The Government is upon His Shoulder

Great is the LORD and greatly to be praised:

All four members of our team received our one-year resident visas here in Bolivia... just in time for me to go home for a three-week vacation. Thank you so much for praying, and praise Him for answering!

Prayer Necessities for the Skimmers:

1. Misty, Amy, and I are leaving in the morning for a trip to the village of Ayuma. While there, we will be sharing stories especially with a young believer named Nelly (pictured here), who has specifically asked for discipleship. Please pray that we would be effective in teaching her the stories and that the Lord would ignite in her a passion to share God's Word with others.
2. Misty and Amy will be returning in August to the community of Taramarca, where they will be working for the remainder of their time overseas. Please pray that the people of this village would grasp the vision of Quechua reaching Quechua and that God would use them to begin a mighty work among this people group.

3. Please be in prayer for our Bolivian men's Xtreme Team, as they begin to work with a new people group in a different part of Bolivia. Also, Efrain (pictured here), one of the young men who has been part of the team for the last few years, is leaving us tomorrow after four years of faithful service here, and it has been a sad time for all of us. Please be in prayer for him that he will be refreshed as he gets to spend some time in his home country of Colombia, and pray that he will remain obedient to do the next thing to which the Lord calls him.

Bonus for the Readers:

As many of you know, I just returned to Bolivia from visiting the U.S. for vacation in late May and early June (I'm pictured here with a group of great friends from Virginia). It was a wonderful time of refreshment and rejuvenation for me and, afterwards, I could wholeheartedly relate to and agree with these words of the apostle Paul in Phil. 1:3-5:

"I thank my God every time I remember you. In all my prayers for all of you, I always pray with joy because of your partnership in the gospel from the first day until now" (Phil. 1:3-5).

While at home in Virginia, I had the privilege of being able to share with my sending church, London Bridge Baptist, a little bit of the miracle God did in providing us with our resident visas. But even LBBC folks don't know the whole story, so let me share with you just what a mighty God we serve!

Back in September of 2009, Leah, Amy, Misty, and I began the laborious process of obtaining missionary visas that would allow us to be legal residents of Bolivia. The process is complicated and constantly changing, so we use a visa runner who is familiar with the nuances and, even more importantly, who has lots of government contacts. The visa runner is expensive but far more efficient than us doing it ourselves.

I should stop and explain a little about the government here first. Bolivia is a third-world country with a third-world government. I don't mean that as an insult so much as a statement of fact. Let me illustrate my point here: Do you hate going to the DMV because its inefficiency will likely cost you an hour or more of your time? The DMV is an absolute model of efficiency by comparison with any Bolivian immigration office. You can ask for a list of the documentation you will need to obtain the missionary visa and walk into the office the next day with every last piece in your hand, only to be told you now need something else because the list has changed. It's a moving target that you can never anticipate, so you eventually learn to stop asking why and just do whatever they tell you to do in the hopes of one day getting the paperwork you need to legally remain in the country doing what God has called you to do. Visa work is a constant battle with frustration.

OK, now that you know the background, you can probably see more clearly why we use a visa runner. The particular one that other missionaries with our organization have used is located in Cochabamba, a city about eight hours north of where we live in Sucre. We debated beginning the process in Sucre but chose to begin in Cochabamba because our visa runner was there and because we would be there anyway to begin Quechua language school.

So, on a weekday morning in September, we gave our visa runner our passports and filled out the necessary paperwork to begin the process of applying for missionary visas. The whole thing took just a few hours, and our visa runner assured us that all we had to do was wait.

Little did we know we'd still be waiting eight months later. By that point, it was late April, and our annual team meeting was drawing near. The meeting is held every year in Peru and, without our passports, which were still in the hands of the Bolivian immigration officials, we would not be able to go. And I was hoping to begin my vacation right after the team meeting, so all of this did not make me very happy.

At this point, we got in touch with our visa runner, who assured us that the immigration officials would write us a letter allowing us to leave the country and return with no problems as long as we returned within 90 days. With that information, we began making plans for Peru, and I booked my plane tickets home.

But, a couple of weeks later, when we called to find out when we could expect our passports, we got the worst news we could imagine. Apparently, a new rule had been instituted that required the immigration officials in Cochabamba to verify that we lived at the address we had put on the application. The problem was that, though we had begun the process in Cochabamba during our time in language school, we no longer lived there but in Sucre. And the immigration officials now thought we had been deceptive and were refusing to grant us our visas or the letters we needed to re-enter the country. Our only option was to go to Cochabamba to talk with them in person.

There is much more to this story, and I learned so much through the experience. But, as you can see, it's a long story, and the Lord's work in this situation merits that I do it justice. So I promise to get you the next installment when I return from my community trip in a week. Truly, He has done great things!