Hurdles

This week has been a roller-coaster of emotions, emails, phone calls and prayers for us here. Dinel, the mission's assistant director, spent the week in Port au Prince with baby Steven and Steven's mom Janice working on getting a medical visa for Steven. In their past experience getting people to the States, the Bustins have never had this much trouble getting the medical visa. The first appointment with the embassy was on Tuesday and we were denied until we could get more specific letters from both the hospital in the States where Steven will have his surgery, and a hospital in Haiti stating that the surgery cannot be done in Haiti. After a day spent trying to find a working fax machine in Port au Prince, another day waiting while our American embassy was closed to celebrate a Catholic/Voodoo holiday celebrating God's birthday, and Friday being spent fulfilling new requirements the embassy presented to us (once our people in Haiti and the States scrambled quickly to fulfill one requirement and Dinel returns for another interview, the embassy would prevent us with a new requirement that we could have finished long ago if the embassy would have told us about it earlier), we are still without a medical visa. It's amazing the way the embassy has been picking this to pieces. Our latest requirement is a notarized letter from the surgeon who has volunteered to do Steven's surgery. We will not likely get this letter before Wednesday, so at that time I'll head to Port with Dinel, Janice and Steven and go with them to the embassy. It might take a few days to finish up with the embassy and working with the Haitian IBESR to get a paper allowing Steven to leave the country but hopefully I'll be able to take him out by next weekend and get him safely to the States. Thanks for your continued prayers!