This is a late post but still, want to take the opportunity to give thanks to God for helping us with our visa once again this year! 
Our visa was going to expire on the 30th August this year and we started the visa application 3 weeks before it expired. This should have been just enough time, also so that we could maximise the visa validity period. However, this year, the government had implemented a new requirement for the work visa that we were holding onto. We were required to apply for a certificate online (the certificate has a super long name.. basically it’s a certificate we need to get to certify that we were working with our institute legally and etc. ). We had to have this certificate in order to start renewing our work visa.
The website stated that it required at least 10 working days for the application of the certificate. We waited for 2 weeks and there was still no reply! During this time, we prayed hard but at the same time, there was a peace and a certain excitement in our heart that God would provide a way.
2 days before our visa expired, we went to file our taxes (this was another requirement if we wanted to renew our visa) and the accountant that we met was extremely kind. He found out about our situation and offered to help us as he knew someone who had connections in the ministry and might be able to help us find out why our application for the cert had not yet been approved. Within a single day, he contacted this professor, we met him at night and he was also kind enough to want to leave early from one of his appointments the next day in order to help us because we were really running out of time! We were really surprised by the offer!
The next day, we checked our mails and received the rejection emails from the ministry. They had not approved the application for the certificate! We also consulted the director of our school and she advised us against receiving help from the accountant… Hmmm… this was a strange twist of events but we thought it was also true that since our application had been rejected, we were not sure how the accountant and profesor could help us any further… so we decided to kindly reject the offer of help from the accountant. Meanwhile, we had also consulted a lawyer who had helped another teacher with his application and her assistant had told us that we could simply try applying for another visa as quickly as we could. The next easiest option was the student visa, since we were also studying Spanish at our school. So Eduardo, our administrator helped us do up the documents within the day and the next day, we went early in the morning to be in the queue for the application.
As we were applying for a student visa, Eduardo advised us to not speak too much in Spanish… haha.. yet at the same time, we did not want to lie. While we were waiting in the queue, ST reminded me of the testimony of Brother Yun (from the book, The Heavenly Man) where he was at the customs and simply trusted that God would help him through, so he kept silent but maintained faith and a confident look on his face. And God helped him pass through the customs without any issues. So we decided to trust in God and keep silent but also be truthful.
God is faithful! Amazingly, our visa was approved very quickly by the officer, no questions asked! We told Eduardo and he was very amazed and kept saying that God’s hand was upon us as it was really amazing that it was the last day of validity and everything went so smoothly! (He had actually tried to apply for this visa for us the previous year and our application had been rejected the previous year because the visa officers had said that we were already in Quito for 2 years then, we should be able to speak Spanish so we needn’t study anymore..)
Praise the Lord! Once again, He saved us at the very final and appropriate moment! 
We thank God for this amazing testimony -
1) His beautiful timing and for helping us to trust in Him. It seems.. God really wants us here. 
Haha..!
2) Usually, the student visa is only approved for half a year. Ours was approved for an entire year! PTL!
3) Eduardo is a new believer and this was an amazing testimony for him. He told us, the day before we went to the office, he really prayed hard for us. Praise God for this answered prayer! It strengthened Eduardo’s faith!
4) We spoke to the director and she was also very surprised that the smoothness of the entire process at the visa office. She herself, a non-Christian, told us – God really can do wonders! This is the second time she has experienced this with us.
We have an awesome God who is never late in answering our prayers! Now we have our visa valid till August 2012.
In the meantime, we have discovered a new permanent residential visa that we could try applying for. This requires us to notarize our certificates in Singapore and then come back to Ecuador to apply for it. ST and I are thinking of trying this out. Please pray along with us with wisdom and favor in the eyes of the authorities! Look forward to more testimonies! Amen!
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