Thursday, October 29, 2009

Visas!!!

Steve talked to the high commission this afternoon and we have been told we're being granted 5 year visas!!! A slightly different one than we applied for but it will still let us go and do what we want to do, so we'll take it!

Interesting how these things are allowed in our lives. We had all gotten to the point where even though we're anxious to get going, we had accepted the fact that it could take a while. Some of the different avenues we were investigating could have taken a several months to complete.

But now it looks like we'll fly out 3 weeks from today! Thanks be to our Father!

Sunday, October 25, 2009

Waiting......

We're still in New Zealand! Our visa didn't come through in time to leave last Friday. It's been a bit of a challenging time as we've been readjusting our expectations and unpacking again, but we're trusting Him for His perfect plan and timing.

I've been reminded of last year when we went to Carlsbad Caverns in the US and saw an evening bat flight. As thousands of bats left the cave entrance at dusk a ranger told us lots about them. One thing that amazed me was that when a bat is born it naturally clings to the rock at the top of the cave. If it lets go and falls it will die, but they very seldom do. That's because when they're clinging to the rock that's when they're actually at rest.

We're clinging to our Rock as we wait!

We will wait until the middle of the coming week and call and inquire about our visas. If there's been no progress we'll withdraw this application and resubmit one for one year instead of five since that application may go through faster. We've changed our flights to leave on November 19th and are asking that the visas come through before then!

Wednesday, October 14, 2009

Flowers

Yesterday Adam and Rachel were talking about how beautiful the flowers are in New Zealand and Fiji. Adam said, "Rachel, are there flowers in _________(where we'll be living)?"

"No dude, there aren't many flowers because of the pollution, just weeds," she replied.

Adam thought for a minute and said,"That's OK, because weeds have flowers, too."

What a little optimist! The kids have been having a great attitude about going!

Tuesday, October 13, 2009

Adam Milking


Our kids have been getting so many neat life experiences lately! Here's the latest thing the boys got to try.......

Monday, October 12, 2009

Only 11 Days until we go.....

Our family is all back together again. Steve came back a week ago after his last trip to Fiji and we picked the girls up yesterday from their South Island trip. They had a wonderful time at the camp and got good experience in leading younger campers as well.

We turned in the paperwork for our business visas last week. We are asking that they be back in time for our departure on the 23rd! We have a pretty right schedule until then of getting things done and saying farewells.

We are all getting quite excited to go!