Visits, Learning, Pink Eye, and Enchufe

The last few weeks have been a blur! It seems like we have been running around like chickens with our heads cut off!! Almost two weeks ago, a good friend of ours came to visit us. Jesse is from our home church in South Carolina, and has been part of our lives for what seems like a lifetime! Micah has discipled Jesse on and off since he was about 13, and he and his family have grown to be dear friends. His dad is the pastor of our church in the States. So, Jesse was able to come to visit! Yay! We were so excited about him coming! He's been here for almost two weeks now, and we've really enjoyed his time here! We've been able to introduce him to some of the stuff that we've been doing while here in Spain, and also we've met with some other missionaries. We're hoping that we can get him in touch with other missionaries and maybe a couple national pastors during the remainder of his time here. We've been able to learn a bunch about our culture as we've tried to show him a little bit of it as well!

Buuuuuuuuut......Jesse also brought with him the dreaded pink eye. Ugh! Of course we still love you, Jesse! But Micah got really sick with a cold, then Jesse lovingly shared his pink eye with Micah, too. I have somehow avoided it so far, and I'm trying not to touch my face at all, cleaning up the house as much as I can. Jesse's case was pretty mild, and it didn't bother him too much. Micah, on the other hand, seemed to have infection oozing from him! He had terrible sinus pain, sore throat, bad cough, and pink eye. He had a rough few days. But, we finally made it to the doctor to get medicine for them. Man, let me tell you. That doctor's office was quite the cultural experience. We went to a private little clinic because we aren't included in their socialized medical system. We were told to go to door number 7...kind of cryptic, but we just went forth looking for door number 7. We found the door, but it was shut. Do we go in the door? Do we just sit and wait? How do we know when to go? A lady in door number 8 saw us and took pity on us and asked if we needed help. What we apparently needed to do is ask who the last person in line was, then just go after them. This is something that goes on in other places in Spain, like the post office and butcher shop, but we didn't know that it applied to the doctor's office, too! So, we waited our turn, then went into this tiny little room with a desk, two chairs, and a sheet-covered exam table. He asked what was wrong, then looked at each of them for about 30 seconds each! He then wrote a prescription for their pink eye and for Micah's cold. We went and got the bill, paid, and then were done! So interesting!

Another "crazy like a chicken with your head cut off" moment was trying to change over our bank account to the town where we live. We had to open a new account because our old one was under our passport. Now that we have our residency cards, we had to open up an account with them. We have been working on depositing our monthly check (in dollars) to our bank account here, which normally has a minimal fee and takes about 10 days to fully clear. But we were having trouble. At first, they didnt' know how to do it. Then, they were giving us extravagant fees, saying it may take up to a month before our money clears! I finally was able to escape the pink eye house for enough time to figure out what was going on. Then I realized the problem. There is this concept in Spain called "enchufe" (en-choo-fay). It basically means that it's who you know that matters. They ended up calling our old bank at my prompting, to ask how they normally do it, all to find out that they deal with a bunch of Americans at that bank and their reputation has been well upheld. Once he heard that they've never had a check bounce and that we were associated with that group of people, it was easy! They guy's countenance changed instantly, and he figured out to deposit the check the way our old branch did. What a lesson in how to approach business here!

We're all trying to stay/get better, and learning a bunch along the way! I'll try to post pictures later! Thanks for coming along with us on this journey!

Prayercast | Spain

Would you join us in praying for Spain?

Pictures!

Here are a few pictures from a couple trips downtown. How wonderful is it that part of learning Spanish culture is getting to see such amazing things?

This is a statue of Christopher Columbus [he's kind of a big deal here :)] Oh, and did I mention that in Seville, we got to see his remains? Also, we got to see the room where Magellan planned his circumnavigation of the globe! How cool is that?

This is called the Puerta de Alcalá (Alcalá Door), and it mirrors the Puerta de Madrid in Alcalá, where we live. They face each other and are at the end points of the road connecting the two cities.

In Parque del Retiro downtown there is a man-made pond that you can rent boats!

Also in Parque del Retiro there is also this Palacio de Cristal (Glass Palace). Gorgeous!

Catedral de la Almudena

Catedral de la Almudena

Catedral de la Almudena

The stained glass was reflecting on the walls, and it was so pretty!

For more pictures from this month so far, you can see them by clicking here.

We're also really excited because a youth from our church is visiting us, arriving here on Thursday. He'll be staying with us and another missionary couple for almost a month. We are so excited about him coming...he is like family to us. He is interesting in doing some sort of ministry for his life, and we want to best represent what it might look like for him to be a missionary, even in Spain! Also, pray for him as this is his first overseas travel alone. Thanks!!

Residency

It's something we've been working towards for almost a whole year now! We sent our first set of information to the officials in Spain to receive our letter of invitation saying that it was ok for us to apply for a visa last May. From there on it was a game of waiting, applying, calling, confusion, questions, appointments, waiting, waiting, and more waiting. And that was just to receive our entrance visa!

Once we arrived in Spain, we began the process of applying for residency. First came finding a place to live. In order to become a resident of Spain, you have to have a certified document from your town saying that you are registered to live at your current address. Once we found that place to live and got the document, we got an appointment to officially apply. This meant getting on the train at an inhuman hour of the morning to travel down with our barrage of paperwork...who knew that plane tickets would be kept so long and would be of such importance! Also complicating the situation is that we have no scanner/copier in our house. This means either risk public copy shops saving and stealing our private information on important documents or being creative about where we can copy stuff! Anyways, we went to the first appointment, accompanied by our supervisor, Mark, in case we needed help translating. Other than the Spanish Consulate in Miami being backwards and almost costing us our residency (thankfully, there was an older lady there who knew the troubles of the consulate in Miami), things went pretty well. We just had to return with a more sufficient insurance document within 10 days (they had just changed the rule and nobody knew about it). So...we then finally got our insurance document in Spanish that they would accept, and Micah and I went back the next week to turn in the rest of our paperwork. They accepted it!

We were then told to wait about 3 months to receive a letter in the mail telling us when our next appointment was. So on March 25th, we went to another office (well, it's actually an old prison that they use...kinda creepy!). After walking about a kilometer in the wrong direction (NEVER trust a Spanish website!), we finally made it to our appointment to turn in more paperwork, pay more fees, and get our fingerprints taken. Aside from almost not finding the office, all this went really well. We were in and out in about an hour! They said, "Come back in 40 days to pick up your card," gave us a slip of paper, and that was that!

So, in 40 days, we went back, which was Wednesday, May 4th. Thankfully, we knew exactly how to get there this time, so all went well! There was hardly a line, and we just showed them our slip of paper and passport, and they gave us our cards...and that was it! In and out in 30 minutes! Wow! We were so excited that it went so well! Our residency is only good for a year in Spain, so they expire in November. Ha! A year's worth of work for 7 months of residency. It's all worth it to me! We're trying to figure out if we should renew the residency at the end of our time here, risking having to return to Spain every 6 months (not including other residency appointments), which could turn out to be pretty pricey.... or to just start the process over again when we return long-term. Who knows? But for now, we're just happy to be legal right where we are. :) I think it's kind of cool to be a Spanish resident! Thanks to all who prayed for us and to all who helped us through this crazy process!!!

Here's a picture of Micah and I with our newly acquired (and VERY valuable to us) residency cards!