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Category: Visas

World Cup Ends

A Layne Post

The past couple of weeks Jon and I both had some pretty bad colds, first him, then me. Because the patients at the hospital are on Chemo, it is better for Jon and me not to risk passing on our little sickness. Jon missed a couple days, and then I missed all of last week. I realized that I really do miss the sweet people there, and my heart was warmed that they asked for and missed me as well!

The World Cup is over. Congratulations Spain! Now that it has ended, our lives and schedules are about to shift. Due to visiting hours and coordinating with other volunteers, Jon and I can only be visiting in the Oncology Ward on our usual Mondays, Wednesdays, Fridays for 2-3 hours at a time. At this point, we are not positive what we are going to do with the rest of our time.

There are some options, and Jon and I are in prayer about these. We do not want to “do” just to “do”, but we want to be passionate and obedient to the Lord. We also want to be faithful stewards of our time and your support. We desire to fill our days with service and love for the community. At this point, finding the best ways to do that may take some time. Please feel free to ask us any questions or raise any concerns.

We still want to get our house ready to have people stay, however, there are many steps to take before we can do that, which you guys can pray with us about. I’ll list them to make it a bit easier:

  • We need to obtain permission from our landlord. Due to the nature of what we are asking, essentially to allow people to come and die here, we feel it is best to speak with him in person. Because he lives in South Africa, the next time we can do that will be the beginning of September. We want to be smart and not rush things because of our passion, and we believe that waiting will better our chances of success.
  • We need a partnership with the hospital staff. We want to work hand-in-hand as a support and help to them.
  • We need some legal backing and possibly some permits. If people die here, we need to be above board and not run the risk of being ‘blamed’.
  • There are certain cultural ‘rules’ we have to take into consideration. (Paying for funerals and whatnot.)

So that is where we are at. Tuesday we are heading to South Africa, again, to try and obtain our resident visa. The resident visa allows us to apply for our resident permit here in Mozambique. If all goes well, we will apply later this week.

We put a new video in our “Some of Our Stories” tab. Click here to watch it or click on the “Gas and Visa in Africa” in the column on the right.

We love you guys!

The set-up

Jon and Jorge finding 'north' for the satellite

United States national anthem

Watchin' the game

Anniversary

A Layne Post

Well, tomorrow is our second wedding anniversary. =) It has been a wild ride getting to this point, but the best one yet.  We plan to go on a trip to celebrate in August. Because of the World Cup, things are a bit too chaotic and expensive, so we’re going to wait it out.

Tomorrow we are taking a quick trip to South Africa in order to sort our our visa situation here. We want to apply for residency, however, the visas we were issued are without permission to apply. It is a bit frustrating since we had explained our situation, but at this point there is nothing we can do, except go get the correct one. We hope to go to the High Commission tomorrow, come home tomorrow night, and then apply at immigration here on Tuesday.

Please be praying for this process.

We hope to post a video blog and tour of the house later this week. Stay tuned!

We’re on the move…

This past week has been a whirlwind. After speaking with the missionaries from Angola on Monday, we decided we need to head to South Africa to hand in our paperwork for our visas in person, as well as stick around to make sure they process.  If we do that, it should cut the process time to one week as opposed to one month, and we can still make it to Angola by the middle to end of February.

What that means is that we are leaving Mozambique tomorrow.

This news was shocking. We thought we would have almost a whole other month here. We were  not prepared to begin our ‘Goodbyes’. Nonetheless this is an opportunity that we cannot pass up; it is the open door we have been praying for.

Our schedule looks like this:

Feb. 1 – Drive to Pretoria (Stay at Operation Mobilization base)

Feb. 2 – Hand in visas at the Embassy

Feb. 3-4 – Get our vehicle tuned up and ready for Angolan roads

Feb. 5-8 – Drive to Botswana to visit Mike and Heather and watch Superbowl with them

Feb. 8-12 – Drive back to Pretoria. Wait on visas and buying things for life in Angola, which includes being prepared to live in tents for months at a time.

Feb. 13 – Drive back to Botswana

Feb. 14 – Drive to Namibia (Happy Valentines Day!)

Feb. 16 or so – Drive with missionaries to Menongue Angola. Stay about 4 weeks in their shared missionary housing.

Mid-March – Drive to Luanda and visit Operation Mobilization missionaries and current running programs. Stay about 4 weeks, most likely in tents.

Mid-April – Drive back to Menongue. Stay about 4 weeks.

Mid-May – Drive back to Mozambique for at least a couple of weeks.

If we decide to partner with Operation Mobilization and them with us, we will need to leave Angola for 3-6 months to wait on our long term work visa, which will then be good for 2 years. That time is a little up in the air right now, but we trust that the Lord will guide us as He always has.

For now, “Goodbye” Mozambique. Who knew we would grow so attached?

We can look back over our time here and see nothing but the hand of God. I am humbled beyond belief. I feel like we have grown leaps and bounds in a mere 7 weeks.  It makes me excited to see what lies ahead.

This week has been __________ for me. Humm… I am without a word to fully describe it. Horrific. Hard. Beautiful. Stretching. Traumatic. I have blogged a few times about this week, and I do not feel the need to rewrite it here. You are welcome to read about it at: www.africangypsy.blogspot.com

This morning we said our “Goodbyes” at the hospital… well we spent four hours with them, but eventually said “goodbye”. It is hard to leave them.  I stayed in the hospital visiting with the women, while Jon was able to wrap up his relationships with the men by going to church with them at their home church, a neat opportunity. Boy are we going to miss them…

Here is how you can pray:

  • Pray for safety while traveling
  • Pray that our visas would process quickly while we are in Pretoria
  • Pray that our vehicle gets in perfect condition without spending too much
  • Pray that our hearts remain open to God’s will. We want to hear clearly from Him, and not just decide based on desperation. We are asking for a ‘Yes’ from God rather than not a ‘No’.

Our Christmas in Mozambique

A Layne Post

Jon and I spent our first Christmas in Africa as a couple… and it was good. Of course there were plenty of people and things we missed; however, our new experiences here were priceless.

We spent Christmas Eve with three other missionary families; a Portuguese family, a Brazilian family, and an American family. Our traditions were combined as we ate chicken wings and quiche for appetizers, a yummy fish and potato dish that is common in Portugal for dinner, and cupcakes and snickerdoodles for dessert. Though it may sound odd to you, it was really good!

Ladies on Christmas Eve!

And the men!

We also exchanged small presents in a gift exchange, complete with the opportunity to steal gifts. I think Jon and I ended up with the best gifts; Jon got a headlamp and I got a bottle of cocoa butter lotion! Nice!

Not sure if Jon was ready for the pic, but he is cute.

Christmas day I decided to keep with my tradition of making cinnamon rolls, and I do believe this year they were the best yet! I have to tell you a secret… We ate the whole pan before the night was over. YES! All of them!

Cinnamon rolls with cinnamon cream cheese icing... yum.

After breakfast we had previously made the decision to spend a couple hours at the hospital in the Oncology ward, where we have been volunteering for the past couple of weeks. Many of the patients are too far from home to leave for the holidays, so they were going to be alone and far from family. We could kind of relate. That time was definitely the highlight of our day. Funny how you go to be a blessing, and in return you are the one that is blessed. (More at: www.africangypsy.blogspot.com)

Later that night we were also grateful to have the opportunity to join our families for a few festivities via Skype and webcams. We seriously felt like we were sitting in the room with them. Awesome.

Angola Update:

We have a little bit of exciting news. Yes news! It has been awhile!

I recently decided to go ahead and send another round of emails in search of connections in Angola, and quite honestly I thought I would not hear anything until the New Year, but guess what? I already got two replies!

One is probably not going to be of assistance with a visa, but is still a good connection. The other is with a ministry that is already established in a couple cities there in Angola. (Remember we must come under an already established NGO to even submit an application for our visas.) What is exciting is that they are potentially interested in working with us and want to have an interview!

The lead couple is in South Africa for the month of January, and on the 7th Jon and I were going there anyways to renew our visa for Mozambique. The trip will be much longer now, but we feel it is more than worth it, and is nothing compared to needing to travel to Angola. We consider this a huge blessing!

So here is how I would ask you guys to pray for us. This interview will be two-sided, as we want to get to know their heart and mission as well. It is no small thing to partner and come under a ministry or organization.

While I would like to get terribly excited and say how perfect this could be, how the timing is fabulous, how things could line up beautifully… above all we want the will of the Lord. If this is His open door, we would like it to be clear and confirmed to both parties involved.

We love you guys! I pray your holidays were blessed and that you had the chance to reflect on the goodness and faithfulness of our Lord and Savior.

From Botswana

A Jon Post

Well we said all our goodbyes and left all of our friends and family in the USA and we got on an airplane Friday afternoon.
It was very hard. There were many tears.
We kept going.

It’s never easy to say goodbye. Especially to the people who deserve all the credit for what we are doing. But we did and we traveled and last night we arrived in Botswana where we will spend the next 1-2 weeks. We’ll get our truck tomorrow. I really miss that truck.

Angola visas? Naaaahh… We don’t have them. Is that a problem? Well I guess that depends on who you ask. If you ask me I’d say “Yes, a big one”, but if you ask God, He’d say “Nope. I’ve got it under control.”
I’m still asking Him to get us those visas soon. I’d like to ask all of the people who read this to do that too. Please ask God to get us those visas soon. If you have a second right now… please pray.

We miss and love you all. We are here. We are safe. We are loved.