We're Moving to China (for real this time)

We actually have visas and tickets, so we are actually leaving for China. We had to push our leave date back three times now, but we have the tickets and we are leaving on March 10th.
What happened is that our paperwork from China was sent to the wrong address. It sat at the DHL office for a couple weeks and then when we found out where it was an called DHL and they informed us that they had just sent the package back to China. So the package was resent and it got to us right away and we were finally able to apply for our visas. We just found out that they were issued and the BICF booked tickets for us for March 10th.

It has been sort of a funny time for us. We keep having going away parties and then have to tell people that we aren't actually leaving yet, but now it's happening. Soon when we update this blog we will actually be talking about China.

The Waiting Game

We wanted to post an update of what is going on with us right now. We are currently finishing up with our packing. UPDATE: We found someone to take over our lease starting March 1st, which is a huge relief. We have put most of our stuff into a storage unit, and now we’re trying to finalize what we are actually going to bring with us to China.

Last weekend we took a trip to the cities with some friends from Eau Claire in order to visit the Walker Art Museum. We also ate at a fun Malaysian restaurant on Eat Street. The picture on the right is of our friends Jon, Kyle and Abbi at the Walker. It also exemplifies the current Banker situation, that is waiting.

The big thing right now is that we still don’t have our visas that will allow us to enter the People’s Republic of China. Our invitation letter and worker’s permit, which we need in order to apply for the Z Visa that we want, have been issued, but we don’t have them in our hands yet. The documents were put in the mail in China but were delayed we think because of Chinese New Year. “Chun Jie” in China is by far the biggest holiday of the year, and pretty much everything gets shut down for about two weeks, including the postal service. We don’t want to book our plane tickets until we have our visas.
So we’re still waiting. Our target date has been pushed back to at least February 26th, and it could be pushed back another week.

We have raised over half of the money that we were trying to raise for the move, and we have some dates for “Last chance to see Matt and Kara” parties.

There are two things in Eau Claire. On Friday February 22nd Matt is playing a concert of some of his songs with his friends from the band The Daredevil Christopher Wright and Kyle Christian at the Acoustic Café at 7pm. All are welcome to come and hear it and hang out with us before and after. Also on Saturday February the 23rd, we will be having an open house of sorts during the day from noon until 5pm, location TBA.

In Minnesota we will also be having a pot luck at New Hope Church on Sunday February 24, after church. The details are still being worked out for which room and exactly what time. Bring something to share and hang out with us.

Give us money

Some people have been asking about supporting us financially, so we have added the info that you need to the side bar on the top.

Paintings at Racy's

I have put up some of
my paintings at
Racy de'Lenes Coffee House
on Water Street in Eau Claire.
Stop in and look at them if
you are in the area.
If you want to buy some good

art, then you should really
check them out.