Saturday Post -- 22/06/13

This week, a saga twistier than a Swiss mountain road finally came to an end. Coronation Street itself can hardly have seen many more catastrophes, confrontations and cliffhangers (and they've had a 50-year head-start on us -- our soap opera lasted a mere three).

But, sure enough, on Thursday morning, we shook hands on the sale of the two plots of land we had bought back in June of 2010, upon which we never ended up building due to the previous owner's inability to supply us with the correct documentation (that particular episode taking up twelve months in itself). Just click on the 'housing' tab at the foot of this post if you have a spare weekend to read the full story.

Pretty much by necessity, there were some last-minute hurdles to clear. We had reached a verbal agreement with the prospective buyers over a month ago on the sale price. However, in the past couple of weeks, we had been contacted on a number of occasions to see if we would be willing to lower the stated sale-price on the documents transferring the ownership. The reason for this is that when you buy land in Bolivia you are legally required to pay a tax of 3% of the sale price to the council. Indeed, so terrified are people of this charge that telling fibs on the documents is pretty much par for the course. For us, however, as believers -- and, moreover, as missionaries with a testimony to protect -- we couldn't budge on this. Nonetheless, to help the buyers, we reduced the sale price slightly, effectively saving them the money they would need for the taxes.

I was called, then, at the crack of dawn on Thursday morning (the buyers having arrived on the overnight bus from Santa Cruz) and summoned to their bank in the centre of Trinidad, where I, er, collected my winnings (a hefty charge is applied to transfers here, so the best option is to carry your cash between banks!). But in the process, and despite our gesture of good faith, I was asked, yet again, to consider lowering the stated sale price. At this point I took out my mobile phone calculator and showed them what 3% came to, in US dollars. They seemed OK after that, and I was free to go to our own bank and deposit the proceeds, stuffed brown envelope under my jacket -- never before have I felt more like a Russian gangster. During this time, they headed to their lawyer's office to begin the paperwork.

There we met half an hour later, where the welcoming party was not in the best of moods. Our buyers had had a discourse with the lawyer's secretary, who explained to them in some detail the various fees which would be required in offices around Trinidad in order to complete the transfer (figures which we, like any other buyer, had been required to stump up ourselves, not to mention the lawyer's charges which mounted up for us as a result of the shoddy paperwork). But the real salt in the wound was my apparent coldness of heart over the stated price. Mental arithmetic not being a strong point in this society, it turned out that they hadn't fully grasped that the likely tax bill I'd showed them earlier was in US dollars and not Bolivianos (right now, you'll get nearly 7 Bolivianos for your dollar). 

For the next hour, then, I came under pressure from both the couple -- with whom we had had close ties when they lived in Trinidad -- and the lawyer himself to tell porkies on the transfer document. It was a bona fide 1 Samuel 2:30 situation. At one point they even tried to appeal to my faith, arguing that the Christian thing to do would be to help my neighbour by lying! What I was doing, in Bolivian terms, was positively barmy, but wholly necessary to protect our testimony -- and our buyers could hardly argue they hadn't been warned.

I held the line sufficiently to convince my interrogators that we were not for turning and, in spite of it all, our buyers agreed to go ahead with the documentation, warts and all. By noon, we had ourselves a land transfer. And happily, for all the morning's histrionics, we were able to invite the couple over for lunch, where the matter was quickly forgotten about. 

This was not the only encouraging development these past seven days. I'm pleased to be able to share that I have been accepted on to the Cornhill Scotland course next year. The Cornhill course, whose prime focus is on sound Bible teaching, was founded by the venerable Dick Lucas in London in 1991. Its Scottish sister course began a few years ago out of its base at The Tron church in Glasgow and has since become something of a production line for faithful ministers of the word. 

The full-time course is one year in duration and the administrators there have been kind enough to allow me to study from January till December, rather than follow the usual September till June timetable. This allows us to proceed with our furlough year plans, while meeting LAM Canada's requirement for us to enrol in formal theological training. It should also give me some invaluable input as I become increasingly involved with the church side of things here in Bolivia. Amanda is still looking into a few possibilities herself, and we'll let you know when a decision has been made on that front.

Prayer

• For Amanda as we continue to seek God's will for her next year.
• For Craig as he begins a new Bible study series this week on the Tabernacle.
• For Amanda as she is involved in complicated audiology testing this week.

Praise

• For the land sale, which will go a long way to helping us pay off our building costs, and for the strength to keep honouring God to the bitter end.
• For the good news re. Craig's studies next year.
• For the arrival of Joe (see last week's post), who has been a great guest so far and is already putting his skills to good use as a health volunteer. He's a really mature young lad and we're enjoying getting to know him.

¡Que Dios les bendiga!

Craig & Amanda