That’s how long I’ve been married to my best friend today. She’s the most gracious, most fun, most loving, most inspiring, most challenging, most selfless, and most heartbreakingly beautiful thing that God has ever put in my path. I love her so much it scares me sometimes. I like who I am when I’m with her.

Tonight’s the OHPC farewell open house for Rachel and I. We have 8 days.

We got the visas yesterday. Yay! I actually recognized the lady who delivered them to the house as a postal employee and high-ranking member of the AIDPQC, no doubt irked that our visas actually had decent looking photos taken at Kinko’s in them. All in all, I think it’s a sad statement that I’m recognizing postal employees other than our regular mailman.

After being nagged for a VERY long time by a certain friend who shall remain nameless (you know who you are), I started the process today of contacting Carmax about the Saturn. I figure something’s better than nothing, and I really don’t want to still be makin’ a car payment from Ecuador.

Re: Shipping … this is interesting. It appears that our cheapest route is going to be to go through the good ol’ USPS. They want about $1,500 to move approximately 11 boxes, weighing a total of just under 380# and having a collective volume of just over 23 cubic feet, from Olathe to Quito. The shipping companies we’ve contacted keep tellin’ us we don’t have enough stuff to make it worth their while, and UPS wanted approximately three times what the post office was charging! (UPS guy tried to tell me the biggest difference was the thoroughness of their tracking. I told him I’ve worked for UPS and am familiar with the “thoroughness” of their tracking, and that for 300% more, they’d dang well better have 11 linebackers whose jobs are to personally carry my boxes onto the plane, hold them on their laps all the way to Ecuador, and then run them up the stairs to my new apartment! Then out loud I said … ) We thought about just takin’ the stuff on the airplane with us, as the airlines really don’t have a problem with you taking more than two checked bags. They just have a problem with you taking more than two checked bags unless yer payin’ $80-100/extra bag. They’ll actually allow you up to nine bags/ticketed passenger. That was gonna add up, though. We’d've had to pay the extra amount three times: once for the flight from KC to Tampa, once for the flight from Tampa to Miami, and once more for the flight from Miami to S. America. (The last two legs of the trip are with different airlines. At least that’s how they justified charging us that much more.) Anyhow, after we crunched the numbers, it looked like the “takin’ it with us” option was going to be pretty near as expensive as lettin’ the uglymakers ship it down for us. That’s our plan at this point. I’m becoming increasingly convinced that we’re gonna hit the ground in Ecuador penniless.

Was just interrupted in my writing by yet another postal employee, who brought us our legalized, notarized copies of our birth certificates and marriage license, which we’ll need in order to apply for visa extensions inside the country. That’s the last of the paperwork back that we had in DC at the consulate, but I’m not sure if we’ll need to send more for shipping purposes. Should find out today.

We have 9 days.

… the closer this all gets, the harder it’s getting to find time to write. Here are some updates:

We sent the passports to the consulate, who received them Friday afternoon at 3:30 p.m., Eastern time. I doubt they got anything done on them until Monday. If they sent them out yesterday, we should get the visas back today. Hopefully tomorrow at the latest.

In what we hope is the last envelope overnighted to the Ecuadorian consulate, we sent our birth certificates and marriage license (all of which had to be notarized) to be “legalized” by the consulate, at an additional fee, of course. Evidently that all helps with the application for visa extension once yer in the country. Once that’s back, and I’ve picked up the medical records from the orthopedic surgeon who worked with my shoulder injury earlier this year, I think we’ve got all the records and paperwork that we need.

The car still hasn’t sold. As a matter of fact, the only responses we’ve had have been from an agency that wants to charge us $500 to list it on a ton of websites for us. As soon as I’m done here, next on my list is calling a car broker that my buddy Kurt referred me to.

The vast majority of the packing is done now. Most of what’s left is either last minute stuff, stuff that’s gonna end up on the curb, or stuff that we’re giving away. We’re makin’ the call this week as to whether we’re gonna ship the majority of the stuff we’re takin’ or try and take it with us on the plane. Conservative estimates at costs for the latter is somewhere just over $2K. Here’s hopin’ shipping is cheaper.

The pix in this post are of a going-away party that our dear friends Kurt and Laura threw for us last Saturday. Several dozen of our long-time friends (and some family) came by and hung out with us for a few hours. It was amazing! There were a couple of people there that I’ve known for more than 25 years. Laura is a total “foodie” and had laid out this amazing spread of appetizers and desserts (to which others added continuing yumminess). She even had her chocolate fountain going, which she, incidentally, does professionally. Tell her I referred you, and she’ll double the invoice amount! You should also commend her on the stunning beauty of her website, and commend her on her choice of graphic designers. At any rate, the party was exactly the kind of thing that I’m going to miss so much about living here. I’ve never really connected with this city, per se. The people here, though, are amazing.

Pray for us. We have 11 days.

… we decide it would be a good thing to check on the progress of the visas. The consulate should have received them last Thursday before noon, and we’d heard nothing. I was expecting them either Tuesday or Wednesday of this week. So today, a week later, Rachel called them. The following is my assessment of what might have happened at the consulate last Thursday:

The Mishandling of Rick and Rachel’s Visa Applications:
A Very Short Play in One Act, with a Cat
Act I
Scene I [Lights slowly come up on a quaintly appointed office, decorated in a late-sixties fashion. A clock on the wall reads 8:57. There is a chair, and a single desk with a short stack of mail atop it. There is a single poppy in a bud vase sitting on the desk with a copy of Jean Paul Sartre’s play “No Exit” leaning against it. There is a single window that looks out onto an adjacent brick wall. There is a cat sitting in the window. The cat’s tail twitches and swishes intermittently. Sound effects of a ticking clock continue for three minutes. Then, in the distance, a church bell tower chimes the hour of 9:00.]

[ECUADORIAN CONSULATE EMPLOYEE enters stage left. He is wearing the uniform of a professional jockey, and carrying a large eclair. He enters the room softly humming the “Imperial Death March” by John Williams from The Return of the Jedi. He walks to the desk, picks up the mail and leafs through it. He selects a large manila envelope, and holds it up.]

ECUADORIAN CONSULATE EMPLOYEE: [in an affected Welsh accent]Oh, goody! Here, at long last, are the visa applications from those Sams folk. Such delightful specimens, they are! It will be a great pleasure to expedite their sallying forth to my glorious country of origin. [Tears open envelope, pulls out various papers of differing shapes and sizes (including one origami beetle), looks through the papers slowly and begins muttering under his breath.] Birth certificates … yes … affidavits from place of employment … yes … large origami beetle … hmmm … I suppose that will do for “large” … certainly seen bigger … yes … passports … hmmm … passports … [Looks in empty manila envelope, shaking it upside down to disgorge anything hidden inside. Spends some time looking through stack of papers, his own pockets, under the cat, etc.] Dear me! It looks as though the Sams’ have forgotten to include their passports! I guess I shall do the only thing I can. I shall stick this amongst all the other papers on this desk and wait until they call me to wonder why they don’t have their visas yet.

[Sound effects in the distance of screeching tires, then the crash of two cars colliding with the ring of broken glass hitting the pavement. ECUADORIAN CONSULATE WORKER looks up from his mail, sets the papers on the desk, takes the poppy from the bud vase, then smiles and nods to himself, as though pleased with his performance. He exits stage right. The cat jumps down from the windowsill and exits stage left. Lights turn off abruptly.]

THE END

Lord willing, it appears that we have a place to call “home” in Quito. After looking at three different places, Rachel and I have selected an apartment. I believe it’s on the second floor (maybe third), so we better get used to the whole no-oxygen thing pretty quick, I guess. We both just fell in love with this place right away.The kitchen is small, but looks very functional. It has two bedrooms, but it appears to have various and sundry little nooks that I might be able to utilize as an office. That would leave the second bedroom open for company. Dunno, we’ll have to figure that out when we get there. We’ll probably plan on doing the futon thing again when we’re there, which expands our options for having overnight guests. The really cool thing about this space is that it has one full bathroom, and two half baths. (I didn’t know how to say that. I mean, it’s more than 1.5 baths, but it’s not really 2.0 baths. Maybe 1.5.5 baths?) Anyhow, that’ll make it nice for having company and for when Rachel wants to blow-dry her hair during my reading time.

Evidently, pretty much none of the apartments in Quito come with appliances. So, we’ll need to be looking for a fridge, stove, microwave, and washer/dryer pretty much as soon as we get there. It sounds like there are places where they can be had quite affordably. One place sounds like it has package deals where they’ll throw in a free microwave with the purchase of an apartment “set.” Strange indeed are the ways of los suramericanos. We’re not super concerned about furnishing the place immediately. That’s something that will take some time. The awareness that everything we’ll be purchasing will have to be unloaded in five years or so will be a deterrent in that regard as well. How do y’all feel about sitting/sleeping on milk crates when you come to visit?

Doubly cool is the fact that the apartment is only a five minute walk from the school, according to reports. I’m still a little freaked out at the prospect of Rachel walking anywhere by herself in a foreign city. I guess she did so in this same city with some regularity when she was much younger, though. (I’ll still be walking her to school for the first week or so, though, I’d guess.)

Hey, I found this yesterday and thought I’d share. It’s a satellite photo of Quito with different points of interest notated. In the center of the frame should be a box with a cross-hair in it. That’s Alliance Academy, the school where Rachel will be working. Not sure what direction the apartment will be from there, but I’ll be sure and update the map when we get there. Here’s another neat Ecuador fact sheet that a buddy gave me. Don’t pay too much attention to the scary parts. You should see the CIA fact sheet for Kansas City!

Different things have captured my attention over the last few weeks, but the facet of Ecuador that’s intriguing me most right now is Chimborazo, Ecuador’s highest mountain. An extinct volcano, Chimborazo stands at 20,565 ft (Take that, Colorado!), and looks to be about 90 miles SW of Quito. It’s just this unbelievable monolith of ice, snow, and rock. Check it out here, here, here, and here. The most interesting thing about it is that its peak is the point on the surface of the earth that is farthest from the earth’s center. The earth is not a perfect sphere, but an oblate spheroid (I read that somewhere), meaning that it’s “squashed in” at the poles, and wider at the equator. So, even though Everest has more air between it’s summit and sea level, Chimborazo has more dirt beneath it. I found it intriguing, and I’ve completely fallen in love with the mountain.

Anyway, thought I’d share some words and pictures about our imminent domicile and other stuff. We have 17 days.

… yesterday was one. Yesterday I was all excited about exploring a city that was founded by the Spanish 473 years ago (last Wednesday), but whose history as a commercial, residential, and cultural center extends back more than 550 years even beyond that. Today, though, I’m back in the doldrums.

I have to sell a car. I have to sell a car that’s worth about $11K. Incidentally I owe just under $13K on it. It’s making my stomach do odd things.

Some days I’m excited. Some days I just want to stare at the wall. Some days I wish I had hair to pull out. This is one of those days.

By the way, the original official name of Quito was Muy Noble y Muy Leal Ciudad de San Francisco de Quito (”Very Noble and Loyal City of San Francisco of Quito”). We have 18 days.

We started at about 8am and closed at 3pm on both Friday and Saturday. Somehow we managed to sell a whole ton of stuff and ended the ordeal with over $600 more than when we started. Many thanks to Mitch M. and Kara T. for coming and helping us out on Saturday! It was nice to have someone else there to help out and to talk to. You guys are awesome!

The weather was hot and muggy, but out neighbor was nice enough to lend us his box fan, so we had some air moving. I, conveniently, broke our fan at the beginning of our sale by dropping a large box on it! Most annoying!

A group of my friends from ESL class came by and brought a group of their friends from their church. Rick, Mitch, and Kara had a chance to practice their Spanish while my friends got to practice their English. Being bilingual at an Olathe garage sale is a definite plus. Many of our visitors were from Mexico, but we also had a man who had lived in Spain, and another man from the Phillipines.

All of our West Indies/African decor was a hit. Most of it sold the very first day, and the rest of it sold the second. The Japanese decor went pretty fast, too.

So, now, we are tired, hot, and sweaty. I think we will clean up and spend some relaxing time with friends for the evening!

At 12:18 p.m., Central time, on Wednesday, the fifteenth of August, in the year of our Lord, two thousand and seven, the Olathe post office (hereafter referred to as “the ugly-makers“) took possession of the visa applications for Kendrick and Rachel Sams, with promises to deliver them to His Excellency, Consul Jorge Icaza of Ecuador, at his Washington, DC office by noon, tomorrow, being Thursday, the sixteenth of August, in the year of our Lord, two thousand and seven. Just thought you’d want to know

… might be the weakest link in the chain that is western civilization. Seriously, where do you waste more time? I mean, besides on the internet reading the ramblings of people who think they have important things to say.

Here, thought I’d share a picture of my passport photo. Isn’t it lovely? Note the accentuation of all my flattering attributes … the unevenness of the eyes, the dark circles beneath them, the vaguely pear-shaped noggin, the double chin, the half-inch discrepancy in my moustache trim … how they managed to get all that in there, while completely leaving out any of my inner beauty is beyond me. But that’s the post office.

We’d taken passport photos at Kinko’s and brought them with us. If I do say so myself, the Kinko’s pix were pretty good. I would’ve been happy (nay, proud) to display them at various and sundry foreign ports of call, at the request of sauve and debonair officials who would compliment me on my roguish good looks and boyish charm. But no! The post office decided that the beautiful Kinko’s photos would never do. Evidently my head didn’t look sufficiently like a bloated mass of gelatinous tissue in the ones we brought, so they had to take their own.

Perhaps this is a good place to put forth my theory that there is, in fact, in the United States, an Agency for I.D. Photo Quality Control that operates largely out of driver’s license bureaus, but clearly now has set up shop in our post offices as well. I’m further convinced that the agency is completely staffed with former Olan Mills employees.

Anyhow, the P.O. took their own photos, and we applied for our passports. Once the A.I.D.P.Q.C. (see above) relinquished control of the process, things moved quite smoothly. We got our passports back in two weeks and a day, which is next to impossible, if experienced sources are to be believed. Actually, I’ve said that the fact that something in the U.S. bureaucracy worked like it said it would is reason enough to know that God’s hand is behind our move to Ecuador.

We have 24 days.

So, many people have asked, “How did you decide to move to Quito?”, “Why would you decide to move to Quito?”, etc.

Well, I spent my senior year of high school at The Alliance Academy in Quito, Ecuador. While I didn’t get to experience a lot of city of Quito that year, I was very impressed by the quality of education at the school. Over the years I have stayed in touch with one of my teachers from there, Rob Quiring. He has been kind enough to send me emails about changes in the school, prayer requests for people he and his family know, and prayer requests for the needs of the school.

About six months ago the email from Professor Quiring mentioned positions that needed to be filled at Alliance Academy. One of those positions was that of the school psychologist/counselor. Rick and I talked about it and I sent in my resume, never really believing that this would actually happen. I wasn’t really qualified for what they needed… But it was fun to dream… The school contacted me within a few weeks and said that someone else, more qualified than myself, had applied for the job and was headed to Quito to ‘check things out’. I thought that was probably it… the position would be filled and we would stay in Kansas. Then, about six weeks ago, they emailed again saying that the position was still open and that they really liked me for the job.

Thus began a frenzy of paperwork, packing, selling, storing, etc. We applied for and received our Passports in two weeks time. We have now accumulated all the paperwork necesary for our Ecuadorian visas, and will send that in tomorrow. We have been talking back and forth with the school to arrange salary, housing, travel, etc. Needless to say, Rick and I both have a bit of a ‘deer in headlights’ look! We are so thankful for all of our family and friends who have been so helpful to us through encouragement and prayer.

We don’t know exactly where all this is headed, but we are both confident that this is where God is leading us. We want so badly to share this with those that we know and love. We want people to stay in touch and, most definitely, to come and visit us in Quito. God is working everywhere… why not see how He is working in South America?