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!