Glad to be Home

Sit back and get comfy. This one could get long.

Since I last wrote, we've actually made TWO trips to Manila. This comes to a grand total of 24 hours of nothing but sitting. BUT, we made huge progress in getting our long term visas! I'll just give you a run-down of our two trips.

First Trip:
On Monday Lilia joined us and we took the tricycle out to the hi-way to catch the Joy bus at 4:30 a.m. The Joy bus is just as joyful as it sounds. It's a clean, high quality, air conditioned bus with reclining seats. They even provide blankets and snacks for the ride. It's like business class, people. It makes for a super relaxing 5 hour ride to Manila, with no stops. Upon our 10 a.m. arrival at the bus terminal in Manila we took a 30 minute taxi ride to the Bureau of Immigration (yes, it's as intimidating as it sounds). The taxi ride is much less pleasant than the Joy bus. The drivers bob and weave making their way through the traffic of the city. I can hardly watch as we zoom between cars. Finally we walk through security at Immigration and since we've been here before we know exactly where to go. We climb the 4 flights of stairs and make our way to Office 412. We haven't exactly befriended the secretary who works here. Quite honestly, I think all my questions drive her nuts. But she takes our documents, nonetheless. This time we have them in a nice folder and every page has a seal, ribbon, or notary. So she looks through them, tells us a few things we are lacking and how to get them done without making a trip back to Aurora. So we go downstairs, collect everything we need and are sent from window to window until finally ( 5 hours later) our papers are accepted! This is monumental. We then pay ridiculous fees and are given hearing dates to come back for interviews.
So we are done at immigration, for now. This day instead of rushing back to the bus terminal, we decide to wait for the Joy bus. It doesn't leave again until 1:30 a.m. so we go to hang out at a mall in the meantime. At the mall, we were like 3 kids in a candy shop! Our first stop was the food court since we had missed lunch. And they had American food! Taco Bell instantly became everything "home". For those of you who know me well, know that I DON'T eat Taco Bell. Or any fast food really. But after being on the other side of the world for a month, Taco Bell became comfort food. I can't even describe how good it was. Maybe it's a form of culture shock? (*Disclaimer- We've really been enjoying Filipino cuisine. Like a lot. So don't get me wrong. We have much better food than Taco Bell. But in that mall, after a day at immigration, all things healthy and all things Filipino became irrelevant.) So after dinner we spent the evening looking around, eating ice cream, getting some groceries to take back with us, and even watched a movie. Then we made the joyful trek back to Maria Aurora and arrived back around 6 a.m. Tuesday. What a day.

After spending only one full day in Maria which included sleeping in, one discipleship meeting, and packing again, we went back to Manila for our hearings.

Second Trip:
The Joy bus had no vacancy Wednesday so we walked out to the hi-way at 6 a.m. to catch the first bus that passed. This bus was far less joyful, but once again I was brought to a state of thankfulness that we weren't walking. Barry accompanied us this time, as he is our legal Petitioner and was needed for the hearing. This trip was a little longer as they stopped to pick up more passengers what seemed like every 300 meters and stopped a couple times for comfort room (restroom) and snack breaks. We stopped in another town named Cabanatuan (or as Josh would say 'Cabana ya mama') and hopped on our next leg which was one step toward the joy bus. Yay for cushioned seats and a.c. This got us to Manila around 2 p.m. Our appointments at Immigration were Thursday at 10 and 11 so we got a hotel. This made for a very pleasant stay including a hot shower and a full night of rest before the big day at Immigration. On Thursday, we arrived early for our appointments and met with the Attorney who conducted our interviews. First the Borens, then Monica. He asked a few financial questions and then if we had any professional training. We gladly answered "yes sir" as we had gone through two years of basic training through Trek-X in Nashville. Then...drum roll..he wanted to know where our certificate of completion was. We showed him our letter of commissioning and every thing else we could think up, but our creds just weren't enough. Apparently you have to be professional here in the Philippines. We finally told him we do not have any kind of certificate. His answer.."Could you make one up?" Now you see what we're dealing with. I wonder if Paul had a certificate of training?? Anyways, Mr. Vicente was kind enough to allow us to finish the process and mail our certificate in next week. Chris and Rob (who are awesome and on top of things) are generating a totally made-up yet official looking certificate and will have it delivered to Mr. Vicente. As a result, we were able to get our mugshots and all 10 fingers fingerprinted and now we only have to wait for the certificate to arrive. Once everything is finished in the office, our names will show up on the immigration website, meaning we are approved. We will then make our final trip to Manila to get the long awaited visas stamped in our passports!
To finish the story, we hopped on another bus back to Cabanatuan then caught the only thing going to Maria Aurora- a 12 passenger van carrying 14 of us. This was a stormy, bumpy, and slightly scary ride through muddy back roads. I quickly learned "accident prone area" signs really meant "speed up and get through here as fast as you can". But the Lord got us here safely. Josh and I looked at each other when we made it back to our little house and shared that for the first time it really felt like home when we walked in. It was really good to be back. And I couldn't have been happier to eat our hot Filipino meal- sopas and empanadas and a banana shake for dessert.

Sorry this was so long. Like I mentioned in the last blog, sometimes I think I write just so I can look back on it later. But I hope y'all got a little taste of our trips. They really were rides to remember. 

Please continue to pray for us as there is still a chance that we won't get approved before our temporary visas expire. Also pray for our friends who are at a leadership conference this week. It will be a bit lonely without them, but we're excited for what they'll learn.


I hope you are all well. Please let us know how we can pray for you. We'd love to hear your stories and be a part of the journey God is taking you through.