Practical matters

Today we were in Ixtapaluca signing the lease agreement for renting our new house!  Yes, indeed, we finally chose one.  We don’t have keys yet, but . . . soon, really!

Now, I say most of a house because there is quite a bit of work to be done on the inside.  This was the case with most of the houses we looked at, though some only needed a little work.  Almost every house we looked at, for example, had no kitchen – meaning there were hookups for plumbing, but few or no cabinets, light fixtures, counters, no sink (ok, sometimes there was a sink, though not always hooked up), and so on.

This is not unusual at all in Mexico.  Either we’re talking about a house that hasn’t been lived in yet (common in these fast-growing areas) or a the previous tenants take everything with them when they go.

So you want to know about the house.  Well, it’s a 2, 3 or 4 bedroom, depending on how you look at it.  🙂  I would say it has a laundry/utility room, a master bedroom, and a smaller bedroom.  The laundry/utility room will become a laundry room/office (type type type – scrub stain – file file file – change loads . . . how handy . . .).  That’s the top floor.

On the next floor down, we are converting the large bedroom into two small bedrooms for Hannah and Nathanael.  Then we will take the other one.

The bottom floor includes a kitchen, and small dining room and living room.

It is small, smaller than what we have now, and no yard to speak of.  However, it’s in a nice neighbourhood, and on a very quiet street.  The living area and dining room are small but open enough that we would be able to entertain a group.  And we’re in a community with other families with kids.  So I think it will be a good place for us, even though it will take some adjustment.

There is a fair amount of work to be done.  The house was not totally finished inside.  The kitchen needs to be put in, much of the house still needs tile and paint.  But the good news is that there are already men in there doing the work, thanks to the arrangements that our coworker Rod was able to make.  Thanks Rod!

It’s unlikely everything will be done by the time we move in (over the next week or so, Lord willing, we hope to finish packing and moving), but the tile should be done and it will be easier to get other things done once we’re there (since it’s about 2 – 2.5 hours from our home in Cuernavaca).

So – there you are!  Praise the Lord for leading us to what seems to be a good house, a good landlord, and a good neighbourhood.  Now comes the next step!

Months.

For months we’ve been trying to find out what taxes we owe.  We’ve been in the unusual position of wanting to pay our taxes, but not being able to!

You can read the start of this whole story here if you like.  And the follow-up here.  And the next follow-up.  Finally, on Christmas Eve 2007 the Canada Revenue Agency finally figured out what we actually owed (from 2006) and sent us a notice.

We owed a lot.

Once again, this is really both a praise and a prayer.  The praise is that we had enough cash in our Ministry Expense Account, and the money is on the way to the CRA.

The prayer request?  Well, that money really should have been for … well … ministry!  That was money that could have help fund our ministry expenses in 2008.

We’re changing our lifestyle in 2008.  In 2007 we stuck around home a lot (after all, we’ve been going to school – all four of us).  In 2008 we become a little more nomadic – taking frequent trips as we get to know different people and ministries in Mexico, and learn more about the language and culture.  That gas money is on its way to the Canadian Government at the moment.  😉

So we would appreciate your prayers that the Lord would provide for the many ministry expenses we’re expecting in 2008 – and that we would be wise as we set priorities.

God does have a way of providing what we need when we need it – through His people and their prayers, and many unexpected surprises!  We’re so thankful that we have a God that doe provide!

You may remember the tax problem we were having.  You may remember we had it worked out, and that we owed far more than we thought we would (like double).  You may remember (if you read our last newsletter) that we were thankful we had almost enough to pay the bill (mainly because of people who had "just happened" to donate to our ministry).

Well, take all that and scratch it out.

Frankly, the tax man is coming, going, and spinning in circles.

Our office in Canada has been communicating back and forth with Revenue Canada.  Apparently, they (Revenue Canada) had something mixed up, and they need to start again from scratch to figure out what we owe.

That’s what their "right hand" was doing.  Meanwhile, their "left hand", (not knowing what their right hand was doing), called me asking why I wasn’t paying my bill.  Finally, our office and I got their right and left hands communicating, so they eventually put a hold on the account while they worked with our accountant to fix the tangled mess.

So, they’re all busy fixing the tangled mess.  Meanwhile, we’re working on updating some forms to try to avoid future tangled messes.

This has been going on for months – so how does that effect us (besides the time we’ve spent dealing with it)?  Essentially, it means that we’ve been afraid to claim any ministry expenses (take money from our ministry account), because we’re trying to save the money for the taxes (whatever they may be).  That means we’re paying for ministry expenses out of our pockets in the mean time, which makes things extremely tight.

It would be nice to have this all figured out, hopefully with a minimum to pay (of course, we want to pay whatever we rightly owe!).

So there’s a little update on that topic, to go along with my recent updates on kids at school, my parents’ health, and our health.  I promise, shortly I’ll have something more uplifting posted.  😉