Road to Indonesia---Online school and visas

 Just to keep you up on current circumstances so you can pray.  At this point Papua is on lock down until August 14.  Our director told us this morning that we should anticipate online teaching for at least the first 3 days of school (classes are to begin August 11), but realistically the end of August for online seems feasible. Some families are indicating that they will homeschool rather than do online teaching because of financial difficulties if online is the only option. We need full enrollment participation to meet budget, we are told, although everyone  empathisizes with parents' dilemma.  

It changes every day whether the Sentani Airport which is our town will be closed or not. Please pray that it is open when we are done with 8 days quarantine. Many people are also caught in the States right now becasue of the new dictate that children over 12 must be fully vaccinated. The parents were done with their vaccination, but now the wait for the completion of their children. Many provinces require all teachers to be vaccinated, but it is unclear if our province does or not.  This is fine for those of us coming into the country who must be vaccinated but it is more difficult for those who have stayed here.

Because of the tremendous spike in cases in Jakarta, the capital, visas are a real mess. Seemingly every one who needs a visa needs to come in on a visitor's visa and then try for  work visas. We were fortunate for Rick to at least have his work visa finished in May.  It is unclear whether I have my own work visa or am under Rick's umbrella, but they let us in and supposedly we should not have any more hassles??? For many people and for the organization it is going to be very complicated. 

I doubt you really want all of these details. And we fully realize that the info might change tomorrow. But I want to let you know enough so you can intelligently pray about the hassles involved. Thank you so much for those of you who regularly pray for our minitry.