We had a short time to share in the service and we went out to lunch with the missions committee after. The church was so welcoming to us and we walked away from the opportunity feeling so encouraged by their passion for missions. Although the church is relatively small and is working hard to raise funds to replace a building, they still place a HUGE priority on funding ministry outreach overseas. It is such an encouragement to us to see that kind of excitement and dedication - it helps us become even more excited and dedicated too!
Here is our table in the back of the church where we met some new friends and were able to share more about our work in Brazil. 
In addition to our time sharing with the church, we also had a great time with Danielle and Adam. They have been married four years and are both teachers. Danielle teaches elementary school and Adam teaches middle school history. We took a ferry ride, played games, visited Danielle's classroom, and ate LOTS of Mexican food - a treat for us! These pictures are of our nacho making and our ferry ride.
Now yesterday and today, back in New Jersey, we are back to the grind. We have a lot to do to get ready to move out of the country and to prepare for more trips to share about our ministry. One of the major steps in the process of Stephanie moving to Brazil is getting her permanent Brazilian visa (this of course not a problem for Jeyson because he is Brazilian). Since we will be doing this process while IN Brazil, in our research we had previously learned she would have to get a tourist visa to get TO Brazil where she would apply for her permanent visa. This seemed like a straightforward process since Stephanie has gotten tourist visas several times before. So, today as we were beginning to plan our trip to NYC to get the visa we called to confirm what exactly would be needed to get the tourist visa (to prevent showing all the way up on the city only to discover we are missing a document). Anyway, during this phone call we found out the very "not-so-exciting" news that the Brazilian embassy requires a ROUND TRIP ticket as one of the documents to get the tourist visa. Unfortunately, since at this point we have no foreseeable plans to return we only purchased a one way ticket and to purchase the other way will cost about $1,000! Of course this doesn't even make sense in our situation to get a round trip ticket because the whole purpose in going is to not return like a tourist does, but so far we have not had success explaining the situation to get an exception. For several hours we pursued explaining this situation to various people at the consulate but everyone so far has wanted to stick to the book because it's a requirement to have this round trip ticket. Anyway, with all that said we began to pray about the situation and we sought more people who might help and it looks like we may be able to make our case to the Chicago consulate when we are in the area in 2 weeks. So, please pray for us as we face this dilemma not only as we seek to get this tourist visa, but also as we try to get the permanent visa in Brazil!
No comments:
Post a Comment