(We showed these 6 answers to faithful prayer in services yesterday! Yes, that's right, we now have 6 French Passports in hand! We picked up Callie's last Monday which means all of the kids have their French Passports....which leads us to the next picture...)
(Kami and I had to take our trip to St. Martin for her "Government Medical Exam". As we packed, we found something very unusual in our suitcase!)
(We were hoping to make this trip not only for taking care of "VISA business" but also a small 1-night romantic getaway for Kami and I. So we removed this hide-away child from the suitcase and left her behind!)
Our trip to St. Martin went well. We rented a car from Lucky's Car Rental. When the guy picked us up from the Airport, he took us just down the street to another rental car agency and said he would give us the little white car. He also said, "I don't have a contract for you to sign." I told him that I wanted to put the car rental on my credit card so that we could be covered by our card's rental car insurance. Of course he wasn't able to put the car on the credit card so he said to just take the car and we would settle up the next day when I dropped it off at another airport across the island. So basically we had a car with no contract agreement and no money paid. When we dropped off the car, we called the car agency and they said to just leave the car on the side of the road near the airport and to put the keys and 30 Euros in the trunk! Welcome to island life... the company is probably called Lucky's because you are lucky if you do not get arrested for "renting" a stolen car! (We have used this company before and always had a rental contract so they knew us and we trusted them as well!)
Kami's government appointment went well. We arrived at the hospital at 7:40 A.M. and the office was supposed to open at 8:00. Kami was the fifth person in line. However, when the office actually opened up at 8:40, the room was full of people. The nurse came out and said, "Who is first?!" No joke, everyone in the room ran up to her yelling, "I was first, no I was here waiting first!" What a mess! Kami did push her way through and managed to convince the lady that she was fifth in line. The doctor finally showed up at 11 A.M. and spent approximately 1 minute with Kami and signed her papers! (We paid over $500 for airplane tickets, hotel, rental car, and meals for 1 minute with a doctor!) But that's okay, the memories and benefits of being missionaries are things we wouldn't trade for anything!
Today we went to the government office here on St. Barths to turn in the signed papers and were told our next step is to pay the tax....tax?...what tax?...we were never told about a tax....But it's true, we have to pay $468 immediately to progress in the next step of registering Kami's VISA. (ouch!..) So this is where the prayer request comes in...please be in prayer for the Lord's provision in all of these "unexpected-to-us" taxes and fees.
We do praise the Lord that Maria was back in services yesterday. She still has to go back to Martinique for triple bypass surgery. The doctors told her to expect to stay in the hospital for 3-4 months after this procedure is done!
We had a great service yesterday and Joshua is doing a great job. Each week he presents a different topic in French. He is now giving a presentation on different books of the Bible. This week was the book of John. Great job Josh!
Thank you all for your continued prayers and support. Until next time....
