Up, up and away

Hiking was the word of the day on Thursday.  The morning hike was along the McCurdy trail just outside of Stinson Beach.  Unfortunately, if Mr. McCurdy knew the shape of his namesake trail, he would be quite embarrassed.  In fact, Maleia and Josiah called it the "grass and flowers in your face" trail.  It could have kept a hard-working Salvadoreño and his trusty machete busy for a couple of days, if not weeks.

Afterwards, we treated ourselves to coffee/donuts at the Parkside Cafe and let the kids play on the playground.  

The afternoon hike was much nicer . . . up the trail with a great ocean view as your reward, well, that plus a couple of wild, ripe blackberries.  

One last splash in the cold, cold water to end the day.

Fun in the Sun (and Wind)

Jon picked us up yesterday and we drove to our home-away-from-home on Stinson Beach about 5:00 p.m.  We stopped to buy groceries on the way out of town so we were ready to settle in.  First stop, a walk along the beach and our first impression of the beaches in northern California--windy and cold, but beautiful.  Grilled chicken, fresh asparagus and corn-on-the-cob made an excellent dinner and a nice change to eating out every day since Saturday.   

We walked to the little town a few blocks away this morning and had a late breakfast.  Then drove up Highway 1 for about 10 miles and then south in to Bolinas--a quaint little town that loves it's privacy.  The townspeople are so intent on keeping their town hidden that they have been known to take down the highway signs at the intersection of Highway 1 and the main road into town.  Stephen read that fact on a website about the town and, sure enough, we missed the turn the first time because there wasn't a sign.  

We got back to the house about 1:30 and within less than 30 minutes, Daniel, Maleia and Josiah arrived.  Hurray for grandkids!  The temperature of the ocean didn't matter to them--there's nothing more fun than running along the beach and having the water sweep over your feet.

We took a walk to the park and while they played, Daniel and I stopped at the little market to buy a few pizza toppings.  Jon made his special homemade pizza dough and with everyone helping with the slicing and dicing, we had two delicious homemade, gourmet pizzas for dinner.  

The kids took another walk on the beach while I baked up a couple dozen Snickerdoodles.  Warm cookies before bed . . . . perfect.  The kids are settled in and the four of us are starting a card game.  

Fun in San Francisco

Our anniversary dinner at Morton's was awesome.  Nothing like personalized menus and happy anniversary confetti on your table to make things feel special.  They also took our picture, printed it and brought it to us in an anniversary card.  Unbelievably, our waiter was from El Salvador; he has been her for 13 years, but his parents still live there.  

Today we road the street car down to Pier 39 at Fisherman's Wharf.  We had a quick lunch at Bubba Gump's, saw the sea lions and walked all the way to Ghirardelli Square before catching a ride back downtown on the vintage cable cars.

40 Years Together

5/25/74--young and in love

5/25/14--not so young, but still in love

Final Two Days

The campaign ended today--it was an awesome week.  Even though it was a small team of nine people, they faithfully shared and there were more than 400 professions of faith. What's even more exciting is that some of the people who made decisions this week have already visited one of our churches.
Yesterday morning at one of the schools, one of the team members brought a boy over to me who wanted to know the times of the services.  I wrote the times of our Thursday night, Friday night, Saturday night (youth service) and both Sunday services on his copy of the tract he received.  This morning, Pastor Steve announced that one of the boys from the school was at the service last night!  Wow!

Here are a few pictures of the campaign in Apopa last night and then a few of pictures of the school this morning.

Three Full Days

The mornings start with devotions . . . . yesterday Pastor Julio shared several verses from 1 Kings 8, reminding us that we need to focus on "the cause" which is "that all the peoples of the earth may know that the LORD is God; there is no other."  Today, Pastor Steve shared how we can stay joyful in the face of circumstances which is exactly what Paul talked about in his letter to the Philippians when he said, "to live is Christ, but to die is gain."

We have been in the schools in the mornings and the kids have been great.  The value lesson we've been sharing is on "Respect."  It's easy to come up with examples of disrespect and the kids are more than willing to admit that sometimes they disrespect their parents, their teachers and their friends.  In our class today, there were 31 students who made professions of faith . . . it doesn't get any better than that!  

 

The weather didn't look from the beginning, so we didn't put up the inflatable (which was still wet from last night's downpour.)  The team had about 30 minutes to go door-to-door before it started raining. 

 I got some shots of the Pastor Steve, Guillermo and the rest of the team playing basketball and Stephen and Paolo playing ping pong in the park.  About 15 minutes later they were all completely soaked!

 Please pray for our day tomorrow; they weather forecast is for it to rain most of the day/evening.  We're happy for it to rain, as long as it holds off until we finish the preaching.

The New Phonebooks Are Here!

Well, not the phone books exactly, but if you watch Steve Martin's character in the clip above then you can understand how we feel/act when we have our new residency cards in hand.

Once we made it to immigration, today's process was s-m-o-o-t-h!  Just a quick look to verify that the new copy of our document was correct!  They weren't at all busy, so we moved through the "appointment" phase to the pay phase to the picture/thumbprint phase to the walk-out-the--door-with-our-cards-in-hand phase in about an hour.  Excellent!

These cards are good until mid-August (while they more closely review all of our documents.)  We are supposed to call mid-July to see if our paperwork has finished the final review process and if they have printed our permanent (1-year) card for 2014-15.  

All-in-all the smoothest process yet!  This time and one more under this annual renewal process and then at the end of our fifth year, the process changes to a two-year renewal with very little documentation required.  

Thanks for praying with us--prayers answered!

May campaign--El Salvador

 A team  from Bells Shoals Baptist (Florida) along with two other individuals (Don Laity and John Ulrich) arrived yesterday.  We've spent the first two nights of the campaign working to help our church campus in Lourdes.  

Tomorrow morning the group will be sharing the "Respect" lesson in a local school, we, however, we will go back to immigration with our corrected residency paperwork.  We will catch up with the team at church in the afternoon before driving north for a family festival and evangelistic campaign in Coyolito.                                                                                                                                                                                                                                                       

A Little Bit of Pain

When you think it's going to be smooth sailing, it just isn't.  As I wrote yesterday, the immigration office accepted all of our paperwork and told us to come back this afternoon.  Unfortunately,when we returned today, we found out that the document the church did was not the correct form.  Now, the big question:  why didn't yesterday's initial review catch the fact that the form was wrong so we could have corrected it this morning?  The answer to that question is "no idea," except that the forms are so similar that, perhaps, she just didn't examine it closely enough knowing that the next reviewer is responsible for the "details."

The good news is that all of the rest of the paperwork was verified and accepted so no issues this year with the Spanish translation of our support letter.

The agent gave us copies of the correct form, and we returned to the church to have them completed and signed.  Unfortunately, we didn't have time to get the documents notarized so we weren't able to take them back to immigration.  Luckily, there is an attorney who is going to notarize the papers at church on Sunday.

On Monday after the morning campaign in the schools, we will return to immigration with the updated documents and find out if they can review them "on the spot" or if we have to make another appointment.  

Every year I try to learn from our past mistakes so that, hopefully, the process will be error free.  Every year I have another "past mistake" to avoid for the following year!  

The saga continues . . . . .

Painless!

Today's stop at the immigration office was completely painless.  We waited less than 30 minutes to be seen, only had to copy one additional document, received initial acceptance of all of our paperwork and were assigned an appointment with another agent tomorrow afternoon.  Between this morning and our appointment time (2:00 p.m) tomorrow, they will review the documents in detail, especially our support letter and the Spanish translation which accompanies it.  Last year they required us to return to the translator so he could make several (illogical) changes.  We're praying that everything is perfect this year!

Amazingly, they didn't even mention that our expiration date is more than 30 days in the future.  Maybe that's no longer an issue for them or maybe (more likely) it is God's answer to our prayers.

Hoping to have only good news this year--thanks for praying for us; it really does make a difference.  I'll update tomorrow afternoon.

Residency Process . . . . De Nuevo (Again)

One of the results of time flying is that almost a year has passed since we renewed our residency.  Staying ahead of the process is essential . . . . I requested our support letter from Abundant Life at the beginning of April so it could be sent to the team in North Carolina that came to Nicaragua for the Holy Week mission trip.  I knew if I waited for the trip in May, it would really run us short on time.  The letter was translated last week, so it's ready to go.  We're supposed to pick up the documents from Vida Nueva tomorrow and then make a stop at the attorney's office to have them notarized.  I've made the passport copies already and only have to make a copy of the translated support letter and whatever we get tomorrow before we head to Immigration on Thursday morning with, hopefully, everything we need.

In reality, our residency cards don't expire until June 29; normally, Immigration will not let you begin the renewal process until you are within 30 days of expiration, but . . . . we're going early and are praying that they will let us get things rolling.  Between now and the end of June, we have two campaigns in El Salvador, will spend two weeks in the states to celebrate our 40th anniversary and have a campaign in Guatemala.  We're concerned that if we don't get our paperwork in before we leave the country, that we might not be able to have our temporary cards before we go to Guatemala on June 22.  

Please pray that we find someone in the immigration office who will be sensitive to our situation and allow us to begin the renewal process early.  Pray that all of our paperwork is complete and correct and that they do not "find" anything they want us to change.  

Mother's Day 2014

Spending Mother's Day with my children is something that happens very rarely.  In fact, the last two dates were May 10, 2004, when we were all together for Jon's college graduation, and last year, May 12, 2013, when we were all at Daniel and Shannon's together.  Yes, I'd say every 9 years qualifies as "rarely."

Yesterday it was back to a normal Mother's Day with a Skype call from Daniel and the kids and a phone call from Jon.  So grateful for technology.

Nevertheless, it was a great day which started off at Iglesia Bautista Vida Nueva, Crowne Plaza.

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Stephen plays the piano for the 9:00 am and 11:30 am service.  In between the services, I usually go for a walk (always trying to get my 10,000 steps in.)  Yesterday, I snapped some pictures of the cloud covered volcano and beautiful flowers around the hotel.

We finished off our our morning at church with this photo.  As I posted on Facebook, Stephen almost always has on running shirts and running shirts have reflective logos.  Therefore, it looks like his heart is emitting a bright light!  I just haven't figured out a way to block it without looking silly!  

We started a new Mother's Day tradition by having friends over for dinner and a movie.  We love spending time with David and Maritza Aguilar and

they had never seen "Nacho Libre."

Of course, we had Mexican food--chicken tortilla soup, guacamole and pineapple/mango salsa.  Perfect ending to a great Mother's Day.