Bureaucracy

Sigh...you gotta love the government - and - come to find out it's not only our government! We have to get police records from our local police department stating we are not bad guys - then we take them to the Costa Rican consulate in San Francisco. Of course, the consolate is a volunteer, and only is open from 9-12 Mon-Fri by appointment only. So here we wait for our police records, then we hopefully can make an appointment to take them to San Francisco, will wait for the day and get our student visas for Costa Rica. For some reason, Costa Rica doesn't care if we are bad guys in any other county - because they don't require a state-wide search. So - just make sure any crimes you committ aren't in your local area if you want to travel outside of country. If we aren't able to get student visas for Costa Rica, then we can only have visitor visas good for 3 months and we would have to go out of country every three months for a new visa. The student visas will be good for the entire 9 months we are there...sigh...so here we wait!

Published

Every once in awhile, it's pretty cool to see how God uses lots of avenues to be glorified! I had the opportunity to write an article for Young Life. And for some strange reason, they wanted to publish it on their web site. You can see the full article at : http://www.younglife.org/Voices/
I'm excited that God used this route for Him to be seen :-) . There is another 2 articles in the works that are going to be published - one for RN magazine, and another for Evangelism Explosion (EE). We also took a class called Perspectives. They also had me submit a 2 page article that they are probably going to publish. Go God! If you have a chance, take a peek at the article.

Madison is coming back from camp in three days. Sure seems like she has been gone a lot longer than that. I am excited to hear about her time, experiences, and will try and post some pics - depending on what they look like :-)

More later

Disneyland

Mike recently went to Honduras with a small group of men who wanted to see the type of ministry work we would be doing when we were there full-time. Madison and I decided to take this time to go play. We have made annual trecks to Disneyland since Madison was 4 years old. I didn't want to tell her that this would probably be the last time we went. I don't want to tell her so she can really look forward to what is to come. Many things this last year have been "last times", but I have never told her. Not to be dishonest, because if she were to ask me, I would be straight up with her. So - off we went. It was an awesome trip. In Tomorrowland they have a Jedi Academy. They choose kids from the audience, and train them in some maneuvers with their lightsabers. Suddenly...there is a "disturbance in the force" - and out comes Darth Vader and Darth Mahl. The kids then have the opportunity to fight them individually. Madison was really hoping for Darth Vader, but "just" got Darth Mahl. Of course once she successfully fought him - she couldn't have been more excited! She is an official padawan and holds her certificate proudly. We are going to have a few more "last times". She is currently at Mount Hermon in Santa Cruz. When we pick her up, we will go camping for 3 days, then home for 4 days, then off to New York (more on that later). It will be her last time at Mt. Hermon until she is in High School, and our last camping (at least in the States - can't wait for camping in the rain forest!). But again, no focusing on the "lasts", it hasn't even been mentioned - of course kids aren't dumb - she probably realizes it, but chooses not to dwell on it.

In the Beginning...

We started out this adventure to be missionaries almost 2 years ago. It's been quite an adventure! Mike has been GREAT about posting blogs to our web site. I enjoy reading our website, but realized that some people may want a more "touchy-feely" site to read. That's where I come in. I'm all about "touchy-feely" - so I thought - heck - I would want to read it, there may be others out there who want to read it too. So - that was the thought behind the creation of this new blog. It's not to take away from our main blog entries - just to add some depth to it. Some additional pictures - and stuff that may be more in-depth about the Pettengill's. Sometimes more in-depth about our ministries - just depends on where my touchy side feels. So sit back - relax - and enjoy!