We're back!

"From where?" you say. You probably didn't even know we went anywhere, but if you follow the blog at all, you would have noticed the absence of postings. I know the last one was on Saturday, March 4. That was the weekend I was informed that an American was in the hospital in a coma, and there were no family members on the island. That meant that Monday I started a 4-day stretch of almost constant phone calls to local people, doctors, people who knew the man, and to the family members in the US, as well as the consul-general in Lisbon. The man died on Tuesday morning and the process became so complex that we had to delay our planned trip to Lisbon by one day and fly on Friday rather than Thursday. We had been invited to participate in a missions conference in Lisbon, and we missed the first night and the morning of the next day because of this emergency situation. At one point it appeared likely we would have to cancel the whole trip.

Although we didn't stay for the funeral on Friday afternoon, I couldn't leave until I had guaranteed the funeral would be held, and that there were no documents missing that would require my signature as consular agent. I had to file reports on every detail to the consul-general, and there was no time at all to post on the blog.

We just got home tonight (Thursday) after a week during which time I was only able to check e-mail now and then, because there was no time and/or no Internet access. We were in the Algarve on Portugal's southern coast on Sunday and Monday, visiting a church down there, then we came back to Lisbon, where I had two full days of meetings at the embassy.

After visiting and talking with the members tomorrow, I will be able to let you know how Jackie, Marcia and Raquel are doing. There are also other things to report about the trip, but for today I'll just leave it at this explanation about why you hadn't heard in almost two weeks.