Friday....

Today we left at 6:30 this morning to go to the embassy to get our passports validated - one of the many processes to get long term visas for us. We were told that it was a possibility that we would have to leave our passports over night for that process to take place. This Sunday we are leaving for language school and it would be quite an issue for us to have to go back to the capital city on Monday to retrieve our passports. When we were submitting our passports for validation we asked if there was any possible way that they could be processed today, she said that it might be able to happen and sent us to a different room to pay the fee for validation. When we returned with our receipt we waited about 5 minutes, she called us to the window and handed us our paperwork!! We are so thankful that she understood our situation and that she took care of our need immediately!!

After we left the U. S. embassy we walked down the street a bit and saw a place where we could pictures made for our visa - just a few minutes later we left with pictures.

Then Kendon drove us to the Tigo (cellphone) store where in a matter of minutes we had a cell phone.

We got back here about 11:30 - with so much accomplished. Today school is cancelled because of elections so traffic was lighter which was nice.

We're learning lots in the first few days of being here like traffic lights are generally decoration, black beans are a sufficient sauce to top spaghetti noodles with, and long sleeves are just about a need at night with temps in the 50's a night.

Thank you all for contining to pray for us we felt your prayers so close to us. We are still adjusting to our new enviroment and would appreciate you to continue to pray for us in that way. This Sunday we will move to Antigua for language school. We will be living with a local Guatemalen family there. Would you pray that we would connect with our family quickly and that we would begin to soak the language in. Also, with the exception of last night, I (Staci) have not been sleeping well. Beyond just being physicaly tired, it's pretty emotionally exhausting as well. We spent some time in prayer over that matter and I slept pretty well last night. Would you pray that I continue to rest well?

Have a great Friday - we'll update the blog again before we leave for language school.