We have good news — on Thursday December 22 Olga will interview for naturalization. It’s been a long slog as we’ve waited. Apparently our paperwork was set aside for some reason and was not being reviewed as we thought.

This week we were able to talk with an actual person, a supervisor at USCIS, who discovered that we’d been waiting far too long and immediately made space for Olga to interview.

If all goes as we hope, she will also take her oath of citizenship that day. We’re in the process of finalizing the packet of documents they request for the interview, and Olga is studying for the tests she’ll take: writing, speaking, civics.

We have tickets to fly to Russia on January 17, so it looks like we will be able to make that deadline. It will be a busy month between now and when we depart.

Prayers are appreciated — not prayers that Olga will get citizenship but that God’s will be done. We feel that He wants us to learn even more the necessity of not grasping to our own will but releasing our lives into His hands, walking like little kinds holding their father’s hand. If He wants Olga to be a citizen of the USA, then she will be a citizen. But, I believe He is far more interested in our willingness to abide in Him than in any particular outcome. All things work for good for those who love the Lord and are called according to His purpose.