Thankful for Permanent Residency

Thanksgiving seems like the perfect day to share the story referenced in my previous post. I am truly thankful!

___________

We did not begin Tuesday with permanent residency on our minds.

With clean-up still ongoing from our flood; painting in process on the kids' rooms; a new problem with our van; and a gazillion things on the schedule for school and church ... it not only wasn't on our minds, it wasn't even on the radar.

All that changed with two simple phone calls. The first, from our friend Martha, saying that she had been at extranjeria since 4:00 AM and was still number 30 in line to check on her own residency papers. (Extranjeria has started handing out numbers; however, they apparently stop at 100. Now foreigners are even going so far as to get in line at midnight and sleep on the sidewalk until the gates open at 8:30, just for a chance to check on their paperwork. The system is so outrageous.)

The second phone call was mine. I decided to try and call our contact at extranjeria to check on our own papers, fully expecting no answer since all my recent attempts had failed. Miraculously, someone answered immediately and even more miraculously, handed the phone to our contact with no questions asked. And then, our contact uttered the beautiful words: Your residency papers are here! You can come get them! But how? And when? Standing in line at 4 AM like Martha?? I mentioned this to the woman on the phone and she said: Just come down right now and get in line with her!

So that's what we tried to do. Of course, I wasn't yet fully dressed; we had to push our white van out of the way in order to squeeze our blue car out of the gate; and all of this took time, culminating in our arriving too late to make it into the office with Martha (who incidentally also received the wonderful news that her residency papers had arrived!) Not to be deterred, however, I somehow managed to jostle through the crowd and hand Pedro's passport to the agent I had spoken with over the phone and she agreed to let us in. On the one hand I felt bad because so many people were waiting and the tension and stress fairly shimmered on the hot summer air. But on the other hand I remembered how many fruitless times we had been summoned to come wait in that line only to be told to go home again, and gratefulness for this window of opportunity won out.

In just a few minutes, information was entered in the computer, papers were handed out, instructions were given, and finally - finally! - we exited that fateful building with our forms in hand and strict instructions to never lose them because they are not replaceable and in that case all the paperwork would have to be re-done from start to finish.

The day's race was just beginning, as Pedro, Martha and I headed to international police. Pedro dropped the two of us off there while he headed home to collect money and pick up the three kids from school. At international police our new residency status was entered in a computer; forms were printed; fees were paid; but - miracle of miracles! - there was no line and we were done in less than half an hour.

Then on to the civil registry office, where we drew numbers 25-29 and the number counter was only on 71 or so. The wait was long, but so was the paperwork to be filled out, so we did that and made the necessary photocopies and chatted and the kids got antsy and the line got shorter and couple of hours later, our turn arrived. Inside, we answered a few questions; provided fingerprints and signatures; had our pictures taken; paid our fee; and were told to return in two weeks for our new carnets (identification cards.)

It was now after 2 o'clock. Poor Martha, on her feet since 4 AM, was exhausted and everyone was hungry. We decided it was definitely a day worth celebrating so we headed to the best pizza place in town where we enjoyed three delicious varieties of pizza and six varieties of desserts! It was wonderful and amazing and we are still praising God for His provision.

Thank You, Lord!