Hello to my much neglected blog and its readers!!
So much has gone on in the past few weeks.  We moved out of our downtown rental apartment into a colleague's home (they are away right now).  It was a nice change as we about tripled our living space!  Plus, our colleagues have kids and even a princess room that my girls have enjoyed!
I mentioned an apartment that we were hoping to get....which fell through.  At first it seemed unfortunate that we lost it.  It was a great location, but the landlord seemed to get a little greedy and seemed to change his tune when he saw we worked for a missionary organization.  That is obviously not a landlord we want!  We were frustrated that we were put off for 9 days!  The great thing is, God had something better in store for us!!!
Two weeks ago the agency that we were working with on the one that fell through had another one for us to see.  We walked in and were pleasantly surprised to see the landlords there to greet us.  This was the first apartment we walked through were the landlords were present.  After just a few minutes we discovered that the wife, and actual owner, of the apartment was American!!  We instantly loved the apartment and the landlords!!  And wouldn't you know, it's the complex RIGHT next door to the one that fell through!!  So we get to be in the area that we so desired!!!  Praise God!!
A week and a half later we signed the contract!!  She was so happy to have Americans renting her apartment and we were equally happy to know that if we had any concerns or needed help in the apartment that we will be able to easily communicate with our landlord.  Only the Lord could have put us together!!
After signing the contract we headed over to our new apartment to take a few measurements in the kitchen.  The only downside is we have to buy our own appliances.  However, I know that what we will be using will be new and clean and we get to pick it out ourselves.  And this Monday we will have our brand spanking new side by side refrigerator delivered!!!  This is the first time I have seen side by sides sold in Europe!!  Funny how something so common in America is a luxury for us here!!  Ha!!
Our contract is to start August 1, however, our landlord gave us the keys a week and a half early so we can get appliances and other necessities ordered and set up so we are ready to go when our things arrive from Prague.  Hopefully by mid-week next week.
And did I mention that she took us out for lunch after our contract signing?!
We hope to see much more of her and her husband!!
I've taken a few pictures, but they'll have to wait until next time.

As I sit here and type I have movers buzzing all around me with the sounds of wrapping and taping!
It's nice not to have to do all that packing by myself!!  Whew!


We just got word this morning, right before the movers came, that Jerry's Spanish visa is approved!!  We are ecstatic!!  Mine and the kids should follow soon.  It seems to be custom for the husbands to come first and the wife & kid's visas to come about a month later.
So, we will board a plane on Monday and then have to mail Jerry's passport back to Prague soon thereafter for our helper to go get his visa.


Even though we have been anticipating this move for over a year it is also bittersweet to have to leave so many good friends and team mates.  So much has happened to us here.

At the same time we look forward to this next phase in our family's life and what the Lord has in store for us.

Once we get settled I hope to be back to blogging more frequently.  Until then....

Adios!!

It has been non-stop, one thing after another around here the past few weeks.  With Jerry's trip to London, then his delayed return, Karis' birthday, then a trip to the emergency room for a team member's child, a death of someone close on our team, then preparing for a team retreat, participating in the retreat, housing 2 families (back to back, not at the same time!) during and after the retreat, going on the town with one of the families and now I have a sick child.  It has been one crazy ride this month.  I'd say that things are slowing down, but we are in the midst of renewing our Czech visas (since it has to be current to get our Spanish visas), getting a Czech license (to be able to easily get a Spanish license), sell and get rid of lots of stuff.  Oh, and throw a birthday party for some twinks (a sweet little nickname given to our twins by some friends).  I think Jerry is beginning to wonder if we'll be able to get it all done by June 8.  We'll see!
Back to our retreat!!  Some of our team members had never met in person (although had met through weekly video conferencing).  We started off Friday afternoon with everyone coming into town.  We got the men settled with the kiddos at our office space (the media team's old office space, some others of our colleagues use it now, long story) and the gals went out on the town!!  I tried to take a pic with my not so fancy camera, but I couldn't get it to turn out.  I took the ladies to a local tea room where we could choose from ham & cheese or vegetarian sandwiches, various teas and dessert.  One of the ladies does not live close to a Starbucks, so we took our little party to the Starbucks down the street to then enjoy coffee!  Can you say caffeine overload?!  Ha!  We had such a great time and finished up the evening with a walk over the Charles Bridge.
 Saturday morning the guys, plus our one journey girl, had some training time while the moms and kids had a slow morning with some of us hanging out at our house.  When the guys plus Megan, were done we headed to the zoo for lunch and to see some animals while some others toured Prague.  We have tons of zoo pics so we decided to fore go the camera.  Plus, as always, we were having such a good time that the camera was forgotten at times.
We finished up the day with a light dinner at the office and headed home to get the kids a bath.
Here is Jacob & Brennan (they are 5 months apart) on Sunday morning.
Jacob is one of our team member's kids and our first house guests this past weekend.  These two were the early birds and I spent about 45 minutes with just the 2 of them watching Spiderman and drinking our morning milk, mine being of the coffee version.  These 2 or so cute and became buds over the weekend!  I sure wish we lived closer!
After we all got ready we headed back to the office to have a time of worship, ate a quick bite to eat and headed the park to play and enjoy some last minutes together.

We were able to turn our applications in to the Spanish Embassy in Prague almost 2 weeks ago.  It took the consulate a few days to review it, but we did get the word that our applications were accepted.  Whew!  With ALL the many papers that were needed on FIVE family members I am so thankful we didn't miss anything!!
The crazy fact of it all is these papers we had to acquire are JUST to get a 90 day visa and we have MORE to do once we arrive in Spain!  Ahhh!!!  What MORE can we give them?!  Ha!
At first we were told it could take 3 weeks to 2 months.  We were thinking that wasn't too bad.  Then the last word we got this past week was 3 weeks to 6 months?!  My heart sunk a little as we are so ready to get there and get our kids somewhat adjusted before we have to jump them into school.  But, God has a plan and is bigger than it all and we know He is not going to give us or our kids anything we can't handle!  So, we'll just wait and see what unfolds!

Our Czech contact who has done our work visas in the Czech Republic for the last 10 years has been helping us with all of this.  She is a God send!!  We have known her all these years and I have no idea how she can keep up with all the changing laws (but she does it!) and put up with us Americans who are hounding her all the time!  Ha!  No, we're really not that bad!  Anyway, we thought it best to seek her help with this process since the people at the embassy most likely speak Spanish & Czech.  So we knew having Petra's help would be invaluable!  She was also able to obtain many of the necessary Czech documents much quicker and easier (birth certificates of our kids, police reports, etc.) as well as already having a translator to translate these documents into Spanish.  This process would have been so much longer without her help!!
As we got to talking about our visas she told us that the Schengen agreement states that you can be in another Schengen country for 90 days.  Which means we could legally be in Spain for 90 days on our Czech visas.  So we are doing some research to see if our logistics people will allow us to go ahead and move on our desired date of June 8th.  Then Jerry can always travel back to Prague to final things.  With all the stuff we need to sell and get rid of as well as many activities between now and then like birthdays for all 3 kids, a team retreat, a new team member arriving, out of town guests, and not to mention our normal schedule, that's the soonest we could make it.  Having a date to shoot for makes things much easier!

On another note, we got an email from a colleague telling us that driving in Spain on our US driver's license has become more difficult and that they are starting to fine drivers even when it is legal for us to drive on our US license for 6 months.  Jerry did a little research that it is only certain States that they don't accept, but not sure on that.  The problem is, you can't get a Spanish license until after the 90 day visa is up and the next visa stage begins.  This would not really be ideal for us.  Sure, we've been living the last 10 years without a vehicle but circumstances and the way we get around is going to be different.  Jerry had the thought to look into getting a driver's license here in the Czech Republic which would enable us to drive upon our arrive and then turn it in for a Spanish license after the 90 day period in Spain.  This was something we also discussed with Petra and looks like the easiest thing for us to do.  Now we add driving test to the list!!
So, we've got LOTS to do in the next few weeks and I'm already feeling a little overwhelmed.  Mostly by the stuff we need to get rid of and sell because we don't have a vehicle and I don't know the best way to go about finding it a new home!  Much to work on!  And that's our update as of now.  It could change by the end of the week, so stay tuned!  Ha!

.......and an update on our visas to Spain.

Maybe everybody feels this way, but the Lord seems to always be dealing with me in the area of patience.  I guess He doesn't think I've learned my lesson yet.  Ha!
I think back to when I was a kid and feeling that the Lord was calling me to ministry, but also getting no clear direction in the way He was leading.  Maybe He knew, at that age, I would be saying "No way am I moving to another country!"  Ha!  But I felt it was clear that He was wanting me to wait on Him for the big reveal and where He was leading me.
I remember the desire to get married and waiting on the Lord............at the ripe old age of 22 I got married.  Yeah, I was young. what can I say!  And to think I was getting old, ugh!  Oh my, was I ever young! 
If you've read much of my blog you know we waited a long time for our kids.  We first decided to wait to start a family (for 5 years) and then discovered our infertility and it took another 6 years before Karis entered our home.  Talk about a hefty dose of learning patience!
Then we waited 2 years before we could take Karis to the US due to the way we decided to adopt her (well, on the US side we didn't adopt her, we immigrated her).  Then a long wait in the US due to the US embassy in Prague giving us the incorrect visa.  That one almost caused us to have to take a leave of absence with our organization, but we got the much needed paperwork just in time to make Karis a citizen of the US and apply for the much needed passport to return to Czech Republic.  More stress diverted, thank you Lord! 

I should have known that God was not done with me yet!
Here we are now waiting on this, what seems like an eternity, visa process to get to Spain!!
I had all these ideas that maybe since we've already had a visa in an EU (and Schengen) country that the process would be quicker.  Or the fact that we have an EU member in the family.  Big, fat NOPE!!  Doesn't seem to matter one bit!!

People keep asking me if we've made it Spain yet or where we are in the process.  We've hardly moved!  We are STILL in the beginning stages.  Of course we weren't aware of what all was needed for this process.  We DID know that we would have to have birth certificates and our marriage license, but they also need to be apostilled.  Ok, takes some time but we can do that.  Ok, we have to have doctor's notes that we have no infectious diseases.  Ok, the kids just had a check up a couple of months ago and we can get ours done, no problem.
The one we weren't anticipating was the police report.  Ok, not really a big deal in Czech Republic.  Until I started looking closer at the specifics of the request on the visa application.  We needed to include a police report from each city that we have lived in for at least 6 months during the last 5 years.  Ok, so that means we needed to include Fort Worth, TX.  Alright, so we looked into that.  Oh. My. Word!   It is easier to get a police report in a foreign country than it is in the state of Texas?!  What?!!
To get a copy of our police record in the State of Texas we must provide a copy of our FINGERPRINTS!  Ugh!  And not only that, but they must be an a specific fingerprint card that they specify!!  Argh!! 
So, all this time we have been working with our contact who helps us with our Czech visas to see if she could find out where to get fingerprints done.  She doesn't even know!!  It is possible to get a notarized letter from the US Embassy stating that we do not have a police record in the US, but we are not sure if they will accept that.  So, we went ahead and paid the money to have those accompany the application.
Once we get the applications filled in and all the documents translated into Spanish THEN we can hand them over to the Spanish Embassy in Prague to await the verdict if they will indeed allow us a visa.  That could take anywhere from 3 weeks to 2 months.  Not so bad compared to what we've heard as far as the process goes when applying from the US.
It was our desire to be in Spain by about now.  It is best if we can apply for school in April, but we won't be able to if we aren't able to give a Spanish address.  The other concern is that our visas for the Czech Republic run out at the end of June.  We'll either have to apply for some type of extension to our Czech visas or vacate to a non-Schengen country to await our visa to Spain.    The closest non-Schengen country is the UK.  I wouldn't mind hanging out there for awhile, but that's not really ideal.

So, there ya have it.  The Lord most definitely must not be done with me in the area of patience.  Or He just doesn't think I'm getting it!  Ha!

 I found myself a tad grumpy about it today.  And if I'm truly honest, even a little sad.  This is going to be one SLOW process!! 
Today I stopped and did the math on how long it could take before we move.  BIG mistake!  Why do I even go there?!  I know, God has a plan and the perfect time, but come on God.  I only want to get there and do this work for you!!  Ha!
We have a logistics coordinator in Madrid that has now sent in a visa request for us to the government in Spain.  Typically it takes 6 weeks to hear back on that.  Then with that little piece of paper we can go to the Spanish Embassy in Prague, along with a visa application and a bunch of other little pieces of paper (birth certificates, health certificates, marriage license, police report, etc) we can submit our application for a visa.  Thinking about getting all those papers together makes my head spin.  And not only get them together, but get them translated into Spanish.
Based on the process in the past the coordinator figures we could make an appointment around March 22 to submit our paperwork.  When doing it from the States, once this information is submitted at the embassy, the process takes about 4 months!  Say what??  Seriously?!
We do have some friends who also did this process outside of the US and the time from submitting the paperwork was only 2 months.  Even still, that does not get us to Spain until May.  If it is the latter, it wouldn't be until July!!  Argh!!
So, that is our not so much of an update on moving to Madrid.  So, life must go on in Prague, although I find myself daily dreaming of days in Madrid!   One day, one day this year we will get there! 
So, I think I'll go play soccer with the kids in the hallway and try to get out of my grumpy mood!!