Residency Update

Already back home from immigration--paperwork all in order! Good news is we have an appointment on Monday; bad news is we have an appointment on Monday--first day in the schools for the campaign that starts on Saturday. We have learned, however, that you don't say "no" when they offer you a time, so we're trusting God to take care of all the details on Monday.

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.  

Residency Update 2

We received a call this afternoon from Immigration Services that they found another error in one of our translated documents.  I don't know why they called us--that really isn't  normal to give us a "heads up."  Perhaps it's because so many people have been praying for us during this difficult process.

So, before we go to our appointment in the morning we will make one more trip to the translator's office to pickup the corrected, corrected document.

Please pray that once they have this document in hand, we will be able to pay the renewal fee and have our pictures taken for our new cards.  Next step--they need to print our cards so that we can pick them up no later than next Wednesday, June 19, the day before we leave for the states.

Please also pray for Jeff and Paula who have run into problems with their renewal application process, as well.

Residency Update

We've been so busy with the end of school that I didn't update what happened at our residency appointment on Tuesday.  Unfortunately, our paperwork was in the "rejected" folder and not the approved folder.  So . . . . . we've spent the last two days trying to get corrections made so we can meet their requirements.  Keep in mind that these were little, little things--one was that the secretary at the church forgot to circle YES or NO. Because she forgot, we had to have the document redone, resigned and renotarized.  The other problem was with two of the translated pages.  So, we're supposed to pick up the revised pages today.  We're going to try to drop them off at immigration today.

Don't know if they will look at the new pages and approve them or if they will want to review the entire package again and have us come back later.

Thanks for praying for us through this arduous process!

Last Day of May

Hard to believe, but here it is, the last day of May.  Not quite half way through 2013, but getting close.

Today we start the process to renew our residency for the next 12 months.  As always, I'm sure this will be an adventure!   We have a trip planned to Kansas City from June 20 to July 4, and, while we are there, our residency cards will expire.  As a result, we really need the process to go smoothly (I say that every year, but this year it's especially true.) So, we are planning to go to Immigration today with "all" (we'll see) of the correct paperwork.  If they accept everything, we'll be asking them to provide us with a temporary card before we leave the country in 20 days.

Please pray that we have everything we need (I know that this seems obvious because there is a list; however, it seems that every immigration official has their own, unwritten "list.")  Please pray that everything will be accepted and that the only thing we have to wait on is the printing of our new temporary cards.