Visitors, Registration and Visa's

The last few months have been busy for us. In January my sister, two of my brothers, and a girlfriend decided to visit us and four weeks later they were at our house. We had a great time with them visiting Lisbon, going out to dinner, going to the beach, going to the Carnival parties, visiting some Roman ruins, hanging out with the girls and catching up. It was a great three weeks and the time went by so fast. We are so thankful they were able to make the trip here and encourage us in our ministry.

There is not much new to report about getting the mission registered in Mozambique. Since Bill and Jeff's trip to Mozambique last October did not result in the mission being registered with the government, they have decided to try and get the registration done from Portugal. They have been working tirelessly to prepare letters and getting the letters notorized to send to Mozambique. Bill has talked to the Director of the Department of Religious Affairs in Mozambique a few times and he has assured Bill that once the papers are prepared properly (not an easy task) the registration will go quickly. Once the mission is registered, then we can apply for our VISA's. There is no way to know how quickly our VISA application will be processed.

In the mean time our VISA for Portugal has expired (March 29th). Two weeks before it expired Bill went to immigration to apply for an extention and was told that the type of VISA we have does not have the option for extention and we would have to leave the country! Bill spent about half an hour kindly persisting and explaining to the immigration officer that it was not possible for us to leave since we did not yet have approval to enter Mozambique and we want our children to finish the school year here. Finally the lady agreed to give him the paper work to apply for an extention but explained that it was not policy. We had an appointment this past Saturday at immigration and things went very well. We were given a sixty day grace period which allows us to stay until the end of May. We will meet with the Director of Immigration in the next month or two to discuss any other extentions beyond the end of May. We pray we are able to stay in Portugal unilt the end of June when the girls finish school and hopefully our mission will be registered by then and we have been approved for our VISA for Mozambique.

Spring is in the air here and we are spending more and more time outdoors. Elise and Audrey were given hand-me-down bikes which have turned out to be a wonderful blessing. We own bikes in Malawi and in the States, but we did not have bikes here. So, when we were given these bikes the girls started riding them and they haven't stopped. It has been a nice change of routine to have new toys to play with outside.

The months of February and March were unusually warm in Portugal this year and we spent many days at the beach. We have spent many days at a nice park about a mile from our house that is HUGE, has a nice playgroup for the kids and wonderful walking paths. I also go there when I run because it has some very challenging hills.

As I close, I ask you to pray for the registration of the mission in Mozambique. Please pray that Bill and Jeff are able to collect all the paper work necessary to register and that it is all done correctly. Please pray that once the paper work reaches Mozambique it will be processed quickly and approved. Then we can move forward and apply for working VISA's. Please pray that our transition to Mozambique goes smoothly and we get settled quickly.

Thank you for your prayers and support. Until next time...God bless you and keep you close to Him.