Saturday Post -- 10/11/12

Somewhere, in a dusty corner of a Trinidad office, sits a pile of papers upon which reside a good deal of our thoughts and prayers. Thirteen months ago, having bought two plots of land a year earlier, and having intended on building our home there, we submitted our final payment and began a process of paperwork which should have taken a month or two. Owing to a dose of naiveté on our part, but moreso to the vendor's negligence, not to mention her residing a day's journey from here, our last year has been dominated by delays, frustrations and long waits in lawyers' offices (click on the 'housing' label at the foot of this post to get a flavour). 

On Monday, we submitted documentation for both plots to the local land registry, the last stop for any land transfer application here, and the furthest we have been able to take this process to date. They required eight working days to process the documentation, so by the end of this week, we should, barring any issues with our paperwork (and there have been a fair few until now!), be the officially recognised owners of two plots of land. Please pray!

Of course, rather than build on these plots, our hope is to sell them on in order to raise much-needed funds for the house we began building back in July, on a third plot we purchased when our patience was wearing thin. The past month has seen some delays on our building project, largely owing to a scarcity of quality cement. A major technical failure took place some time ago at Bolivia's main cement supplier, down in Santa Cruz, with no indication that it will be fixed any time soon. As a result, people are either settling for low-quality material, or purchasing imported bags at inflated prices. Profiteers are certainly profiting. However, in the past week, our builder was able to secure some decent cement at a reasonable price, so we hope things will pick up again. The outer wall is nearing completion, and a laundry room (essentially a glorified shed in the back garden) is now finished. 

So it's increasingly looking as if we won't be in, as we'd been hoping, by Christmas. However, early 2013 looks likely, and we have increased incentive to have it delivered on time. Because, this week, Mr. & Mrs. A. Cunningham confirmed that they would be paying us a two-week visit in April. And with Amanda's mum also making positive noises re. a 2013 visit, we're pretty excited about playing host to our parents on our own turf.

2013 has also been my main focus this week as I've spent the week preparing next year's budget for FT's Education area. My 'department' relies completely on external support and over the past few months we have been blessed by a big fundraising effort at Strathaven Evangelical Church and the continued support of the congregation at Cartsbridge Evangelical Church (both churches are based in the west of Scotland). This has freed us up to finally be able to purchase much-needed overheads,  educational and administrative (such as a filing cabinet, my desk buckling ever more under the strain) and, God-willing, provide a salary for a part-time teacher to oversee the Community classes (see prayer items for more on that).  

Meanwhile, Amanda's been hard at it in Audiology, where she's by herself this month in the absence of her partner, Odalys, currently undergoing training in La Paz. She's just about managing to keep her head above water, but it would be fair to say that the combination of a busy week and a late night watching the election results come in on Tuesday have rendered us somewhat bleary-eyed this weekend.

Prayer

• For success in our land transfer application (see above).
• For Porfidia, who currently works in an administrative post at FT in the mornings but who is, by trade, a very capable primary school teacher, teaching in a local school in the afternoons. We would like to be able to employ her at FT in the afternoons in the Community classes, but with her administration contract up at the end of this year, this is dependent on her finding work in the mornings (schools either meet in the morning or afternoon here). Thus far, no such post has presented itself. We'd really appreciate your prayers that she can find morning work and be freed up to lead the Community education ministry, along with teacher-in-training, Elizabeth.
• For the youth group, who begin a new series in the book of Ruth this week, in their last mini-series of studies before Christmas cranks into gear. 
• For our old friend, Rachel Peebles, a former missionary here, who is on her way to Trinidad for a visit (she'll be doing the Heathrow-Miami leg in the next few hours, I suspect), arriving tomorrow.

Praise

• For a little breakthrough on our building project this week.
• For the exciting news of Craig's parents' visit in April next year.

¡Que Dios les bendiga!

Craig & Amanda