and we went to the seaside city of Yalta to celebrate.
We had a wonderful time! Yalta is about an hour away from Simferopol, and it is beautifully lined with snow covered mountains, sea cliffs and dolphins playing in the evening waters. Ah ha! Now you wish you were there too! We first took a trip to one of the famous castles nesting on a cliff overlooking the sea. It was really romantic.
Later, we took a boat ride from the castle back to the Yalta port. It was really interesting to see all of the romantic little cafes by the sea and then have Sasha say that she wanted to eat at McDonalds! Ha Ha! You have to remember that they don't have fast food joints on every corner like we do. The funny thing is that the food really didn't taste any different from our McDonalds.
We spent the rest of the day walking along the sea.
~ Mark
4/10/07 - Just so everyone knows, my surgery went really good. I am fully recovered and am on my way to Ukraine to visit Sasha finally!!!
~ Mark
2/27/07 - Alright! I finally have the new site up and running! I was a little worried when I asked Sasha what color she wanted the site in and she told me orange and green. However, I think it worked rather well. There will still be a lot more updates coming in the near future so stay tuned. I am still working out some of the kinks. Also, we should have the russian translated part available shortly. Honestly, with all the visa stuff going on, I have had a few more important things to do than sit around making pretty graphics. Plus I was trying to figure out how to make the colors for the site work.
Well...that and Sasha is a whole lot more fun to talk to than writing HTML code!
Also, I am heading into Surgery on Thursday so it will be a week or two before I do any more construction on the site here.
~ Mark
