So, let’s recap the last month in the lives of Joel and Krista.
working on a MAJOR project for the missionary language school for several months (a total re-haul of their marketing and design work), when one night, after Joel convinces me to take a break to eat dinner, I close my laptop. It doesn’t comes on again. Off it goes to Apple in San José.
Meanwhile, Joel is prepping numerous talks for the Orientation week at the language school and Sunday mornings while our pastor is out of the country, so I find myself sketching web designs out on paper for the first time. Joel and another man take on the leadership responsibilities at church for these 6 weeks.
We decide to leave the house we are renting and move into one of the 2 houses we are house-sitting to save some money.
A fluke in the setup means no hot water for 3-4 weeks. Meanwhile, the city cuts off the water each day for several hours throughout the day for a month, typically, as soon as I decide I want to shower or cook dinner.
Joel realizes he can’t find his passport. We panic and spend several days going through our things box by box. Possible government shutdown means we have to move quickly to have it in time to leave the country in 3 weeks. We go to the Embassy (4 hours away) and have yet another drama (see next post) that ends in discussions of Krista going on the next shoot alone. However, an 11th hour government agreement means it appears this will eventually end reasonably well.
We do home study, physicals, hours of psychological evaluations and turn in all our paperwork for the girls’ adoption in record time. Granted unbelievable favor. We wait for “the call.”
Our car was broken into last week and, though Joel had hidden items of value (in the engine and other places) they found our cell phone, grinding communication (and efficiency) to a halt as we try to stay on top of everything. It took hiring a lawyer and setting up a legal corporation to obtain our phone line the first two times before they were each robbed. We’re hoping for something easier this time! In the meantime, we are waiting for “calls” from the adoption people and a mechanic, among others….whose numbers we lost.
Oh yes, one vehicle continues to be in the shop where it has been for the last month.
“The call” comes in the form of an email which says our birth and marriage certificates are “too old” (last year), and a previous understanding regarding our residency is denied. All new paperwork must be submitted within 10 days or the case will be closed and we will have to start the entire process over, some of our original contacts now having moved out of the country permanently. Totally and completely impossible.
The girls tell us they are coming for 7-9 days over Easter week, so we talk to our landlord and rent our old house back for those days.
Before moving to San José in June, we have been asked to begin long distance counseling with missionaries who want discipleship in the meantime (this will be our future full-time position at the language school).
At the same time, “commuting” into San José (3-4 hours) several times a month to meet with volunteers and other staff to plan the April Orientation Week for the new set of students making plans to move to Central America to learn Spanish!
The director of the seminary program in Israel where we will be working tells us to plan on recording 100 hours of teaching time. We’ve never attempted anything even close to this length.
I try to make an order for the tapes we need for the intense shooting schedule and learn there is an “international tape crisis” due to the earthquake and tsunami in Japan, where most of the tapes are manufactured. One woman tells me there is a single container headed to the US next week and many suppliers are waiting to see what is on it. I need 220 tapes. She thinks she may have 8. After a few days of research and phone calls, we make the order from a supplier who has enough.
Latin American Apple says they need a logic board for my computer and there are none in the country.
Due to lack of volunteers (not because of my ability), I’ve begun translating at church each week for the last month and a half. I regularly mix up words and Joel teases that my presentation “stiff” but I consider it to be my reasonable act of service for the time being, although, it makes me incredibly nervous.
The women’s group celebrates 4 April birthdays (one of them being mine) in one party and we have a wonderful time together. It somewhat makes up for Joel forgetting my actual birthday two days later.
We try an Italian indoor/outdoor restaurant later that evening run by people actually from Tuscany (after looking all day for that passport and then me reminding Joel of our dinner plans) and have a delightful time together…and then decide to go home and study for our final exams.
More friends leave Costa Rica permanently after finding the “stress” of living here to be too much. I have no idea what they’re talking about, but we inherit their king-size bed!
Joel visits an ENT doctor who finally gives us a diagnosis for his years of sleep, breathing, and migraine problems. Surgery scheduled for next week — Joel’s getting a nose job! 🙂 They say the extra oxygen to his brain could help with memory issues — we’re hoping that does the trick by next April.
Now, if I could just figure out why I can’t breathe!