El Salvador Resident, Debra Skalsky

The process of obtaining an El Salvadoran Residency card has made me about nuts. I started this process by gathering and notarizing a lot of required documents before I even left home. Then 2 days after I arrived, we started the official process here on April 26th. When I got my temporary card, I was told the permanent card would arrive before the temporary one expired in 60 days. Yeah, right. As you may remember, I jumped through major hoops and lost much study time as I had to find a way to get a 90 day extension onto my Visa (since my residency card was about to expire) while I was in Guatemala. And on the very day my temporary residency card expired, the needed Visa extension was done. That was sometime in mid to late July if my memory serves me well. The secretary here kept calling immigration weekly, and was always told that our (including Bobby and Brittney...missionaries in the same boat) cards weren't ready. However, on Tues Oct 11th, we were told our cards were finally ready. We were met by 2 surprises as we entered the immigration dept. Even though we each paid $54 for the temporary card, and I paid $60 for an extension, the permanent card would cost $84 more. Luckily, one of the missionaries had just cashed a check and we borrowed money from her. Only cash was accepted. All in all, the card cost me about $300. Surprise #2, after paying and obtaining a receipt, we were given an appt card to return in one week at 11:30am to obtain our card. Yep...that day was only the day where we paid for the card. I've already warned you to not try to make any logical sense here...it'll only cause you to go bald.

So, yesterday, Wed Sept 19th, we were bounced from one line to the next for about 1.5 hr, but we left with our precious cards in hand. THANK YOU JESUS! We're all officially residents (NOT citizens) of El Salvador now and this will keep us from needing further costly extensions on our visa and will keep us from having to fly out of the country every 90 days. Unfortunately, the card expires in 1 yr, even though I was told it was good for 2 years. And, annoyingly, the card will expire in 1 yr from the date of when some high up person approved our card, which was in mid AUGUST. Therefore our card expires in 11 months. GRRRR! Teri tells me, however, the renewal process isn't bad. We'll see. But in the meanwhile, it's good to have this finally done. I know bunches of you prayed for this at various stages of the game. Thanks so much!