COURT DATE

Thursday was an incredibly disappointing and disheartening day. We went with MJB, our in-country rep, to see the judge to confirm our court date with him for Friday morning. After much gesticulating and pleading on our behalf, MJB was unable to get him to commit to Friday morning.  The judge was also gesticulating and pleading with MJB to make the court date on the following Tuesday. The Spanish was flying rapidly and I easily got lost...but I did keep hearing Martes (Tuesday).  All I could do was fight back tears. The judge happens to be a Christian man, and he was also invoking Dios (God) into the conversation...I am not really sure what that was about! After we left and met with our translator, we found out that he had a big judicial test on Saturday and needed to study on Friday.  Yeah, pretty sure he knew about that before Thursday...  But anyway, it is what it is. We cancelled Andy's flight home for Saturday and called our clinic to see what we could do about getting coverage for him next week. Our relief vet, Monica,  was supposed to have surgery on Tuesday, so that would leave us with no doctor on Tuesday and Wednesday and part of Thursday, at best.  (I can't even tell you how financially devastating that would be...) As of right now, Monica is trying to re-schedule her surgery so that she can continue to be there in Andy's absence.  Regardless of what happens this week, the delay in court date means that Andy will not be able to return to Quito for Christmas. We just simply cannot afford it.  Feliz Navidad, Mr. Judge!

We are also supposed to go to the judge's office this morning to "remind" him that we are supposed to go to court tomorrow.  Imagine if we made an appointment for you at our veterinary clinic, but you had to call the day before to "remind" us of that appointment.  Yeah, it's that crazy. Welcome to Latin America. I hardly slept last night and am just a wreck about this.  All I can do is pray that the God of the universe (and the God of this judge) is going before us to make this happen.

I would love to post some pictures and descriptions of our last few days, but I am just too consumed with this court thing.  I will post later about our meeting with the judge....please keep praying :)