Greetings from Mr. and Mrs. Josh Renaud!
Unfortunately we never really had a chance to connect my computer to the internet to update the website. We were just too busy!
However, rest assured that the week went very well and we are back in the States, preparing to enjoy our honeymoon at Clearwater Lake near Piedmont, Missouri.
Of course, you probably want to know about the wedding. It was an amazing and memorable experience.
The day before, we had to visit a market to get some final supplies for the wedding. Corina (director of El Jordán, a ministry that helps street kids) took Yoli and I, along with two other workers from El Jordán, Eulogio and his wife Wilma. We had to purchase small glass candleholders to use as souvenirs for the wedding. We also had to buy the ingredients for all the food.
After obtaining what we needed, we returned to El Jordán. I took on the task of assembling Yoli's table centerpieces. She had created some beautiful artificial cartuchos (lilies) with long wooden stems painted green. After giving me instructions and materials, I began working. The idea was to make a basket with three flowers growing out of it. The result was pretty nice! My wife is full of good ideas.
While I was doing that, Yoli was working on the flowergirl's basket, as well as cutting blocks of special foam called "oasis" which you soak in water and use to keep fresh flowers alive.
After that we had our rehearsal. Yoli's bridesmaids were three of her sisters (Sara, the youngest; Noemi; and Lucy). Her friend Dora served as maid of honor. I didn't have a best man, but my three groomsmen were my Dad, Noemi's husband Alcides, and Lucy's husband Juan.
(I should mention here that three days before the wedding (Wednesday), Yoli's brothers-in-law held a surprise bachelor party (último día de soltero) for me after a night of shooting pool. It was fun.)
After the rehearsal, my parents and I took on the task of assembling the wedding souvenirs, based on Yoli's design. My dad and I, being men of practical minds, turned the effort into an assembly line and had things moving along quite well until we stumbled onto a problem. The ribbons we cut to tie around the candleholder were too short. It took a while, but we found a suitable solution and cranked out 60 candleholders to give away as souvenirs to our guests the nexy day. We returned the GMU guest house where we were staying to try and get some sleep.
The day of the wedding was also full of work. My parents and I met Yoli at El Jordán. Yoli's vision was to hold the ceremony on the second story of the complex, which has a large open-air patio connecting several apartments. She also planned to hold the reception in the large grassy courtyard at Jericho, which is the building next door to El Jordán (and soon to be the site of an expansion of their ministry).
We had hoped Yoli's parents would be able to help us set up, but unfortunately they couldn't. The night before they had not only attended our wedding rehearsal, but they also celebrated Yoli's youngest sister Sara's high school graduation. So, my mom, dad, and I cleared the patio, swept, and mopped.
While that was going on, Eulogio, Wilma, Kelly and several other friends from El Jordán were preparing the food for the wedding. They worked all day on the food in a hot kitchen. The food turned out to be absolutely delicious and we are so grateful for all the hard work they did.
My dad and I had to bring tables and chairs from El Jordán to Jericho (no simple task!) and do the general setup for the reception. Later we brought 8 pews from the church next door up to the second-story patio for our wedding ceremony.
Yoli, Corina, my mom, and others worked on the various flower arrangements, all of which I later saw were beautiful. My parents and I returned to the guest house eventually to sleep, shower, and change clothes. Yoli left to get her hair and beauty stuff taken care of.
The day was quite hot, and our wedding was supposed to begin at 4 p.m. en punto (on the dot). But, unlike America, special occasions in Bolivia frequently (some might say normally) begin hours after they were announced. Because of late arrivals and problems with bridesmaid dresses, etc, our wedding didn't begin until after 5 p.m. That turned out to be a blessing in disguise as the sun sank lower and shadows covered all the pews, and the breeze picked up. I felt fairly comfortable wearing my suit coat, and not drippingly hot as I'd feared.
The ceremony went great with no hitches that I'm aware of. Around 50 people or so showed up — Yoli's friends, her family, folks from the mission (Avant Ministries, formerly called GMU), and my parents.
After the ceremony, Kelly took lots and lots of photos of us. We are especially looking forward to seeing the wacky ones taken with Yoli's brothers-in-law.
There aren't any photos available to put on the web yet, but rest assured when we return from our honeymoon (probably next Monday, Nov. 31), we will get the photos online ASAP.
Sunday was bittersweet for Yoli, as it was time to pack as much of her belongings as she could into 5 suitcases and a carry-on. We spent several hours at her house working on that project. Her sister Lucy was sick, unfortunately, and Lucy's son Papicho was upset much of the day.
After a final meal at El Tren Rojo (The Red Train), Corina and Kelly arrived with their SUV to take us to the airport. We took all our stuff from the guest house and drove to Yoli's house to get her suitcases. It was a tight fit during the drive — six people and seven suitcases.
When we arrived there was bad news — Lucy needed some sort of medicine administered by a syringe. Yoli is the one who normally does that when it's necessary, but the plunger in the syringe broke and she couldn't do it. This extra little emergency heightened the emotional atmosphere. There were tears and lots of hugs and kisses. The family also sang Psalm 121 (in Spanish, of course).
And while I've been adopted into Yoli's family as a son and brother, I still felt a bit outside everything that was happening that evening. I was the one taking their daughter and sister away, at least for a while. Still, it was a nice goodbye, and it made me wish I could stay in Bolivia a little longer.
So there you have it, the story of our marriage in brief. Yoli plans to share her side of the story very soon. Plus we plan to write about Monday, our travel day, and the day we legally tied the knot in Miami, Florida.
I'm dealing with one of those classic "unrealities" right now. Here I am, back in Bolivia after nine months away. I've been re-united with the love of my life, I've greeted and spent most of the day with my future-in-laws, I attended the Avant prayer meeting and caught up with several missionaries I knew before (and heard reports about those I knew who were absent).
The unreality is that my parents are here.
I have to admit to some brief culture shock. Though I remembered the smelly markets, the dirt roads strewn with trash and building materials, the unusual living quarters, the buses overflowing with people and driven like rollercoaster rides, the crowded streets, and everything else, it still smacked me in the face again.
I was quickly over it and back in love with this place. As I discussed with my parents tonight, it is so unlike suburban St. Louis. My mom put it like this: "folks here live outside." Day-to-day life for most is not buried in a cubicle deep within some building. Nor is it hidden away inside a gargantuan house in some cookie-cutter subdivision. Life is outside, public. The streets, the buses, the neighborhoods are brimming with it.
I like that about Bolivia.
In any case, you probably want the details, so let me get to them.
We arrived safe and sound in Santa Cruz around 8 a.m. this morning. The trip was mostly uneventful, though the last leg (from Cochabamba, Bolivia to Santa Cruz) was quite turbulent. I'm thankful there were no hangups with luggage or any of our connections.
I rushed to greet my fiancee, Yoli Zegarra, once we cleared the baggage area. She was there along with Corina Clements, who runs El Jordán, a support and training center for street kids.
We arrived to the guest house and put away our things, and Yoli and I took Mom and Dad to see a "kiosko", which is a sort of tiny store run by a woman out of a building connected to her home. Places like these are found all throughout Santa Cruz's residential areas, which are very different from our single-use zoned neighborhoods.
After eating a quick breakfast, Yoli and I went to the market to buy some material for a dress for her mom, and an iron to give her sister for her birthday. I loved going through the markets, crowded and crazy, and riding again on the buses (to which the same description applies).
Finally all four of us made our way to the home of Yoli's parents. It was my parents' first ride on a bus, and their first real look at the city, since the bus route cut across the city through its very heart.
Reuniting with Yoli's parents, sisters, brothers-in-law, nieces and nephews was a trip. As each group arrived, I would greet them excitedly and introduced my parents.
At first it was a tad awkward since there were so many people there. In addition to being the day of our arrival, Monday was also the birthday of both Yoli's sister Lucy and Lucy's son "Papicho" (whose real name is Jonathan).
Doña Lucila did a great job of cooking and setting up her home. Lucy cooked some chicken (joking she shouldn't have had to, since it was her birthday) which was absolutely delicious.
Though conversation was tough initially, it improved over time. Obviously my parents don't speak much Spanish. And while I speak a good deal more, mine still leaves a lot to be desired (and my listening ability is still fairly low). As different family members had to leave, things got better. There was less chaos and more of a chance to focus on individuals for conversation.
We made plans to visit Noemi and her husband Alcides on Wednesday afternoon. Later that night, my dad and I will fishing go with Alcides, Don Hector, and the other two brothers-in-law (Juan, Lucy's husband; and Boris, Eliza's husband). I'm quite sure those three guys will try to play some trick on me. They are all pranksters (especially Alcides). But I'm sure it will still be a fun night, and we'll certainly get good exercise practicing our communications skills since Yoli won't be there.
Eventually I ended up playing a game of Uno with my parents, Yoli, her sister Noemi, and Lucy's daughter Leya. I ended up the victor, though it was close.
After staying at Yoli's house most of the day, we returned to the Avant guest house for the mission's prayer meeting. There wasn't a huge turnout. Many of the people I knew best were away on different trips in Bolivia or on furlough (a sort of missionary's vacation from the field) in the U.S. Still there were a few folks I knew from my previous trip, and one guy I had met through email earlier in the fall. It was a good time.
Now I'm preparing to hit the sack. Tuesday promises to be another big day.
Earlier today, Yoli received her visa from the U.S. Embassy. This was the final hurdle in the process, and we are now free to marry!
Keep reading to learn all the dates and details...
My parents and I will fly to Santa Cruz this Sunday. On Saturday the 22nd, we will have a wedding ceremony performed by Dr. Russell Penney, the rector of Hebron Seminary. Some of you might recall from my weblog earlier this year that Rusty is the man who invited me to visit Bolivia and develop a website for the Seminary.
We will not be legally married at that time, however. Because of the nature of our visa, we will not sign any marriage papers until we are back in the States. We will arrive in Florida on Monday the 24th and get married in Miami before taking the final leg of our flight back to St. Louis. We'll have a honeymoon and in early December my parents will host a wedding reception.
Once Yoli is safely back to Santa Cruz, she will try to post a message here about her experiences in recent weeks. So keep checking back!
I have some GREAT NEWS to share with you all. With apologies to Martin Luther King, Jr.:
"Free at last, free at last! Thank God Almighty, we are free at last!"
It turns out that our visa petition was approved by the Nebraska BCIS office on Oct. 6. They just forgot to let us know.
Keep reading to learn the entire story …
According to the BCIS case-status website, which I checked every day, nothing had changed. Our case appeared to still be in limbo throughout October.
In reality, it had been approved and sent from the Nebraska BCIS office to the State Department's "Nevada Visa Center." The NVC checks names (in this case, Yoli's and mine) against law enforcement databases to ensure we aren't criminals or terrorists.
On Oct. 20, NVC approved and mailed our petition to the U.S. Embassy in La Paz, Bolivia — the last leg of the visa journey.
Fortunately for us, NVC mailed a notice explaining they had processed our petition and forwarded it on. After reading the notice, I was happy but confused. I didn't understand how NVC could have had our petition when I had heard nothing from Nebraska.
(At this point it may be helpful to point out that Nebraska is the black hole that kept our petition for 220 days — 70 days longer than they told us at the beginning.)
So, I probably shouldn't have been surprised by Nebraska's latest flub. It took a few calls to Senator Jim Talent's office to get some help. One of his immigration folks got confirmation that our petition had been approved on Oct. 6 — Nebraska BCIS simply forgot to mail us the Notice of Approval and also forgot to update their web database, leaving us in suspense for 2 weeks. Oops.
Regardless, this is all GREAT news. The U.S. Embassy in Bolivia has already received our visa petition (Thank you Lord for speeding up the mail!) and we expect that within days, Yoli will be able to set up an interview date at the embassy. This is the final step before she is given the visa and is free to come to the U.S. to marry me.