Hello Loved ones!!

It has been quite the humbling experience living and working in the Holy land these last four months. We've been led quite out of our comfort zone and grown and stretched in so many healthy ways. One of those significant ways is the humility that comes with living off of the prayerful and financial support of others. By your prayers, encouragements, and gifts we have worked for a cause here and one of the biggest challenges has been letting God love us and support us through His body (that's YOU!). Know that we are so grateful for all of you being in our lives and that God is using you to sustain us physically, emotionally and spiritually. That's cool, right?
BUT
Times change, and that's what's happening now. We originally had intended to be here until June of next year to finish out the school year here and thereby finishing out the programs we started, but it seems other things lay in our future.
Upon Char's re-entry to the country at the beginning of the month, they pulled her aside (because she's so sketchy looking) for some intense questioning and rather than giving her the standard 3 month tourist visa, gave her a two month visa instead. And since they don't have a two month stamp, they put the three month in there and then scribble it out and write in nice and big "2 months ONLY!". Very discreet. Which makes her an automatic suspect everywhere we go. On top of that, they flagged her in the system and informed her that she was not allowed to renew her tourist visa, so we had better be out by the first of 2011 or figure something else out.
Well, we had volunteer visas in the process, but as these things go here, the government is making it incredibly painful and slow to make that happen, so it won't work out. So we are taking Israel's hint and leaving the country.
It's not all bad. We definitely miss the western US and living in Palestine isn't necessarily easy. If we were extremely passionate about staying here, there are apparently some slightly less legal routes to take, but we don't consider ourselves much for playing the international immigration game, so we're taking this opportunity to head back to our homeland, the land we love.
What this means for YOU:
-- If you were considering coming to visit us this spring... don't. cause we won't be here
-- If you were considering sending us any packages... don't, cause we'll be gone by the time they get here
-- If you are supporting us with monthly monetary gifts, make sure to cancel it after we leave. We fly out of here Dec. 28
-- If you have missed us as much as we have missed you, then we will see you soon.
We will be spending this next month and a half here working very hard to try and leave Paidia and it's staff as well equipped as possible to fill our holes when we are gone. So be praying for that and if you happen to hear of any good job openings that you think we fit the bill for, give us a heads up.
Peace
Ottos