May 21, 2015

The good news and the bad news.  We had to go back to immigration today because the lady who came to interview us said she had to interview the brother who signed our papers that a church here had invited us to come and work here.  He has been in Guatemala for the last couple of weeks and our time was up on our 3 month visas this Saturday.  So we headed out at 7:45 and got to Juayua in time to drop some food that Charlotte had cooked off at Sister Rosalidia’s.  Her father, Francisco was there and he promised to be at the 5 study on Saturday.  He had come regularly for a while but not lately.  We got to Cesar’s house at 8:30 and he was ready to go.  We thought that Eliza and Abby might go but it would have been a very long day for Abby.  We went through Sonsonate and made good time.  We arrived at immigration about 10 and when we explained to the lady at the front desk why we were there and gave her the 3 month cards that had been issued to us she said she could see on our records that we needed the extension.  We had to pay $10 each and wait about an hour for them to make the new cards but there were no problems and we had our new cards for another three months and were on our way.  Charlotte had a 2:00 appointment at the dentist so we went to the huge mall at Metro Centro to eat lunch and pass some time.  We even went by and looked at the puppies in the street but saw nothing that excited us much.  When we got to the dentist, Charlotte was only back with him about 20 minutes.  He did an exam and then an x-ray, the bad news, abscess, she needs a root canal.  He could not do anything today because she has to be on antibiotics for a week before he can do the root canal.  He gave her a prescription and we set the next appointment for 10 am on Mon. June 1 so we could go by there before we go to the airport to get Caleb.  He said it would take 2 to 3 more visits depending on how it goes.  The cost of the exam and x-ray were only $15.   And next time we have to pay $150 and the next time a final $50.  But when we got home we looked up root canals and found the average cost in the states is about $900.  Brother and sister Azucena wanted to visit with us a bit so we went to a Selectos that was really near the Dentist and shopped for about 30 min until they could get there.  Charlotte found several items that she had not been able to find elsewhere so that was good.  When they got there we headed out to a nearby Mister Donut and got some coffee and donuts and had a good visit.  There were 2 fabric stores on one side and as we left Charlotte bought some interfacing and some beautiful material for another skirt.  We dropped Cesar off at his house at 6 hoping to make it home before the rain started.  We didn’t make it.  About half way it started pouring down but we did get home ok.  I had to let down the ramps and open the garage in the down pour so I had to change as soon as we got inside.  We sure were glad to be home and have our extension and a process started to get Charlotte’s tooth fixed.  Bro. Azucena said this dentist had worked with their family for many years and they really liked him.  That certainly made us feel some better about using him.  We are so thankful that we can continue working here without interruption and get things worked out that we needed to.  God is so good to us but we still want your prayers.