October 1997, Prayer Letter
Dear Brethren,
I am sorry for not writing sooner but my wife and I have been extremely busy since we came back from our last trip. We have been going to Doctors and Dentists and packing and inventorying our possessions for shipping.
We have finished all our shots and medical tests and had all the financial and security checks and our visas are being processed now. The embassy says it should only take 7 to 10 days to complete. After that we can start the paperwork for shipping and we were told that would take about 2 weeks. After 2 1/2 years of living out of a suitcase, it will be nice to get settled into our own home.
We are planning on driving
to Brownsville, Texas and taking a ship from there to Puerto Cortez, Honduras.
We can take our car on the ship and get a cabin for the price of
2 one-way plane tickets. We have to arrange our schedule so we can
take our belongings to Gulf Shores, Mississippi where they will get loaded
on a Dole Fruit Company ship and
then go on to Brownsville.
The ship with our belongings will take 7 to 10 days to reach Honduras and
it should take us about 5 days total so we should be there before our belongings
arrive.
According to Honduran law,
if we are moving to Honduras for the first time all the property in our
move is duty free but of course you can not always count on something just
because it is legal. So please pray that we are able to get our belongings
there with no trouble. We also have made preparations to have everything
transported to Honduras. Now we just have to find a place to put
our stuff when it gets there.
Brother Bush, a missionary
in La Ceiba, has gone on furlough and has asked me to take over a church for 6 months while he is gone. This works out fine for us as that will give us time to check out the areas we will be working and find where we want our home base. It will also give my wife time to start learning the language and there are women in La Ceiba who are going to teach my wife how to get along in a third world country.
We would really appreciate
your prayers in the next weeks so nothing will go wrong and everything
will go on schedule and our next letter will be from Honduras.
Your Co-Laborers in Christ,
Santos and Sandra Ortiz
