Here's my story...

Well, 2 days ago I went to Cascavel to renew my visa...It seemed a pretty self-explanatory process. Joaquim was supposed to call Milton at 9am, he did, and Milton said he would be there that morning. So, we left for Cascavel and drove an hour to get there, we found the delegacy pretty easily, thanks to his mom, and went in to chat with good old Milton.

During said talk, it was discovered that I was missing a necessary document. My entry card, which I filled out and had stamped by customs in Sao Paulo. In fact, I'm pretty certain I threw that away a couple months ago. Bad idea, really. So I nearly had a heart attack because I needed that for the renewal, and...I really really really don't have it.

Milton said to go pay the fee at the closest bank, to make some photocopies of my passport, visa, and flight itinerary, and come back before 12 or 12:30, when he was leaving for lunch.

It was about 11...so Joaquim and I left quickly to find a bank and a xerox place. We waited in line at the bank for almost 30 minutes, and between driving around looking for a place to make copies and a parking spot near said copy place, we made it back to the delegacy at about 12:20. Cutting it close, if you ask me. We were literally running through oncoming traffic in order to get there by that time. So we met with Milton again, gave him the copies and the form I had to fill out, and he and Joaquim made some necessary small talk. Milton apparently used to live in Assis Chateaubriand, on the same street as their church is, and said that he used to see Joaquim's dad driving the kids from Lar to church.

Let's just say it was a definite miracle that Milton "knew" Joaquim, or at least was connected with him a little bit, because, although I was missing that one document, he then reached for a stamp...pressed the rubber onto the ink, and as we waited, holding our breath, he pounded it onto a blank page of my passport. Then he signed it, dated it for February 14th, 2008 (10 days longer than I actually deserve...YES!!!) and placed another sticker on it to guarantee, signed that sticker, half on the sticker and half on the passport, and handed it back over to me, telling me to look for the paper I'm missing, and if I can't find it just let him know and he will "dar um jeito." Meaning, it won't matter that I don't have that paper, because he is still approving (or rather, HAS APPROVED) my visa renewal anyway.

It was a STRESSFUL morning, with not a little worrying and wondering, but God was really taking care of that...and He even gave me a gift of 10 extra days. Because I renewed the visa 10 days before it expired, I would have lost 10 of the 180 days I'm allowed to be in Brazil...so the Lord graciously softened Milton's heart to extend it for 100 more days so I can stay the full time I am able. Nothing less than a miraculous gift.

Now I'm back in Londrina for about a month. Today I've been working on power points...I'm not sure what the rest of my time will hold, but I am going to a youth camp this weekend with church, which will be fun. And I hope to spend some time with some of the other missionaries during the next month to see what they do as well. This week I will sit down with Gwen to kind of plot out what the next month will look like. Then in mid-December (the date to be determined...) I will go back to Assis Chateaubriand and stay there until Valentine's Day. (If that's not ironic, please tell me what is...ha.)