We've Made It

Not to sound like a broken record, but I'll post more details later. We have made it to Colombia smoothly. We've been to our apartment and the kids are very excited about it! We don't have internet or anything set up there, but we'll have more time once we get settled in to visit the missionary's house and update. Right now we're going to find food and unpack a bit. Thank you for all the prayers! We are so excited to finally be here!
~Tona

WE'VE GOT TICKETS!!!

We are almost there! Yesterday morning we picked up our visas from the consulate's office, hopped on a bus to Costa Rica and got in late last night. This morning we are busy repacking and closing up our apartment. We've got tickets on a flight to Bogota tomorrow morning! I'll update more when we have a moment to breathe, but we are rejoicing as we go that we finally are on our way!
~Tona

The Nicaragua Adventure In Its Entirety

(Sometimes an unexpected adventure becomes the best! We spent this past weekend in Nicaragua renewing our visas for Costa Rica so we can get visas for Colombia…yeah, a lot of red tape that is just designed to make travel more complicated.

Friday night Corey and I stayed up all night. At 2AM we dragged Alex and Maggie out of bed to catch the 3AM bus from San Jose, Costa Rica to Managua, Nicaragua. The ride took us seven and a half hours, including going through customs and all that fun stuff. The bus was actually very nice. For $14 we went high class on the Executive bus. It had cushy seats, TVs and meals. We had a very comfortable ride.

The Padron family, who up until last Friday lived above us, are missionaries to Nicaragua. They were leaving first thing Saturday morning with everything in tow to move permanently there. So we set a plan, we would take a bus, they would drive their car and they’d pick us up at the bus station. Their apartment wouldn’t be ready until Monday, so we planned a short trip to the beach. It all sounded perfect…but they got hung up in customs and we sat in a sweltering bus station for two hours wondering if they had forgotten us. They hadn’t, fortunately, and we set out on our adventure.

We made a few stops on our way out to the beach. One of them was to visit our former neighbors above, Dan and Beatriz Kleahn.)

We have met Nicaragua. I threw in a few blips during our chaos, but here’s the whole rundown. Our original date to leave for Colombia was on August 14th. However, we needed a religious visa to come into Colombia. I’ve written before about all the hoops we’ve been jumping through to get the visas, paper after paper, letters rewritten three and four times. We went on Thursday with every paper requested and was told that because our visas in Costa Rica had expired we couldn’t get our visas to Colombia. So the day after graduation we headed on a bus to Nicaragua. Thinking we only needed to be out of the country three days and then we’d be set we headed to the coast and sacked out in a hotel by the ocean for the three days. Alex got pretty sick, I think sun poisoning, so he didn’t have a ton of fun, but Maggie and I enjoyed our time. We were there with another missionary family and had fun hanging out with them.

When our 72 hours were up we headed back to Costa Rica, ready to go get our visas for Colombia. It was Tuesday night when we arrived in San Jose. We went back to the embassy on Wednesday and they told us they wanted one more paper, but that the consul would look over our papers and call us in the afternoon. He never called. Thursday morning we headed back to the embassy with everything in hand. The only thing I think we were lacking were mine and Corey’s elementary school records, I mean, we had a mountain of papers that had been requested. When we arrived they told us that the consulate wouldn’t even look at the papers until the following week. Our biggest concern was that the kids had already missed two weeks of school.

Through some sly movements the other workers in the embassy pulled us aside and told us that if we went to Nicaragua they could get us our visas there. One man who had been helping us before was there and said he was a good friend of the consul in Nicaragua and that he’d call him for us. That was 9:30. We rushed home, grabbed clothes, made calls to stay in our apartment longer, let people know we weren’t coming to Colombia just yet, etc. and at 11:30 we were sitting in the bus station ready to go back to Nicaragua.

We had emailed the missionaries in Nicaragua that we were coming in, in hopes that someone would pick us up at the bus station. However, they didn’t get them in time. When we arrived at the bus station it was after 10PM. We knew there was a Holiday Inn close by. Thinking that would be a sure bet until the morning when we could find the missionaries we got a taxi to take us there. I don’t know what was going on in Managua, Nicaragua on that day, but the Holiday Inn was full. They called all the other hotels in the area and they were all sold out. It was now 11PM and we were standing in a lobby with nowhere to go. The taxi driver said he knew of a couple of hotels that would be open near where we wanted to be. He took us to one that was scary looking from the outside. It was full. Then he took us to another. Feeling very helpless and insecure we went to the next hotel. It was not quite a hole in the wall, but it wasn’t much better than that either. It was getting so late and we were getting a bit scared we went ahead and checked in. The room was pretty yucky. There was a double bed and a twin bed so we just squished a bit to all find room to sleep.

In the morning the taxi driver picked us up and was going to take us to the embassy. On our way we started finding our bearings and asked him to take us where one of the missionaries were staying. We had brought all our stuff with us determined not to stay in that hotel again. The taxi driver wanted to charge us $15 an hour, so we were so glad to find the missionaries we had spent time with before. We ditched the taxi driver there.

Our thoughts were that we would go to the embassy on Friday and only be in Nicaragua another 72 hours. Fernando, the other missionary, took us to the embassy. We found out that one of our papers needed to say Nicaragua that still said Costa Rica. They also told us once they got the applications it could take 10 days to get the visa back. Feeling a bit distraught we went to a pastor’s office and got on the phone. We were told to just wait it out there and see what happened. We got the letters resent that said Nicaragua with all the information they wanted. Then we waited. This was an interesting time because we were a bit stressed out, but we were so blessed with two missionary families who had been neighbors of ours in language school.

We spent quite the weekend with Dan and Beatriz Klaehn. We had the most peaceful weekend. We had time to just stop and relax. We were waiting and a little bit preoccupied with that, but I can’t even explain the peace we found in their house. Even the kids loved the down time.

Monday we went back to the embassy and got good news! The consulate had heard from his friend in Costa Rica and all about our story and granted us the visas. It would only take two days instead of 10 to get them back. We were ecstatic! We spent two more days relaxing and on Wednesday we picked up our visas and headed to the bus station – finally ready to go to Colombia!~Tona

Shout Praises!!

We finally have a bit of good news! We went to the embassy here in Nicaragua this morning. The secretary helped us get all of our papers in order. After he took them to consult with the consulate he came back and told us that we didn't even need to do an interview. The other man from Costa Rica had already spoken with the consulate in Nicaragua and he was giving us the go ahead. We went to the bank and paid the fees. On Wednesday we will go back to the embassy to pick up the finished visas!! We'll head back to Costa Rica on Wednesday and Friday we're hoping to be in Colombia!! More info to come. Thank you for all the prayers!
~Tona

Quick Update

Just checking in to say we're still doing fine. We were blessed with someone to do our laundry so we now have clean clothes to wear again. Poor Alex was without some very important clothing for a short time. We're staying with friends, but the number in the previous blog is still the best way to get a hold of us. Tomorrow we will head to the embassy again for our interview, so please keep your prayers going! We're praying that they will approve our visas and do so within a day or two instead of the 10 they have told us.

We have truly been blessed with awesome people here in Nicaragua. Today we moved over to Dan and Beatriz Klaehn's house and had a very peaceful day. Alex and Maggie spent hours sitting in rocking chairs watching their parrot entertain them. We've had a great day to just rest and prepare for tomorrow.

~Tona

IMPORTANT UPDATE

To our friends and family trying to get in touch with us, here is what is going on...
We returned to Costa Rica from Nicaragua Tuesday evening. Wednesday we went to the consulate in Costa Rica and they told us we needed one more paper. The consul said he would review our papers and call us that afternoon. We waited and he never called. Thursday morning we went back with the extra paper. This time he said...well, actually he spoke only through a secretary, not directly to us...that he would not even review our papers until the next week. The secretary very secretively went and got the other man who had been helping us a few weeks ago. They told us that although they had no power to do anything in Costa Rica that he could get us help at the Nicaraguan embassy if we could get there. So we rushed home, threw a few things in a bag and took off for the bus station. We arrived in Nicaragua Thursday night.

This morning we went to the consulate here and we had to have one letter from Colombia rewritten. Monday we will take our papers to the embassy and have an interview with the consulate. From there it could take up to 10 days to process, although the secretary here did tell us that is really a maximum they give us so we are not pressuring them to get it done. We are really hoping it will come back in a day or so.

Fortunately, we have two missionary friends here in Managua. Our first night was a bit of an adventure, but we are now in the safety of friends. I am borrowing a computer from a Nicaraguan pastor, so I will have to write of all our adventures in a later blog.

To the moms, sister and anyone else who is worried... we are doing fine, but contact will be few and far between. I have tried to leave messages for you, but the connection was not very good, so I am not sure if you received it. If there is an emergency you can call us at 011-505-663-6476. This is the cell phone of missionary Fernando Padron. He will answer in Spanish, but he speaks English.

Please keep praying that everything will go smoothly. We are all pretty tired but trying to keep our spirits up. Thanks!
Love,
Tona

Graduation

Corey receives his certificate from his phonetics teacher.
Me and my support system - Marcy and Kelly

We are graduates from Cincel Language School!! Here is a picture of our graduating class – missionaries heading to Ecuador, El Salvador, Peru, Mexico, Nicaragua and, of course, Colombia.
~Tona

DELAYED!!

Well, all has not gone as planned. Today on our fourth visit to the Colombian embassy in an attempt to get our visas (so we can leave on Monday) we left empty-handed - again. We went yesterday and the man who has been helping us through this process asked us to come back this morning since it was really close to closing time. We went that late because a document showed up and we just went straight over. Anyway, this morning we went first thing and he came and sat down to talk to us. "All you have to do is let me get a paper for you, take it to the bank to pay and come back with your receipt and you'll get your visa." He then went to get the papers we needed and we waited...and waited...and waited...

I finally saw him again and he looked very grim. He came out and told us that a new consul had started working there just two days before and was being very rigorous with the rules, etc. He said that he was ready to send us on with our visas, but that the new guy was demanding to review our case. We had to wait so we could speak with him. We waited...and waited..and waited...finally someone came to get our documents to review. Guess what we did next..we waited...and so on and so on...

He finally called us into his office. At this point we had been waiting for three hours. He went on to tell us that he needed us to produce two more documents, one from Colombia, one from the States and that our passports weren't valid, so he couldn't approve us.

So we're not going to Colombia on Monday. We are going to leave on Saturday for Nicaragua for 72 hours to make our passports valid again, wait for some faxes and next Wednesday we will return to the embassy to try again. Now we're shooting for Friday. Please keep us in your prayers. We'll get to Colombia one way or the other, but please just ask for favor in all these steps. Thanks!

~Tona

LACC Videos

As promised, here is one of the videos from the choir presentation. Click here or go to this site - http://www.youtube.com/user/tonakautz to view three more songs.
~Tona

Quince Años

Cincel is celebrating its 15th Anniversary! There's been a lot of commotion around school this past week as fresh paint was being put on the walls, furniture was being rearranged and lots of work was being done to welcome John Bueno, our head honcho - the Director of Assemblies of God Missions, all of our area directors, Cincel's founders and many others who were coming to celebrate with Cincel. On Thursday we had a fun time having a "Quince Años" party for "Cincelita". Just like every other 15 year old girl's party gifts were presented, a song, a poem, a mariachi band! It was a time of fun to listen to her founder reflect on those first ideas and construction.



On Friday we had a more formal ceremony. As we entered Cincel, flags representing every destination country of previous students hung from the ceiling and walls. On a screen pictures of current and past students flashed in front of us. Luis, our director was recognized for 15 faithful years of service. We were told of the creation of Cincel. We prayed over the teachers. John Bueno gave the key address.

Ok, I know I should say that was my favorite part of it, but I have to be honest. Piedad (the name here for Latin America Childcare) is connected to Cincel and has played a big part in their existence. A choir of kids came in and sang a few songs (and danced) for us, so energetic, so exciting. They weren't sad songs by any means, in fact, very pumped up songs, but I found tears coming out of my eyes and I saw these amazing kids and the excitement of our move to Colombia just flowed over all over again! I have loved language learning, but I cannot wait to dive into full ministry! I'm working on getting videos up of their performance, although I know our little camera does not do their performance justice.

So two days of celebrations and we are tired! Congratuations Cincel and all of the directors and staff. May God bless the next 15 years and beyond!
~Tona