The Consular division of the US Embassy of Tel Aviv provides a necessary service. US citizens abroad need to register their children born abroad, apply for and renew passports, social security, and more. The difficulties entailed by the need to go the Embassy itself are well known by anybody who has needed to - the level of security, the appointment system, the amount of time, the hassle and expense of getting there, etc.

To make it easier for US citizens to take care of these things, the Consular department has been going out to various communities that have relatively high numbers of US citizens and "holding court" in those towns. You still have to get an appointment for when they come to your town, but once you do, you are in for a treat. The clerks are friendly and helpful, the amount of time saved is amazing - between saving time in travel and in reviewing the paperwork and processing requests.

On Wednesday, the Consular department of the US Embassy in Tel Aviv came to Bet Shemesh. We were the biggest customer of the day. Out of 78 appointments processed over the course of the entire visit, we used 8 of them - more than 10%! The consular staff had a blast, taking pictures of us, holding the baby, and laughing and joking with us (we were even compared to the Duggars!). It seems such a large family is a bit of a rarity in their world, and the joy at being able to assist in such a speedy manner so many requests together was difficult to conceal. They really went and made the extra effort to be accommodating and helpful - not just to us but to everybody who was there filing requests.

Thanks to the Embassy staff for a wonderful service provided, and thanks to Ephraim for arranging the whole thing!

Here are some pictures from the visit:

taking over the table..

Good job Ephraim!