Tico Tuesday, January 9th

Happy First Tico Tuesday of 2018 and boy do I have GREAT news today!!!

 I have my new residency card! And, please note, it's not just any residency card: But it is for PERMANENT residency! (This is basically the equivalent of a green card in the States). I can't vote or have a tico passport, but, renewing my residency in the future should be worlds easier. I should be able to just do it at a bank or post office and not have to even go to Migration! AND... (forgive all my shouting, this is really exciting stuff!) this residency card won't expire for THREE YEARS! Every other residency card I've had has only been good for 1 year or 2. And, when they gave me the approval in December (I didn't want to tell you it was approved until I actually had my card in hand; with this stuff you can't believe it till it happens), the papers said that they were only going to give me permanent residency for 2 years at a time. I was a little bummed at that. Permanent residency cards are usually good for 3-5 years. So, to see the 2021 expiration date made getting my card today even sweeter! Praise the Lord! After 9 years of migratory runaround: countless trips to migration, hours (if I added them all up they would equal multiple days) spent in lines, money spent on parking (and on other occasions, hours spent on buses to avoid paying for said parking), frustrating airport experiences trying to return to Costa Rica while in the midst of another residency card renewal saga, getting treated like cattle at migration, not to mention the actual money spent on documentation (yikes!), the chasing down people from different organizations, the photocopies, the letters, the official translations, all the stuff I had to do in the States before I ever left, etc., etc., etc. Whew, thank and praise the Lord it's over! I am celebrating today!!
Praise God for his goodness and faithfulness, and may he bless don Freddy in migration, the one person who actually went to bat for me and kindly helped keep the process from taking even longer. Thank you to you for all your prayers and encouragement along the way! Here's to a great start to 2018!
Love,
Carrie