Verificentro

22 November 2017

Mega Service and More Meetings

Jim Ministry glimpses, Prayer and Praise, ST Highlight 1

Mega Service 2017 Panorama
Music at the Mega Service Thanks so much to everyone who prayed for the “Mega Service” this past Sunday at Ecoparque San Pedro. I think the service went fairly well. In the picture above you can see the group in the beautiful outdoor location.

Rod did a great job leading an eclectic collection of music, and I spoke on “The Word of God” from 2 Peter 1:16-21. The picture on the right shows Rod and gang.

After the service we hung out at the park, where there was horse back riding, an outdoor labyrinth, and places to play soccer and other things.

After one day at home I headed to Puebla to meet with the Camino Global team leaders. The altitude changes are usually a health disaster for me, and yesterday was no exception, so it was admittedly a day of pretty severe pain. However, it was a good time with a few of the other missionaries I don’t see often, talking about various issues.

We’ve been trying to get our van verified, which we need to do every 6 months. This time it didn’t pass (due apparently to a sensor issue), and this led to four days at the mechanic’s. We’re hoping that we can get it verified in the next few days. Verification is what allows us to drive without restrictions of certain days.

Just a little news for you! Thanks for reading. 🙂

16 May 2017

A Verified Vehicle

Jim Practical matters, Prayer and Praise, ST Highlight 1

It took the better part of yet another day. And there were many more strange and bizarre adventures as I talked to many different officials.

And I’m just not going to waste your time with all the details.

But at the end of the day (yesterday), we had a verified vehicle. With license plates.

Vehicle Verification So what does that mean? That means that after three and a half months of no van, we now have a vehicle that we can drive every day (unless there’s an unusual level of pollution – sometimes the government adds special restrictions).

Praise the Lord!

We’ll be trying to get the van back into good shape before the short term teams start arriving – in 3 weeks and 3 days!

I kind of feel like I need some driver’s training to remember how to drive. But Shari says it’s “just like riding a bike”. 🙂

10 May 2017

We have License Plates! But….

Jim Practical matters, Prayer and Praise, ST Highlight 1

Oh, aren’t we negative. Just when we should be jumping up and down and celebrating, we have to add that nasty, negative “but”. Some people’s children.

Well, first of all, yes, we are thankful to have license plates! I spent the better part of 3 days, this week alone, in long lines and interesting conversations with officials trying to get the process completed.

In all, it’s been 107 days – over 15 weeks – that I’ve been trying to get license plates. And we haven’t been able to drive our van during that time. 3 months and 17 days with no van, and countless hours spent in lines over – how many times did I visit that office? 8 times? 9 times? I’ve lost count.

I could tell you stories about this week alone. Like how two officials came out of the office after I’d been in line for a long time and said,”Well, the power has gone out… we’ll see if it comes back on…”

Or the time when someone came and said they were only taking 45 more people that day, and there was some confusion over whether I was person #44 or person #46.

And every day they found something else that I needed to bring next time.

And because it took so long … I had to pay a fine. Yes, even though I started the process the first day I possibly could.

But – thanks to the kindness of certain people in said office, and thanks to many of your prayers, and thanks to God’s mercy – we have license plates!

But…

But, the van will be parked tomorrow, because we won’t be allowed to drive it.

First of all, to drive here in the city you need to verify (emissions test) your vehicle. And we can’t do that until next week (because it takes that long for the new license plate process to finish going through the system). That means we can’t drive on Thursday (tomorrow), or Saturday, or until after 11am any weekday.

To add to the fun, the people at the verification place and the license plate place are arguing about one of my documents. The people at the verification place say that I need to get a form, go to a bank, make another payment, and then wait several days more before I can get the vehicle verified (bringing us to the end of next week before I can even try to get it verified!). They blame it on an error on one of my documents.

The people at the license plate place say “That’s ridiculous! We filled the form out perfectly, you shouldn’t have to pay that extra amount.”

And even after that, the question remains – will the van even pass the emissions test, or will it need some work done first?

So I hope you won’t be too hard on me for adding the “but”. We are glad to have the van – that we can drive sometimes. But the adventure of finishing all the paperwork could continue for another week or two. And I have three days of work to catch up on in the mean time!

29 November 2012

Van: Verified.

Jim Mexico, Practical matters 9

Our van is verified. Talk about making a long story short.

Every six months our van needs verification. If we don’t get it, we are severely limited in when we can drive it. Normally this means visiting Verificentro, having the van emissions tested, and getting the sticker. We want a “Cero” (Zero) sticker, which means we can drive any time of the day or week.

This time it involved 6 visits on six different days, many conversations, and many hours of waiting. I’m certainly glad I didn’t wait until the end of the month for my first visit!

I was waiting today (and taking the picture below), and I was as prepared as I thought I could be. But in a complex situation there are so many things that could go wrong – in the end, it’s so obviously God’s choice to answer or prayers or not. So thank you to those who were praying about this. It’s another one of those “small” things that quickly eats up a lot of time and energy.

In other news, we were charged about $100 that we felt was an unjust charge. Yesterday we finally heard that we wouldn’t have to pay it – two bits of good news for you!

On the visa front, things remain as complicated as ever. We had some more conversations with the lawyer this week, and it’s looking now that it will be several weeks or more likely months before anything is resolved. Not only has the system changed, it may change significantly again as our new president takes office.

So we’re trying to decide what the next step will be!

But again, God is in control. So we look to Him and wait for His plan in this matter.

23 November 2012

Visa adventures (and other adventures) continue!

Jim Mexico, Practical matters 1

Yes, we’re still working on those visas.

We talked to our lawyer tonight, and it sounds like the law is rather in a state of flux. The impression that I get is that the visas laws are changing, and different people are saying different things, and no one is totally sure what the law is. In addition, a new president is about to be sworn in – and who knows what he’ll do!

So basically it looks like a lot of the work we’ve done over the past few months simply no longer applies. We’re looking at a totally new system. If only everyone could agree on what it is.

So, we’ll be waiting a bit while she tries to get the details figured out.

In other paperwork issues of the day, we’ve been trying to get our van verified. Verification is what allows us to drive (in Mexico City) every day. If we didn’t have it, we would be restricted to certain days and certain hours of the day.

Well, after three visits to our beloved Verificentro (the third long wait was today), we still don’t have our verification. So we’ll be trying again tomorrow.

Who says bureaucracy in Mexico is complicated? Oh… maybe that was me. 😉

24 May 2012

0 – The RETURN (again)

Jim Mexico, Practical matters, Prayer and Praise 0

Ah, the memories. My first 0 sticker. I wondered if I would get one. It took a lot of work and conversation, but eventually I did.

You may or may not remember what a 0 sticker is. Here in Mexico City, there are restrictions on who can drive when. For example, a foreign vehicle (like ours) can’t drive between 5:30am-11am weekdays, one Saturday a month, and one day a week. Yes, that’s a lot of restrictions!

But there is a way out. If your vehicle is less that 8 years old, you can have it emissions tested for a small fee (for me around $23 Canadian), and you have the chance to get a zero sticker. That means you can drive whenever you like for 6 months, at which time you go back and try again.

I’ve done this many times now, and we got our 0 sticker when we came back to Mexico in November.

Here we are 6 months later.

The van went through the line quickly … then I waited, and waited, and waited. I spent a couple hours at the place, and was finally told that for some reason the "system" would not give me a zero.

So they were very helpful (they know me by now) and gave me my money back and suggested I try another Verificentro (where the test takes place).

So today I did.

Spending hours on something like this may remind you of the complexities of life here – there’s always something!

Anyway, I went to another place (a place that, as I recall, told me years ago that I simply couldn’t get a 0 because I was a foreigner).

Once again, they told me I couldn’t get a sticker because I didn’t have such-and-such, so I talked and explained and chatted and so on and so on….

Eventually, they felt they had enough paperwork to give it a try.

So I went into the prayer room (I’ll bet you didn’t know that Verificentros had prayer rooms! Well, ok, they call it a waiting room, but that’s the same thing, isn’t it?), and reminded myself that God is more powerful than any computer system. And that I would accept what He decided to do.

In no time, the tests were done – and I have a 0 sticker!

Praise the Lord!

So we can actually drive the van for another 6 months… then… we’ll see!

Our van being tested – can you find it?

Our other zero posts:

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