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Home sweet home… what’s wrong with this picture? This is what greeted us when we arrived back at Ballantyne’s Cove… lots of work! Here it was the month of April, when everyone is geared up for increased service… even the incentive of being able to auxilliary with only 30 hours was tugging at our hearts. But, we had a mandate that we felt was equally important for us at that time: Get our house ready to sell so we could return to Ecuador before our visas expired. We had to do this if we were to reach our goal of serving in Ecuador.
Memorial was right around the corner, though, so first things first… we got out and invited as many as we could, and then we dove into the renovation work!
What lay ahead was intimidating, but we knew if Jehovah wanted us back in Ecuador, he knew we needed to sell the house, so he would also help us complete the work necessary in time. (yes, that is a room gutted right down to the dirt). The only bathroom in the house was the upstairs ensuite in the 2nd bedroom, so to make it saleable, we needed to turn this gutted room into a main bathroom and family room/front entranceway. If that wasn’t enough, we needed to put a ceiling in the 2nd bedroom, build a rock planter, plant a lawn and find a large rock to install as the front step.
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| starting to take shape |
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| all done! |
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| another view |
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| dunno… think it’s big enough? |
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| voila! lawn & rock planter |
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| all ready for the market |
Wow, looked fast and easy with those few pictures! Uh-uh, no way. It was two months straight of hard physical labour for both of us. We did have some help from friends and family even though it was a month of increased Kingdom activity! Thanks every one of you! We wouldn’t have made our deadline without your help!
There were many obstacles encountered while trying to complete the house in time, but those were not as critical as the one that loomed up in front of us just two weeks before we were booked to return to Ecuador! On May 12th we received the message that 12-VII missionary visas were no longer available to folks like us who were going to serve in Ecuador because of the need. This was such a huge shock since we had already been accepted by the branch to apply for the visa. We didn’t know whether we would be able to continue our plans or not! Plus, Isaac & Jo’s 12-VII visas were about to expire soon! How would they now be able to stay in Ecuador?! Hundreds of other brothers and sisters were being affected by this change…surely Jehovah would provide answers to the thousands of prayers now being sent over this issue! We spent 4 days stressing over it, then prayerfully wrote and sent off an email to the branch in Ecuador to ask whether we would be affected by the change (shouldn’t have waited four days!!) and our relief came within hours as they replied saying because we had already been accepted, we could continue our plans. Whew! However, this didn’t help Isaac and Jo who only had a couple of months left on their visas! So, back to the prayers! The answer to this one came after Isaac did some checking around with other brothers in the same situation and learned of an alternative route we could try. Setting up a corporation in Ecuador, then applying for work visas for the 4 of us to work for our corporation. So, wheels were set in motion…help from a sister in Ecuador who arranged for an appointment with an immigration lawyer for the day after we were to arrive back in Ecuador.
The last week or so was a blur… we worked on the house right up to the day before we left… amidst the packing, sorting of items for the garage sale that was to happen after we left, trying to sell the car and of course continuing our research of our new visa alternative. Just a hair short of a nervous breakdown, we bid farewell to the loving friends and family who worked selflessly cleaning, packing, painting, etc to the bitter end to insure we could leave satisfied that the house was ready for sale!
Thus, on June 5th we left all of them and our now lovely home behind, drove our now sold car to Halifax where the buyer would be waiting to pay for it and drop us off at our airport hotel… another prayer obviously answered! Next morning, though I was suffering from stress-triggered dizziness and nausea, we caught our 6:15 plane for Ecuador!