"But the Lord is faithful, and He will strengthen and protect you from the evil one." 2 Thessalonians 3:3
Sunday was a great day of rest and rememberance in Christ in His creation with our new family, just across the border from our "promised" land. But sunday night brought in a tropical depression, which brought in strong winds and constant rain with some breaks in between. When I woke up Sunday morning there was a clear break in the weather so I took the dogs to the ocean, pulled out some water drenched blankets and pillows, and pulled out the computer to blog about day 5. It was so perfect and calm, but what i didn't know was it was the calm before the storm. As I sat on the coast to write I began to notice a black line moving across the bay towards us, and as it approached I hurried to grab up the computer and cables to run to the van as quick as possible. I was able to make it to the van but I was wet and the dogs were soaked and I didn't have time to grab the blankets and pillows that were drying. So anyway an hour later there was another break, and during this break we hurried to pack everything away, including the even more drenched blankets and pillows, so that we could make it to the border to cross into Belize.
It was looking to be another long day of adversity. Rain was strong, roads were flooded, and it wasn't stopping for two days explained some of the locals. So these things made our border responsibilities that much more difficult. At the border we needed to get our passports stamped, get the dogs through animal customs, get our car fumigated, pay duty on our van and any other items they deemed necessary, and also sign up for insurance. This process in mexico only took one hour or so but what we would find out is that is was going to take six hours this day. That meant allot of walking inside and outside to the different buildings in the rain, and it ment Tiffany, the dogs, and mo waiting in the car (a rain drenched, wet dog smelling van with all the windows rolled up) while I worked out all the formalities.
Basically after getting our passports stamp, we were hooked up with a broker who was to be payed a fee as he walked us from building to building to finalize everything else. The processes were very slow and there was allot of hurry up and wait. I basically was taken from car evaluation, to immigration, to animal control, to broker offices, to cashiers, and back and forth and back in forth till everything was stamped paid and put in place. Thankfully there was some breaks in the weather which allowed the dogs and the family to get out and walk around. We also were very thankful for Gods faithfulness in the whole process as well. The biggest miracle came about with our duty on the van. First the government official was very fair on the evaluation, because he valued it at $1200 american where he easily could have $5000 based on NADA values, which at a 60% duty would have been $3000 instead of $800. And regading the $800 to this day I still don't know how the payment went through, other than the grace of God. Before our leaving Tiff and I lowered the balance availability on a card in the event we were robbed, so when I found out the duty on our car I asked to check the internet for our credit availability and we only had $550 available. So we had $250 cash, $150 debit, and $550 credit but the problem was they would only recieve one form of payment, and we also had pet passport fees, immigration fees, and insurance fees to pay. So in my faithlessness I didn't know how this was going to work, which meant our car stayed at the border and we would have to ride in the rain into town and find a place that received dogs and us. And then to make matters worse, we could only withdrawal $150 a day and it would take three days before a credit payment was posted, so this ment no van for three days, it was not looking promising. But by grace our credit card went through and it received the $800 payment and we were on our way into Belize. We were also blessed with a duty officer that chose not to tax us on any of the other goods in the van or have us throw away any of the food we had left.
Six hours later, rain soaked, stinky van, whiny kid, wet dogs, and broke we moved onto our campground in Corozal.
Thank God for his Faithfulness
PS Sunday night brouht a smile to our face because the owner of the campground and resturant we were staying at asked us how we found his place, so we showed him the book we had been using on camping in mexico and belize. Well anyway he was so excited that he was in an american book, I think it made him feel like a rockstar. He brought all of his employees around to see it and they made copies. He was so "pleased in his heart" that he was buying us margaritas but we had to cut him off at on the second because we didn't know how far he would go. Pretty cool stuff.
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