Road to Indonesia---Hallelujah! Our Money from the Bank

 We are in  the final steps of getting the last of the money out of our bank account in China!!  For two (2) I repeat 2, years we have spent time and energy (and frustration) on trying to access our China bank account. During this time,  PKU has conitnued to pay our salaries into these accounts for 2 years.  Did I mention that this process has been pursued for 2 years? The convoluted process is too long  to outline, but it involved an overnight drive from SC to PA to deliver the paperwork to the PA Secretary of State, notary publics illegally trading our signatures on papers,  hiring someone to take paperwork to the China embassy in New York, bothering friends in Beijing to go strip our account after affidavids presenting our passports, signed notarized documents,  verification of who the  notary was who verfied our documents through state departments,  apostille kind of paperwork from embassies, etc. etc.  Then the money being wired from the friend's account to our stateside account and it being blocked, etc. etc. BUT half of it has now arrived in our account!  The other half should appear soon.  We also just got this semester's salary into our stateside account from PKU directly.....after many emails, calls, trips to the bank, etc.  Finally PKU has worked out the process of being able to directly wire money to the our US account. We pray the problem is permanently solved?? Hallelujah. 

Of course, life is never easy.  Today at market, I sat down to rest on a wall, and sat where someone had spit some betelnut. I now have a big read stain on the back of my dress. Do you know how nasty that is? Ugh.

7 days of school and 3 days of finals and Christmas break is here in Indonesia.  This year PKU is also closing early and we should be done on about Dec. 24. We are very, very busy.