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We have had a crazy 24 hours.
Here's a little back story before the rest of the story ...
We have our vehicle here from the States on a 90 day vehicle permit. We knew that we needed to renew the permit before leaving for our time in the States.
So Daniel & Mauricio took a "practice run" about a month ago to ask the agents about the process. They were told that it would be no problem to renew our permit in Guatemala & return to Honduras after 72 hours & that depending on the agent we may even be able to re-enter the country on the same day!
We needed to renew the visa on or after November 7th so that we would have 90 days on the permit while we are in the States. So yesterday was the big day & we headed out for what we knew may have turned into a few days in Guatemala before making our trip back to SC!
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Since we were leaving for Guatemala, the mission team that is here from Virginia made plans to tear down the staircase that leads up to where we are living & rebuild it while we were gone for the 72 hours!
We left with the excitement of having a new staircase leading up to our home when we returned & super thankful for the continued progress on the home while we were gone!
We traveled an hour to Copan Ruinas, had lunch, and got to the border around noon. First, we had our passports stamped to exit Honduras. There was no wait & the agent even stamped the passport for Josie's little Raccoon!
We then went to the next office to process the vehicle permit. The agent immediately explained to us that the permit would have to be renewed in a non-bordering country like Mexico, Belize or Costa Rica.
There is something called the CA4 agreement between four countries in Central America (Honduras, El Salvador, Guatemala, & Nicaragua). This agreement allows residents of those countries to travel within those four connecting countries easily but also means that all visas for non-residents (personal AND vehicle) must be renewed in a non-bordering country.
We knew this was true for our passports but we were told (at the BORDER by an AGENT) that vehicle visas were different.
Needless to say, this caught us completely off guard and made for a super stressful afternoon.
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We began weighing out all of our options (including driving all the way from Honduras to South Carolina which was Daniel's #1 choice and the very bottom of the list for me).
Daniel called a missionary couple that we met in Language School who live now in Belize. We had talked with them before about making trips to visit them & we knew that it was the shortest of the 3 trips for renewing the permit. Daniel & Junior began making plans for us to come to Belize for a visit there, leave our vehicle with them until we return from the States, & change our flights to fly out from Belize.
We started the 1 1/2 hour drive back to the Camp and started talking through all of the changes that would have to happen between now & our departure for Belize.
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| Crazy road work! |
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| Typical Traffic Jam |
Then it hit us.
We had not yet received the export paperwork for Macie (our Australian Shepherd).
We planned to pick up that paperwork on Friday so that we could leave with her early next week from Honduras. We messaged the vet that was helping us with the paperwork to find out that there was no way for the papers to be ready early & the papers were already prepared to say we were departing from San Pedro Sula so there would not be time to change the papers or receive them early.
Those of you that know Daniel know that this was not an easy realization. Macie has been with him since he broke his back in 2010 & is always attached to his hip. She really is super close with him & the thought of leaving her in Honduras for 3 months was just devastating to him.
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We got back safely to the Camp and started to share what happened at the border with Mauricio.
Praise the Lord ... He immediately offered to keep Macie at his house in San Pedro Sula while we are gone so that we did not have to stress out about finding a way to get her export papers from Belize. We are so thankful to know she will be loved on & in good hands while we are in the States!
So that was a HUGE answer to prayer and took a lot of stress off of us!
Here's the funny part ...
Remember the mission team had planned to tear down & rebuild our staircase while we were gone for 72 hours?!
Well ... we didn't stay 72 hours.
And they still tore down the staircase.
So we returned to the Camp to pack up the rest of our things only to realize that we had to enter into our apartment & move out using a LADDER.
By this point in the day, we were just laughing and shaking our heads.
When all else fails, you just have to laugh.
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What seems to be a series of inconveniences and frustrations, we are choosing to see as blessings & joy.
Now, we are able to travel to Belize to visit some language school friends, see their ministry there, & enjoy fellowship & be encouraged by our time together!
We will now have a new staircase for our home when we return in February which originally was not a part of the "plan" for this week!
We will be flying into Charleston now instead of Myrtle Beach & home a little sooner than our original flight schedule!
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Please pray for us over the next several days. We will be packing up, making the 11 hour drive to Belize, enjoying fellowship with our friends there, and then making our way from Belize to SC.
We are trusting that The Lord is working all things together for our good and more importantly HIS glory through all of these changes!
