Third Time was a Charm (Joni)

After three days and a total of about 6 1/2 hours waiting in lines at the clinic, we FINALLY have our medical approval for work permits in Moldova! So we won't have to go back to the clinic, but this is still not the end of the road for us. Now we'll have to go to other offices and wait in lines there to get all the paperwork submitted. Please keep praying that God comes through mightily in providing this permit for us. I think it will still be a couple weeks before we know for sure whether or not we get the permits.

On an entirely unrelated note, I wanted to give you all a few pictures to let you know what our life looks like here.

This is Justin standing in front of our house! At the moment, we are living on the third floor of the building behind him - that balcony with the flower boxes is off our bedroom. It's nice to be able to sit out on the balcony and look out onto the street. The weather has been really nice until yesterday when it started raining - and it's still pouring now!

The building on the right side of this picture will be our new house once it's completed. You can see on the right that there is a step underneath a window. That used to be a porch for a door connecting the house to the courtyard. Now they've walled that off and made it a window, so the only entrance to the house is from the street. That gives anybody staying in the house a little more privacy, and also the family doesn't have to be disturbed by our coming and going. I haven't been in the house yet, but Justin has seen it and he says it's going to be great! A bedroom, living room, kitchen, and bathroom - all we need! They're working hard to get everything in the house completed this week, and they're hoping we'll be able to move in Sunday.

Finally, I just wanted to post a picture of a fine eating establishment here:
Yes, we have 3 McDonald's in Chisinau! This is the main location on downtown's main street. We ate at one of the different branches on Sunday after church, and I was surprised with how popular it was with the Moldovans! The place was packed! The prices are about the same as they are in America, but that's kind of expensive for food in Moldova. We probably won't eat there much, but it was tasty!

So those are a couple of pictures for you to get an idea of what it looks like here. Check back tomorrow for my long post about transportation!

Update on the Medical Tests (Joni)

After having an extremely difficult time finding the correct medical clinic this morning (I'm still working on that post about public transportation, which will help you understand why we didn't know where to get off the bus!), we finally did make it and meet up with Valentina, who was supposed to be helping us through all the hoops. From what Kelly had told us, we knew that getting medical approval included seeing somewhere between 8 and 10 specialists who signed off on various aspects of our health, and seeing most of them included a very long wait outside their office door. We got there later than intended, around 9:00, and so the lines were longer than we'd hoped.

Upon our arrival, Valentina said that she had to get back to work, so she was just going to get us started at the first door and then leave us to figure out the rest on our own! This, of course, meant that Justin would have to be using his Russian skills to talk about medical things, and he was NOT excited about that. However, we didn't have much choice and so he bravely agreed to do the best he could.

We waited with Valentina outside the first door for at least 30 minutes, just to get into the first secretary who gave us our paperwork and told us the next 2 doors to go to. The first two stops were the two I had most been dreading - having blood drawn! I have been known to pass out when having blood drawn before, so I was a little afraid that this may turn into an ordeal. However, I was feeling pretty calm, and we waited for another 30 minutes outside that door before we finally got in. The phlebotomist seemed very friendly and Justin answered all of her questions in Russian. She took our blood and we were fine. Praise the Lord!

Our next stop was to go upstairs to another room where she would just do a finger prick to take more blood. There was no line at that door, and we arrived in there at 10:05. She did our finger pricks and that was fine (although it HURT!), but she said she also needed to take a urine sample before we could do our next stop, but they stopped accepting urine samples at 10:00. Sooooo... We had to leave and we'll need to go back early tomorrow. However, Kelly told us that the first two stops are the only blood they'll take, so we got the two we had been dreading out of the way today.

Tomorrow, apparently most of the stops will just be answering questions and getting physical exams, which we feel fine with. Valentina will also be available to stay with us tomorrow, so she'll be able to help Justin understand the Russian. So altogether it was a successful morning, although we didn't get as much accomplished as hoped. Please pray for us tomorrow, that we can get all the rest of the stops finished and get this medical part of our permit completed!