Meanwhile Back in Chile

It’s been a little while since I posted details of our life in Chile, so here goes.

Paying bills. In the States, I used to write a check, put it in an envelope and drop it in the mail in a timely fashion. Not so here. I round up all my bills, withdraw a large amount of cash from the ATM over a period of several days, and then head to a hole-in-the-wall bill paying place a few minutes away. There I pay cash for each bill (since we don’t have a bank account in Chile), and get each one stamped and a receipt stapled in place. It’s a little tedious, but not too bad unless the place is closed for several days in a row –

Which is what happened to us recently. And the only reason it really mattered was because our telephone service had been cut off without warning. I immediately deduced the problem, which was that our bill had been sent to the wrong address. How did I know this, you might ask? Well, when the technicians first installed our line, they put a “1” instead of a “4” on part of our street address. We pointed this out to them and expected it to be changed. Then we began to receive follow up calls from various branches of the phone company, and they always had our address wrong. Each time, I pointed this out to them and again expected it to be changed. When our phone got cut off, I called the company from my sister’s house and asked them to pull up the bill and recite the address to me. Of course, it was STILL wrong! Grrr. Such is life in Latin America sometimes. We got it straightened out, but the fun continues –

With Pedro’s name change. Two and half months later, we are driving our car legally but we STILL do not have our formal ownership card, TAG (EasyPass) or additional car insurance. The latter two can be achieved only with the “padrón” or formal ownership card. I called about a month ago and was assured this was in process. I called again this week and was told that the car paperwork is in the hands of an attorney and in the process of being rejected! They couldn’t say for sure, but believe it is because the original purchase documents are under the name “Pedro Garcia III” which thanks to a grumpy lady in charge of foreigners’ cédulas, no longer exists. Grrr again. No word on when this will actually be resolved, so in the meantime we pay $7-$14 weekly on daily passes for the highway since we need to travel on it to go to Friday night Bible studies and certain churches on Sundays (when typically we would only pay around $20 monthly) –

But on a happier note! We are enjoying our Friday night Bible studies and getting to know the faithful few who participate each week. We have been blessed to be in almost a dozen different churches since our arrival. Pedro is busy having thrice-weekly tutoring in Spanish and sitting in on seminary classes throughout the week. He feels that he is understanding more every day, especially as he interacts daily with the students there. Thanks to our kids, we have made friends with a couple of families in our neighborhood and are excited about these contacts. GOD has been faithful to provide our every need.

And so we say with the psalmist – “Oh give thanks to the LORD, for He is good, For His lovingkindness is everlasting!” (Psalm 107:1)