Saturday Update

Hey Friends,

It’s been a long, but fun day traveling and doing some shopping.  We had some great times at the shops.  Staci had a particular fun time with all the vendors.  At one point she was so frustrated with some of them that were trying to get her to go into their shop that she said, “Hey guys, this isn’t fun anymore, leave me alone, give us some space or we’ll never come to your shop.”  Leave it to the woman who plays the Karate Kid in our drama to create some controversy.  

We also discovered that Kay has a very long middle toe.  Wow.  You can tell we were bored at dinner tonight.  

The team is doing so well, we are bonding just like a missions family should.  That kinda has to happen when you’re missing 15 bags of clothing.  People have started to share everything just to make it through the last couple days with no bags.  The good news is that our bags should arrive here tomorrow morning. Of course they should come right after we leave for church so we’re still in the hunt for some final church clothes for some members.  Maurice has been eating as much food as possible to try to fill out Pastor Eran’s clothes.  It’s not working.  

We had a fun little flat tire today.  It was on a small luggage trailer and we didn’t want to deal with a hitch so Justine, Pastor Eran and Brenda picked up the side of trailer while Chris changed it out.  We think that the Bonher family are secretly “The Incredibles” so Brenda did most of the heavy lifting.  Pictures and video footage will be posted later.  Maybe tomorrow.  

Tomorrow starts our first day of ministry so you’ll be getting lots more updates about how God is using us.  We have 2 church services in the morning at 9 and 10 AM.  The team will be split between two locations and we’ll be singing, doing dramas, children’s programs, preaching, etc... at both locations.  Pray for us.  

In the afternoon we’ll be visiting Muriel’s house to deliver the many donations and gifts that we brought, including a video projector, speakers, brand new freezer, clothing and school supplies.  We’re looking forward to a great time of giving to a family that is in so much need.  

UPDATE ON PASTOR ERAN’S VISA:

My visa was submitted this morning with all the necessary paperwork, pictures, etc..  It won’t make it to the office until Monday AM.  We are simply praying that they will process my application and give a receipt showing it is in process.  This is all we need in order to stay the remainder of the trip.  A visa will take weeks to process and approve, but we’ve found out that as long as the visa is in process and I have a receipt to prove that, I’ll be fine for the duration of this trip.  

This is the exact situation that Melissa is currently in.  She has a receipt of her work visa being in process.  She submitted in April.  So keep on praying.  

The one pitfall is that they might reject the application all together because I’m already present in the country and am scheduled to leave before a visa would even be issued.  If this happens that I’ll be forced to leave the country on Wednesday which could possibly meaning flying to another country only to turn around and reenter again with a new tourist visa for the remainder of the trip.  Please pray that we don’t need to do anything of the sort.  

Thanks for all your prayers and words of encouragement.  We can feel God’s presence with us.  Our travel days getting here have been long so we need some extra strength for tomorrow’s ministry.  We’ll be blogging more regularly now that ministry days are ahead of us.  It’s harder to keep up with stuff when we’re traveling so much.  Pictures and fun videos will be posted tomorrow some time.  

Love you all.  We’ll talk soon.  

PE