For those of you who have been following our story, you know that our year has been a bit of a roller coaster in regards to our visas. It’s been a time of waiting & testing, growing our patience & persevering through what sometimes seemed like insurmountable odds. But we have come out on the end, excited to be moving onto the next step in the journey, when yet another curve ball has come our way. Yes, there is, once again, a hiccup in our plans. I guess we still have more to learn in the areas of trust, patience & perseverance. However, I’m getting ahead of myself so first let’s fill you in on the past couple of months since our last newsletter in July…
At the time of our last update we were still in Canada waiting to get our papers from the Mexican consulate in Calgary so that we could return to Mexico, apply for our temporary resident visas & finish language school. What we were hoping would only take 4 weeks took 3 months because of various problems & even though it delayed language school, it was good to be able to reconnect with family & friends during the summer.
On September 5th, we walked out of the Mexican consulate with the papers we needed & on September 7th we flew back to Mexico. Thankfully, transitioning wasn’t as difficult the second time around. On September 14th, we signed & submitted our paperwork to the immigration office in Guadalajara & began the wait for our temporary visas. This process was delayed as Anthony had to sign 3 different times because they didn’t think his signature matched the one on his passport. Finally on November 5th we were called to the office to give our fingerprints & final signatures. They told us that it would take 15 working days to get our visas. However, 9 days later we were called back & even though government office was filled, we were in and out in 45 minutes & left with our visas in hand!We had to celebrate, so we stayed in the downtown area & had lunch with Leroy & Faith Siemens, who got some of their visas the same day!
With our visas in hand, we have been working towards moving to La Paz. A moving company has been found that can move us economically. We have planned to move on November 27th if all falls into place. It is an 8 hour drive & a longer ferry ride across the Sea of Cortez. We are looking forward to the transition. Once we hit the ground in La Paz, we will be hunting for a house to move into & hope that we can find one quickly. After we are settled in, we will begin our internship with the El Faro church plant.
We are also blessed to be able to say, that we are finished formal Spanish school! We still have much to learn, and see that every day. However, it is still a great feeling to graduate with certificates in hand! We continue to work on improving & have been blessed by a generous young man who visits us almost every morning for 90 minutes of Spanish speaking practice. He also helps us to understand more of the culture. Yesterday we discussed some of the holidays that are so unusual to us.
They have a day that is called El Día de los Muertos, The Day of the Dead. The belief is/was that the souls of the dead could come back to earth that one day every year. To prepare, small altars or shrines are set up to place food & drinks to welcome relative souls back for the night. Some even spend the night at the cemetery with their families.
It is very helpful for us to learn more of the Mexican traditions & beliefs as we get to know people more closely. We trust that this will help us to be sensitive as we reach out to those around us.
And about the hiccup….Our hope was to move to La Paz immediately after we finished language school. However, in October I got a call from the doctor clinic in our home town. I had an ultra-sound in August when we were back in Canada but hadn’t given it much thought until the phone call came. To make a long story short, I am being advised to have my gallbladder removed & we have chosen to have this done in Guadalajara before we move to La Paz. God has been amazing in directing us to a doctor who specializes in gastro problems/surgery & we feel confident that this is the way God wants us to go, even though it interrupts the plans we had made (His timing is always best). My surgery is scheduled for Nov. 21st. We will let you know how it goes. Blessings, The Thiessens :)
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