Hello once again family and friends!
Unfortunately, I am home sick for the day. My tri-annual cold and flu has come to visit. It is incredibly boring and lonely being home the whole day, but at least I have some time to catch up on blogging!
So, it is with great excitement that I get to tell you that my South African Spouse Permit has finally arrived! I am officially legal in this country. I am so glad that this process is finally over (for the time being) and I can relax for the next two years before doing it again.
With my visa in hand, we are nearly ready to go to Zambia for our team mission trip. We leave 25 June and will return 9 July. We will be working with Love's Door, All Nations in Livingstone, as well as two other partnering ministries: Sambaland and Kwathu Children's Home. We are all very excited! As a team, we have raised just over half of the money and are getting ready to have our vaccinations done this week. It has been an exciting few weeks as we have been practicing dances, dramas, and songs. We will be sleeping in tents in the bush experiencing REAL bush life. In addition to children's ministry and rural community ministry, we have the very special privilege of visiting Victoria Falls for the very first time! We will send more updates as the time gets closer to our leaving.
Let me leave you with a few prayer points:
-My health and the health of our team. Out of 10, 5 people have already gotten sick
-Safety in our travels
-Financial provision
-Making a Kingdom impact
-Growth and closeness of our team both now in our preparations and as we go.
Thanks and God Bless!
The Bakers
Hi family and friends,
After nearly TEN MONTHS of waiting for my (Leah) South African Spouse Visa, I have finally made some headway. The application was originally intended to take 30 days. After about 3 months I became suspicious and have been investigating since then. I do not have the visa in my hands yet, but it was promised to me within a week if all goes well.
Piet and I have sat on the phone trying to contact anyone and everyone we could possibly imagine might be able to help us. Every phone call resulted in the same answer: "there is a massive backlog in Home Affairs and everyone else is also waiting for their visa. Be patient while we try to expedite your application." No amount of trying to reach a supervisor or superior was helping in the slightest bit.
About a week ago, Piet found an email address of one of the directors of Home Affairs. Surprisingly, this man wrote back to say that he could help us. He told us to personally fax him my application and the attached documentation and he would see that it was completed. What he seemed to explain, is that I needed to fax him SOME of my documents so that he could locate my original application. What I misunderstood, however, is that I needed to fax him EVERYTHING that I originally submitted. In my original application, I submitted medical reports, x-rays, etc, that had cost quite a bit of money. Home Affairs had the originals (and had now apparently lost them), so I could not re-submit them to this man.
After lots of fighting, frustration, and tears, I had to go through all of my medical examinations and x-rays and other things to completely re-apply. This cost us nearly R1000, which we weren't expecting to pay.
I am happy to say that on Friday afternoon I submitted all 35 pages of supporting documents and am awaiting the result.
Please stand in prayer with us that I will finally have my visa after so many months of waiting.
Blessings and love,
The Bakers
