Living the News

Looking at the New York Times this morning, the front page top story is that the government is shutting down.

Top story on the Americas page of the International news, Venezuela Expels 3 U.S. Embassy Officials.

Both stories are about us.

Dave is actually named in the Venezuelan article - he, along with the chargé d'affairs (we have no ambassador here) and another colleague have been expelled from the country.  President Maduro said Dave and the other two officers by name in his speech.  Its amazing.  I believe they're accused of plotting to destabilize the country via the power grid.  Awesome.

We learned this yesterday - Monday.  I woke up today - Tuesday - at 3:30 in the morning.  I tried to go back to sleep for quite a while, but gave up by 5:30.  That's when I checked the news.  As of 12:01 this morning, the U.S. government has closed shop.  All non-essential employees are supposed to stay at home.

Through all sorts of confusing finance, our global embassies and consulates have the funding to stay open for a few days past the first of October.  This is good news for us, because we need a lot of help today getting all of our ducks in a row.  But once we leave Venezuela, there is very little argument that Dave will be an essential employee.  Furthermore, many (all?) of those still reporting to work will go without paychecks.

We are leaving most of our things in Venezuela.  We hope to sell everything that we leave behind, but U.S. law forbids us from making a profit on this sale (because that would make us importers, I assume).  So we are going to do nothing more than recover the cost of the things we will replace.  Still in question is whether or not that is true of our car.

Well, lets be honest here.  Most everything is still in question at this point.  Our entire family flies to Virginia on Wednesday.  Tomorrow.  That much we know.  How long we will be there, where we will stay, where the girls will go to school, what Dave will do immediately and how he will find his next job are all unknown.

Lilly is very upset.  Sophia is excited about the airplane ride.  Annika is looking forward to sleeping in a hotel tomorrow night.  Dave nearly threw up when he learned the news, but has been moving steadily forward since he got home last night.  And I am in my element right now - I can do crisis, and I am nothing if not organized.  We have friends rallying around us in town today, and people sending prayers from all over the world.  We face a challenging time, but we are so blessed.