Christmas 2008

We have been concerned about our visa situation. It looked like we were going to have to drive to Guatemala City in order to go to the Immigration building to get an entrance stamp on Jimmy’s passport. Then drive back to Petén, drive back to the Belize border, and pay fines for the both of us and see if they would let us out this time. There is one loophole in the system, you can fly out without an entrance stamp and you do not have to pay any fines. We still had vouchers for Spirit airlines, since they messed up our last two flights, so we ended up flying to Florida for Christmas. It was half the price of what it would be to do all of the above. We did not feel like we needed a break, but we definitely enjoyed our first Christmas home in a couple years.

We fly in and out of Ft. Lauderdale, so we always get a rental car to drive to Jax. Our first car smelled like smoke, so we asked if we could trade. They gave us a free upgrade to a Mustang!

On Sunday we went to our home church and got to share about our ministry for the first time! Jimmy spoke in a men’s SS class and I spoke in a women’s class. Jimmy also spoke in the Spanish ministry and then got to share a short testimony in the main service. Trinity has had a big part in our ministry with the team they sent, monthly support, the special offering for our building, and also all the individuals who are so faithful to pray for us. It was great to finally be able to tell them about what God has been doing in the last 2.5 years. With all the gifts from individuals and the church while we were there we should have enough money to fix my truck... that was unexpected!

On our drive back to Ft. Lauderdale we saw a Pollo Campero!

CRAZY ITEM OF THE DAY: My mom gave me 40 spools of sewing thread to bring back with me. The only thread they sell here is like sewing with toilet paper. These spools are very valuable to me. We were only allowed one 50 lb suitcase each due to the holidays, so the spools ended up in a carry-on. Guatemala has just started taking everything out of your carryon one item at a time and inspecting it after you go through the x-ray machines... sometimes more than once. Before our flight to FLores a female security guard told me that I could choose 3 spools to keep and that I had to throw the rest away... she said I could make a rope with all of that thread. There was no way we were going to let that happen. Jimmy ended up convincing then to let him check that bag. When we got to Flores we saw that they had stolen Jimmy’s beef jerky out of his bag. Welcome back!