Saturday, May 9, 2015

May 6, 2015

Thursdays are now our study days in Ataco.  But this one was different .  We had gotten a call from a lady from Immigration and she said she was coming to Ataco to visit us for an in home interview before our papers were approved.  She knocked on the door about 10:45 with all her papers in hand.  First she interviewed me for about 30 minutes….when was the first time we came, why and when did we get here this time, what were we doing and how were we supported?  We told her we just brought money with us and she said that was not adequate proof.  Then she asked if we had a credit card and wanted to take a picture of it.  I said I couldn’t do that and asked Charlotte to get out our copies of the documents from Central about our support and I said you already have these on file and they will have to do.  She took pictures of them and said ok.  Then she interviewed Charlotte for about 30 min. We showed her the picture of our family and she took a picture of that as well as a picture of us standing together and a picture of our house inside.  She also wanted to see rent receipts and electric bill receipts.  After all that she said she needed to interview three people who knew us.  First I took her next door to the landlady who doesn’t really know us except for seeing us and that we pay the rent on time.  Then I took her over to Carlos’ house.  I offered to drive but she said her vehicle was waiting and there was also a man waiting in it for her the entire time.  When we got to Carlos’ I told him that she wanted to know if we were criminals.  He said to tell her we were not would cost us money and we all laughed.  I was glad he was home because he really knows us well and was able to speak eloquently.  Then we went to Sis. Rosamidia across the street.  When the lady asked about our behavior she said “We are Christians, our behavior has to be an example to others at all times.”  After all that the lady said everything was good on our end but that she still needed to interview the church representative who signed the papers asking us to come here.  That brother lives in San Salvador and she left her numbers for him to call her.  Cesar said the next day that he had already been contacted and said he would call her and go to immigration next week to speak to her.  Everything went great as far as we know so we are not expecting any problems and our papers are supposed to be done by May 23.  We did ask her how many Americans live in El Sal. Full time and she said about 2000.  She also said she thought some kind of new truce would be reached between the police and the gangs as this level of violence could not continue too long.  She said we were in a really safe area but that things were pretty bad in San Salvador.  After she left we went out to our studies.  Rosaria was not home so we went on to Stephanie’s.  We did a study on the kingdom and the church and it went pretty well but was a lot of material.  Then Bessi had to leave, so we visited Reina alone.  We asked her if she wanted to try to study with just the two of us and she said she would rather wait so we visited some and had a prayer. After that we walked up to visit Natividad.  She said she was not doing well at all.  Charlotte studied with her and two other ladies were there also.  We prayed for her and headed home.  This time we told her daughter she did not have to escort us all the way down the hill.  We got home early by the clock but Friday was the preacher’s meeting and there was still cooking to do. 




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