Temporary Residence, Document # 02638, stamped "received" July 11, 2007
"Solicitud Visa de Residente Temporal para Religioso"
Hello everyone. Today marks an exciting day for us.....especially for me. For the past year and a half, we have been working on applying for our residency here in Guatemala. The first residency that most mission/religious workers get is a two year temporary religious visa. After the two years of being temporary residents, one can apply for permanent religious visas.Fortunately, being a "religious" worker means our family can do this for a small cost, much less than if we just wanted to apply for normal residency. Unfortunately, however, the process is quite complicated and the number of times that our documents have not been "accepted" has been more times than I can count.
As I said, this process started about a year and a half ago. I went to the department of immigration in Guatemala City and requested applications for this process. On the back were a list of the requirments. Little did I know at the time that the list was not only incomplete, but the process requirements for each document were not even listed. Let me give you an example of only ONE type of document that we had to get and the process we had to go through:
Listed on the application: "Criminal Records from your country of residence, showing any offenses and at least 5 years of record" Nothing more was listed. When we were in the US in 2005, I went to the correct New Hampshire government agency and got mine and Robin's criminal records. They thankfully stamped the documents "no criminal records"....so I thought this one was in the bag. When we got back to Guatemala and we made our first attempt to apply for residency, I was told the documents would have to be stamped by the NH State Court, then brought to the closest Guatemalan Consulate in the US (Rhode Island) for authentication and stamping. After some time, we completed the process again (more later on that), including the stamp at the Guatemalan Consulate in Rhode Island, then brought this and many other documents back and tried to apply again. Then we were told that the document had to be certified and stamped by a translator here in Guatemala because the documents were in English. Just before leaving, being the 'not so naive' applicant that I started out as, I asked if there were more requirements - there was. So in the end, the process for this one requirement was like this:
I sent my friends Dave Scott and Elaine Towle from Chester NH a letter authorizing Dave to obtain new copies of our criminal records. (the old records were expired, documents can't be more than 6 months old) Dave works for the state and willingly helped us out. THANKS DAVE!Dave then took the documents to have them stamped by the state court. Oour friend Elaine Towle, also from Chester, was the notary in the process. THANKS ELAINE!....it's great to have friends who are so willing to help. Then, they mailed the documents to a friend of our office adminstrator, Mariela, here at AMG in Guatemala. Her friend Hardi(now her fiancee!) moved to Rhode Island to live with his Dad a year and a half ago. Mariela was going to visit him and they willingly agreed to take the documents to the Consulate in Rhode Island while she was there to have them stamped. Mariela brought the stamped documents back to Guatemala. We sent them to a certified translator who translated and stamped the documents. Finally, we took them to the government office here that certifies legal documents (opposite end of the city from immigration) and they stamped the documents as authentic. I'm surprised there was any room left on them for this final stamp! All that said (and I never meant for this to be this long), today I went once again with these documents and a host of others, back to immigration. After waiting in line, the young man who waited on us went through each document carefully and checked off each requirement. But today, unlike all the other times when they sent me away with more requirements, he put them in a folder and stamped them "received"!!
Up until now, we have been on "tourist" status and have to leave the country every 180 days and go to immigration every 90 days to renew our tourist visas and pay for more time in the country. I am so thankful for our applications being received as now we have a letter saying we are "in process" and no longer have time restrictions here in the country. I walked down the stairs at the immigration office and whispered "Thank you Lord". So now you have a little glimpse, or I guess a big glimpse, into the process of applying for Guatemalan residency. The good thing about this entire experience is we now have a pretty good grasp of everything that is needed.
We'd like to thank everyone that has helped us with this process, from our friends in NH, to the staff at AMG US, to our staff members and friends here in Guatemala. We appreciate all your help!
Robin and the kids are in the states now so we're experiencing our annual time apart. I'll be joining them in a few weeks and we'll all come back together on August 19th. We appreciate your continued prayers during this time. Last week, my friend Kevin from NH visited for a long weekend. It was great to have the company. Here is a picture of Kevin visiting his little sponsored girl, Yadis, at our Matochos childcare center.
And here they are again with Yadis's little brother Jose.
Have a great day!
