Have your Passport ready in case you need to travel abroad (or to Miami)

We are hoping to attend Claudia’s youngest sister’s wedding in Chile in just a few weeks, but realized that Jeremy’s passport will soon expire. (I didn’t even have a passport until college, but we’re already on Jeremy’s second!)

So, Claudia spent hours online and by phone only to find that a child’s passport cannot be renewed by mail, and that both parents must be present to renew. She then phoned all over Miami and found that the only “drop in” office in the city (all others had a month+ waiting list) opened at 10:00 AM. So there we were at 9:30 the next morning only to be told that yes, the passport desk opens at 10:00 but we needed to be there at 8:00 in order to get on the day’s list, which was already full for the day. (Why they left out that one vital detail when we called is beyond me). So, Claudia went back home with the kids, I went back to work and returned at 7:15 the next morning to find two people already in line (probably still there from the day before).

True to what we’d been told (the second time around), a gentleman arrived to open the post office at 8:00, but when we asked him for the passport appointment list he flatly informed us: “We don’t have a list; the passport desk opens at 10:00”. Deaf to our protests he opened a few doors, moved a box or two then had a cup of coffee, leaving us standing in front of the passport counter for 45 minutes. Finally, coffee gone, he casually walked over to the passport desk and produced the very clipboard and list we had been asking for! Everyone in line (there was now a small crowd) stared at him in disbelief, muttering descriptive words just out of his earshot so as not to jeopardize their chances any further. I confess that I myself found it rather difficult to “assume the best” of this civil servant at that particular moment as well.

So, the two men in front of me filled in the 10:00 and 10:30 slots and I took the 11:00. Not wanting to assume anything at this point I asked if that meant I could now go to work and return with the family for our 11:00 AM appointment. Not surprisingly he said “no” and explained that the times do not mean anything but that everyone in line (now about 20 adults, most with fidgety children making the entire post office look something like a sugar hyped, chocolate factory daycare) had to stay until their names were called starting at 10:00. (Flashback to the stunned disbelief and descriptive words from a few minutes earlier.)

“What’s the point in having time slots?” I asked.
“It works better this way” he said as I watched one of the kids spill sticky grape juice all over the floor.

So…Claudia and the boys joined me in line before 10:00. We were the second party to be attended since the first person in line left before 10:00 (possibly having a nervous breakdown). And Jeremy’s passport should arrive within a week.

It makes me proud to be an American and know our government handles these things with such dedication and efficiency. Maybe, once Jeremy has his passport, we’ll actually cross the boarder from Miami and visit the US one of these days!

Roof Repaired! (Room flooded)

Many of you know that we’ve had struggles with our roof for a long time. We discovered a few years ago that the reason our AC ran 24/7 during the summer in order to “cool” the house to 85 degrees was that our solid, cement slab ceiling/roof had no insulation between the cement and the black asphalt roof. You know how a black car heats up in the sun? Yep, that was our house with the ceiling running a 95degree fever all summer! Then during the rainy season (spring & summer) we consistently had 6” of standing water that the tree frogs loved to fill with millions of pollywogs. Eventually our roof lake started leaking into the house little by little, so after three years, multiple estimates, one refinancing, various gifts (thank you to those who helped in this way!) and a no interest loan from a dear friend, we were able to re-roof almost before the rainy season. I say almost because while Claudia was in Costa Rica for her dental work (see CR trip post), the boys and I came home one evening to their bedroom ankle deep in water, requiring the gutting of everything. Their furniture and most of their belongings were salvageable but the floor had to go down to the cement slab, which we discovered was not covered by insurance due to a previous claim for minor flooding in the same area which was applied to the roof repair. For now the boys have rubber matting and a throw rug, but thankfully no more water entry after two years of buckets!

For the roof we used a company that does “spray on foam roofing” see: http://www.coolroof.biz which provides insulation and a solid, rubberized membrane that covers the entire roof (before & after below).

As I said, we were blessed by a friend with a no interest loan to complete the roof job, but our desire is to return the remaining amount of $4000 as soon as possible and then complete repairs to the boys room. If you would like to assist in this way through a tax deductible donation, please see our support page:

Link to a Printable Donation Form. (click link for mail in donation form)
Link to Online Donation page (click link for online credit/debit card

Thank you for your prayers and the many ways you have and continue to assist us over the years.

God bless!

LAM Missionaries- Baptisms and Funerals

With my position in the Ministries Department and LAM I have the priviledge to corespond with our Latin partner ministries as well as all of our missionaries, which means I get to here the "Good News" (AKA the Gospel) at work. Here's another example of what LAM missionaries are doing:

From: Mirna Sotomayor y Diana Garrett

I´m racking my brain in the midst of all the noise to write down the words of the Costa Rican national anthem. Beside me is an 11 year old boy who is looking at me with nervous intensity. "Are you sure you want to do this?", I ask. "Yes. For my mother´s sake," he answers, and controls a sob.It was his mother´s funeral. Carlos is the only child of a single mother who just died of cancer the day before. His mother was Costa Rican by birth, and he wanted to honour her. So that is how his aunt, Mirna, Carlos and I sang the Costa Rican national anthem at a Mexican funeral yesterday. I was the only one who really knew it, and I was thanking the Lord for my Costa Rican upbringing.

It seemed hard to believe that just one week ago, on Sunday, Mirna and I baptised another of Carlos´s aunts in the beautiful Tuxpan ocean. Lupe received Jesus, along with her two sisters as a result of the team from Costa Rica that came during Holy Week. One of the team members from Costa Rica is a cousin of theirs and the Lord used the relationship to bring Jesus into their lives. Lupe asked to be baptised last Sunday because she was going to be operated on, also because of cancer, on Friday. She had the surgery on Friday and on Saturday her sister passed away, leaving their third sister, Marta, holding the fort.

Just before we stood up to sing the anthem, Mirna took advantage to share the Gospel to the extended family, many of whom were hearing the Good News for the first time. We were a handful of evangelical Christians that surrounded this family in their distress, and helped them set their hope in their newly found faith. We beg your prayers for the Mora family during this very difficult time, as Lupe is recuperating from surgery and metastasis of cancer to other organs in her body, as the grandmother is ill in a home, and as young Carlos hits his teenage years without his mother. And please don´t forget to pray for Marta, her husband and two children who have been buffetted on all sides, and seek to follow the Lord.

Thank you for your prayers and support for me as I provide support for others!

What a story!

I heard a report on my way to work yesterday about a baby Jesus that was stolen from one of the displays at a local shopping establishment. Following the report, one of the radio personalities commented: “Whoever steals a baby Jesus at Christmas is in for some really bad Karma!”.

Every Christmas I ask the Lord to impress upon me a new aspect of what celebrating our Savior's birth means to this world, my family and my own life. Following the “kidnapped Jesus” news report I found myself reflecting on the Gospel storyline, and how it’s packed with drama, intrigue, harrowing escapes, betrayal, dirty politics, supernatural events and dazzling ghost like appearances. It has all the makings of today’s best sellers or a blockbuster movie, yet we are (or at least I am) so VERY familiar with “that baby in the stable” that the event loses the crushing impact that it truly deserves. If the reality shattering power of what Almighty God did through an event that literally defines all prior and succeeding history can be so easily lost for someone like myself that was raised in the Church, it’s no wonder that the world sees little more than a plastic light up baby and good or bad karma during the Christmas season!

So what does Christmas mean for me as I dig through e-mails, respond to phone calls or converse with pastors regarding Cuba ministry? This year I am especially drawn to the name of “Emmanuel” or “God is with us”. The name that the Angel gave Mary for the baby she would give birth to (see Matthew 1). His name exemplified the unthinkable idea that the All Powerful-Creator God would literally be with us in a new, very tangible, and eternally significant way.

I have always been moved by Old Testament passages where God shows Himself to “be with” his people. I think of uncompromising Daniel as he is thrown into a cave filled with lions (Daniel 6); of David as a boy standing before a battle hardened, giant warrior with nothing but a few small stones (1 Samuel 17); of Gideon and a few ill equipped men before a mighty and experienced army (Judges 6-8); of Shadrach, Mesach and Abednego seconds before being hurled into a fiery furnace (Daniel 3); and of Abraham ready to sacrifice his only beloved son –the miracle child that God had finally given him in his old age (Genesis 22). God was with each of them in the midst of unimaginable fear and uncertainty. They couldn't know how things would turn out, and by human standards could only anticipate unimaginable pain, suffering and death. But He was there, exemplified in undeniable movements of His mighty hand. Still, all those things -in fact all of history itself, lead up to that precise moment when God took on the very form of His own creation and was physically “with us” for the specific purpose of salvation in the definitive, ultimate and final sacrifice of His Own Blood.

May the Lord impress upon your heart a new, fresh understanding of what Christmas means and an overwhelming joy of what we have to celebrate in our Lord's birth.