Documents

Yesterday I was finally able to get all our educational documents together and mailed off to Ottawa to get legalized. I had a bit of a miscommunication with the Colombian Embassy. I asked them that I needed my documents apostilled (American thing we don't have in Canada). They told me that the Colombian Consulate would legalize them once they came with the visa application. I thought that meant that we didn't need to send them to Ottawa to get legalized by the Canadian government... I was wrong. Meanwhile two weeks had past. I did some more research and found out that it takes 15-25 days to get the documents legalized if you mail them in. Since I didn't have any plans to visit Ottawa any time soon and didn't have 25 days to wait, I wasn't sure what to do. I phoned the government office and found out that I could mail the documents to a friend in Ottawa and they could take the in and get them legalized while they waited. Praise the Lord I have wonderful friends who were willing to do that for us! Christie and Graeme are wonderful people that just so happen to live in Ottawa and were willing to help us out. So those documents were sent out yesterday and my hope is that we'll have them back by the end of next week. The other great news is that the part of our visa application that we need from ECA is going to be sent up to the States with a teacher who is travelling on Thursday then mailed out soon after that. We may even be able to mail our visa application in by the end of next week. Then it is 4 days to process the application plus mailing time. I am praying that we'll have it all sorted out in the next three weeks! That would be plenty of time before our trip to Ontario (which we need our passports for since we are flying through the States) and would allow us to go climbing in the States after we get back. It would be a huge answer to prayer and a huge weight lifted off my shoulders. It is all in God's hands and in His timing.

We spoke at all five church services this past weekend. Although there weren't too many people who said they would donate (which was a little surprising), Matt and I were able to connect with some of Matt's friends that we haven't seen in awhile. Two couples said they would donate and a few more were really excited for us and wanted our newsletters. One guy wants to come visit us, which would be so much fun! Oh and a couple of Matt's grade nine boys want to come visit as well. We'll see if maybe the church would want to send a youth team next year for spring break... or maybe just a group of our grade 9s! It's neat how God brings us connections. Most of the people who came to talk to us either had a direct connect with us or with Colombia. I mean that makes sense but it was great to see how many people were from Colombia or Brazil and wanted to chat. We met a lovely lady named Margarita, who is from Colombia and teaches Spanish classes at a leisure centre. She invited us to join the class for free. So last Monday we sped out to Mission (about 50 minutes away) for our first class. Matt and I both felt like we were way ahead of the class but its nice to get more exposure to the language. Every little bit helps. We've also been working on our Rosetta Stone program, which is fantastic. Our language study is coming along. We're working on thinking in Spanish and expanding our vocabulary. God always provides, although it isn't always in the way we think it'll happen! Keep the faith!

Colombia Up Date

I just wanted to share a quick up date as to what's going on with our up-coming Colombia adventure. We have sent out our support letters and are praying that all our money comes in. I've emailed our sending organization but haven't heard anything back yet about if we've had anything come in. We are working on getting everything ready for our visas. This could be a little tricky. The Colombian Embassy is in Toronto and it takes 4-5 business days to go through the process. We can mail it in but obviously it takes longer that way because of the mail delivery. We are planning a trip to Ontario to visit family and friends (and speak at Matt's home church) but we arrive on a Monday and leave the next Monday (not quite enough days to hand deliver the visa application). ECA has told us that we should receive documents from them on or before June 15th. We leave June 27th (not quite enough time to mail things in since we need our passports to travel to the States to fly East). We get back on July 4th and are suppose to be in Colombia before the 25th. Talk about a tight schedule. If we wait till we get back then we can't cross the boarder to climb any mountains in Washington like we have planned. So we are praying that we'll get our documents really early so we can get it all sorted out before we go to Ontario or we just pay some fees and get our flights extended for a couple days and hand deliver them. I personally would prefer to hand deliver them that way if we are missing something we can get it sorted out right away instead of them mailing it back and us having to go through it all again. It's all in God's hands and it'll get sorted out.

We also need to figure out what type of insurance we are going to have. Currently we are partnering with two different organizations (one in Canada and one in the States). However, the one in the States requires a specific type of insurance (somewhere in the $300 a month range). We have been trying to figure out if it is worth it to take on a significantly higher cost in insurance if we are not really sure how much money will come in from our American donors. They also want a specific budget and I have no clue how I would set that up if I don't know how much is coming in. I mean I'm thinking $20-50 a month. Which in my opinion is not worth the increase of around $100 a month for insurance. So we are trying to figure out if we want to pay around $200 a month and keep on our Canadian insurance and apply for a leave from the country policy for 2 years or go with Colombian insurance. That's something that Matt and I need to just sit down and talk about.

We are also participating in Northview's Missions Weekend May 14th and 15th. We'll have a little table set up with information on what we're doing. Also, we are being commissioned that weekend. So we'll be speaking for a few minutes in each service. It's going to be a busy weekend!!!!! The Friday before we have a big youth Wild West night and there is a dinner/meeting/theology teaching event on the Sunday night. Lord give us strength!

So for those of you who read this... that's our up date. Here is a summary so you know how to pray:
-Pray that we get all our documents filled out properly for our Visa applications and that we get approved. Also, for peace about the process and for us to figure out how it's all going to work with timing and traveling.
-Pray that we figure out what type of insurance to have while we're away.
-Pray that we'll take advantage of opportunities to spend time with family and friends.
-Pray that we both get lots of work before we leave.
-Pray that all our money comes in for our monthly budget as well as money to cover all our start up costs.
-Pray that we wil have a successful missions weekend with lots of people willing to pray and donate!

Thank you so much for taking the time to read this. May the Joy of the Lord fill your life with a love that can only come from Him!