I Got My Peruvian Religious Worker's Visa

Greetings fellow revivalists

Well, I’ve not written an update despite having some time on my hands through out some days this week to let one and all know what’s new with me.

On Wednesday I finally got my Peruvian religious worker’s visa, enabling me to legally stay in the country for the next five years and only pay about $40 per year to renew it. It’s such a relief for me because in spending the lion’s share of the last 8 years of my life living in other countries besides my native one, I’ve never had such an easy time obtaining a visa. Some people might find $400 up front expensive, but compared to other countries where it’s closer to $1000 and more complicated rules you have to follow (I’m comparing this experience to my one in Holland, where I needed to guaranteed I had over 650 euros a month –which is like $1100 CAD/month, and pay a flat 430 euros/ $700 CAD) Once I obtained the card, I just kept looking at it because it signified so much with some of the difficulties I’ve had entering other countries before. I’m thankful to God for this.

Spanish Classes – Almost at Intermediate

Last week I ate some funky street food or something, and my bowel had to release its hostages through out the next day, so I wound up missing my Spanish classes for two days. Because last week was Holy Week, and Thursday and Friday were holidays, I talked to them about just not doing any classes that week but starting up again this week, which I did. That caused me to fall behind my class, so they bumped me into 3 hours a day in the afternoon with one-on-one classes. You’d think less time would be easier, but I can’t describe how tiring this is mentally. But next week I’m allegedly going to start Intermediate 1. To think about 6 weeks ago I could just point at menus at fast food places and hope they didn’t ask me any questions I couldn’t answer.

Yesterday, my teacher and I went off topic and I was able to converse relatively fluently in Spanish about how you don’t pay to go to high school in Canada;how expensive it is to go to University and how I didn’t; the difference between the euro and the sol; and how our lame Canadian money has hockey players on the $5 bill. Then it dawned on me: I spoke practically all of it in Spanish to her with little help for just vocabulary I didn’t know. Same with going with Fire Peru’s lawyer on Wednesday to get the visa. Since he could not speak English, it forced me out of my nest to spread my wings and speak what I could. Those of you who think I’m not currently doing that much with my weekdays, please understand how taxing it is on your brain learning another language, especially at this fast of a pace. When I learned French it was a part of my schooling growing up in Canada, and gradually over the years. I have the utmost sympathy and respect for people moving to North America and learning the language just by picking it up. It’s not so easy.

I’m also speaking on Sunday at El Central de Fuego (The Fire Center), which so far has been averaging about 20 adults since we began to hold meetings in Miraflores a few weeks ago. In the weeks to come it’s on Ron’s heart to share with them what we’re doing and start getting active with evangelizing in the community. I’m not sure specifically at the time of writing this what the message will be, but I think if there’s a nick name or a term He’s been speaking to me, I’d call it ‘building godly strongholds’. It kind of flows with the previous entry I posted on seeds of righteousness and wickedness, only emphasizing some things about getting stronger spiritually. Obviously that’s subject to change at the Lord’s discretion.

I finally recorded a podcast yesterday morning after about a 3 month hiatus. It’s a little more on the ‘issues’ conversation than the normal theological type we normally make. This time it was on the Church & politics. I think it went over pretty well. If all goes well maybe Shawn Landis would love to come back on and discuss other things he’s similarly passionate about. But I won’t have it edited for a good week or so. I’m still trying to find time to do one with Ron Smith, fearless leader of Fire Peru and would like to put that one online first. So this one might remain one in the bag for a while before editing it and posting online.

Well, thanks for reading and praying for me.

Blessings and fire on your head