I mentioned in the last post that we were catching up on a lot of personal things – and that has meant a lot of travelling around. And that is not always simple, as you might imagine…
(Edit: If you get our email update, you know some of what has happened over the past few days. It’s probably appropriate to note that this was recorded earlier.)
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Thanks to those of you who prayed for our trip and for Nathanael’s visa renewal this past week.
It was a stormy, rainy day when we set off for the immigration office, which made the roads a bit of an adventure. However, we were already in the city of Toluca – otherwise we would have been traversing Mexico City early in the morning, which would have been – well, perhaps a disaster.
But we arrived on time.
The immigration office is now a strange mix of strict security, and strict security due to COVID-19 restrictions. Usually, only one person would be allowed to enter the property. However, because I had to sign for Nathanael’s renewal, and because we had a lawyer, all three of us could enter – but poor Shari was left behind. (Well, maybe not so poor, as you’ll see…)
Except, that only got us onto the property. Next, only one person was allowed to enter the building, and that was our lawyer. So, for the next two or three hours, Nathanael and I were out in the cold (yes, it was cold – especially for Nathanael, who was only wearing a sweater). And for the first part, we were literally out in the rain, but thankfully it went to a drizzle and then stopped.
After the lawyer gave all the paperwork to the officials, we were all out in the cold (there were a whole bunch of nice, warm comfy seats inside, just — empty. Poor seats, with no one to sit in them…).
Did I mention that there was no bathroom that we could use – on the property or in the building? No worries. Just walk back to the front gate, and talk to the security guard. Explain that you’re just going to the bathroom (so that you don’t have to sign out, and then sign back in). Go across the muddy street, and through the big gate. Walk through the field, around the non-descript building. You’ll find a little hole-in-the-wall office in a back room. On the side of the office is an outhouse-quality bathroom (well, a flush toilet. But no sink or anything). After you’re done, you can pay someone in the office room about 30 cents for the use of the facilities.
Then, out of the little office, around the building through the field through the gate across the muddy street – hope the security guard remembers you – and back onto the property, where you still have to wait outside in the cold, because they’re not ready for you yet.
Finally, it was our turn. Everything is fancy electronic inside. No ink-pad for fingerprints, just an electronic pad (back in my day…..). Then this screen rooooooollls down from the ceiling behind you, and a picture is taken. Wait a couple of minutes – and your visa is ready right there. So all that part was actually a lot more efficient than it was in “my day”.
So thanks for your prayers! We had a safe (but precarious due to more rain) ride home, with a shiny new visa. Which can be turned into a permanent visa when Nathanael turns 18.
Recently I was skimming through some past emails, and I was reminded about what a major, constant issue our visa paperwork was. Especially 2017 and earlier.
Well, Nathanael’s visa has been taking up some of our time lately, but nothing like it used to! Nevertheless, because he is under 18, he still needs to renew twice more.
We would appreciate your prayers as we travel and as we go through the renewal process this week. Please pray for safety in travel (we have to go to the other side and Mexico City, and then on to another city – Toluca, which is the capitol of our state), and that the renewal process will go smoothly.
We’re very thankful that we’ve come so far in this process, and that we’re able to live here in Mexico and continue the ministry. Please continue to pray for the work of the Lord here. This week I saw in the news that a young man had (apparently) hung himself on a tree branch here in Ixtapaluca. Satan is hard at his murderous, lying work. Please pray that God’s light would shine, and that God would send more workers into the harvest.
Greetings from Mexico! If you have a moment to pray, here are a few quick prayer requests for you…
1) Please pray for tomorrow’s service. I will be teaching Sunday School, and preaching. So your prayers are always appreciated for those things. We’re still going through Mark in our sermons (expecting to finish in January). And for Sunday school we’re working through our doctrinal statement (this week it’s about what we believe about the Bible).
Shari and Hannah will be teaching the kids. Shari was pretty sick this week. She’s starting to feel better, but tomorrow will still be a challenge for her.
2) Please pray for our coworker who had surgery this past week. She also is feeling better, but has been in a lot of pain. So do pray for her continued recovery. She’ll be in the hospital for a few more days.
3) Please pray for those attending our new Bible studies. We’re super-excited to be starting a new series of Bible studies this week. We’re encouraging everyone in the church to try to come. So we shall see how things go! Please pray for all the people who will be coming.
4) Permanent Residence Visas. This is a praise and a prayer! The visas have gone through the process, and it’s time for us to go do the last bit of paperwork. Lord willing we’ll be doing that next week. Almost there!
5) General craziness. The school year has started with lots of to do – as usual! Please pray that God would give us wisdom and strength.
Thanks for your prayers!
Last week 9 of us from our church in Las Palmas went up to the northern part of our state for a men’s retreat. This tends to be an annual event, put on by the churches in our “circuit” in the Mexico City area.
In the end, 77 men were at the retreat. Two – or was it three? made first time confessions of faith! And we were all challenged in a number of areas.
In the pictures you can see the chilly pool, and three of the guys working on lunch – slicing cactus and onions to grill along with the meat for lunch. Each church brought their own food for lunch.
Anyway, it was great to hang out and have some conversations and also to hear some of the men share on Sunday about their time.
Now it’s back to other work. I think we’re mostly done with visa paperwork for the time being, as of today. So it’s a matter of waiting for a while.
And we’re getting ready for the school year to start, and for upcoming Bible studies and the Sunday service. I’ll be preaching on Sunday, finishing our “summer section” of the book of Mark (Jesus’ last day of travel before arriving in the area of Jerusalem for his final days before the cross).
We all knew this time would come. And yes, it is here at last.
Some of you may remember our exciting visa adventures from the past. No – not the credit card – the documents that allow us to live in Mexico. Through great trials and tribulations (and thousands of dollars spent), we finally had our temporary resident visas.
Permanent resident visas are beautiful glittering documents that are – well – permanent. At least in the sense that you don’t have to get anything else after a certain time, and you don’t have to renew them for thousands of pesos every year or whenever. So we want those. So this is the year.
We’ve actually been working on the details for all this since last year, but this past week we really began in earnest with a trip to the MX/US border.
If you get permanent visas, you may not drive a vehicle with foreign plates. So to begin the process of getting Mexican license plates, we had to go to the border and do some dashing in and out (at different locations even), paying large sums of money, and doing a whole lotta paperwork. It took us three days at the border (plus a day to shop and some travel – almost a week in away), but we now have a Mexican vehicle (and a Mexican cargo trailer). Special thanks to Luis and Brock for their help.
But – hold on – no Mexican license plates yet. That’s a whole other issue.
So as we continue the month of January (boy, it’s going fast, isn’t it??) we’re going to attempt to get license plates, and get some more paperwork done for my visa (which expires before the visas of the rest of the family), which will likely mean lots of waiting in line, travel to another city, and there’s always money involved (and it’s never money we get – why is that?).
Seriously, though, we do appreciate your prayers. Our trip was good, God went before us, but we are exhausted (and came home to a pipe leaking water in the bathroom – I guess we’d better add that to the “to do list”…) and trying to make sure we get all the “urgent” stuff done. You don’t want to forget that one document and find that everything has expired and you missed a whole procedure.
But for now, visa issues aside, we’re preparing materials for kids’ Sunday school tomorrow (Shari is teaching), and I’m working on my sermon. I had a good talk with someone today who is thinking of checking out our Sunday service – as always, I’m sure it will be an interesting day!