Here is what we know…

Posted on March 5, 2015     1 Comment

I called the South African Consulate in LA on Monday morning and explained the situation to some gentlemen, and asked to confirm the address so we could overnight our paperwork.  He said there was no way they could process our applications because we weren’t from their jurisdiction, NO EXCEPTIONS!!

What?

Are you serious?

So, I calmly got off the phone with him and called my friend (the only person who will talk to me) at the South Africa Consulate in Chicago….and she said….the memo went out on Friday – they have to accept your paperwork, call him back!!

What?

Are you serious?

A few moments later, my phone rang and it was a call from LA.  He said the memo just came through and only this once would they be able to accept our applications.  Praise God.  I confirmed the address, and also confirmed that we didn’t all need to be in person.  By noon it was packaged in a nice brown envelope and heading to LA via UPS.

 We know that the South African Consulate in LA received our passports, paperwork and applications Tuesday, March 3rd.  We tracked the package from Coralville, to Cedar Rapids, to Kentucky (that stop made me a bit nervous – since that is the wrong direction) and then back to sunny LA for an arrival of 9:50 AM.  What a relief.

We also know that everything they need is there, and we should know within a day or two if we are approved.  What a journey this has been so far, but we know God is the same as He was yesterday, as He is today and as He will be tomorrow, no matter if we are here or in Africa.

We don’t know our departure date yet, we will contact Delta by this weekend.

Below are a few pictures of the house – these just came in yesterday.

A glitch within a glitch…

Posted on March 2, 2015     Leave a Comment

…is that possible?  we have felt like our roller coaster emotions had seen its highest and lowest these past few days but Thursday and Friday proved to take us on an even crazier ride.  We got a phone call on Thursday from the US Department of State.  I had spoken with them briefly on Wednesday.  This agency will issue passports within a 24-48 hour turnaround, if you have proof of travel within the next 14 days.  I had high hopes, but found out their first available appointment was March 4th, and I didn’t think we wanted to wait that long.

But mid morning on Thursday – someone called me back from the agency to inform me that if we could be at their office (downtown Chicago) at 9 AM on Friday morning, they would have all 5 passports reissued by 11 AM.  We scheduled the appointment and started preparing for another trip to Chicago.

As soon as I got off the phone with them, I called the South African Consulate (in Chicago) to let her know we would hopefully have the passports by noon on Friday.  The offices were within 2 blocks of each other.  I talked to the girl that I had been corresponding with this past week and explained that within 24 hours we would have everything back in her hands to start processing our visas.  We had a glimmer of hope that our March 9th departure date was still a possibility.  She said she would wait at the office for us, (no matter what time) and if it happens to be after office hours so would wait there for us anyway.

Here comes the glitch….I had just finished packing our bags and my phone rang.  It was the South African Consulate, so I assumed she was going to remind me of all of the paperwork.  But, I knew something was wrong when she said,

“Jeanie – I have BAD, BAD news.  It has taken 10 minutes to talk myself into calling you but we just got a federal notice from the South African government that effective tomorrow the Chicago office is NO LONGER able to accept volunteer visas.  I am really sorry, contact our Los Angles office, and see what they have to say.”  

I felt like the pit in my stomach just exploded and I was speechless.  I thought in my mind, “What did you say?” but clearly didn’t get a chance to even ask it before the conversation was over.  Rob walked into the room and my eyes must have given him some indication that something had just changed.  I explained….and as we discussed our options, we decided getting our passports reissued was what we needed to concentrate on right now.

24 hours later, and another night in Chicago, we had all 5 passports and were at least back to where we started on January 30th.  We have a call into the LA office, and by the time most of you are reading this, we should have a few more answers.  Again, I had reached my threshold of up’s and down’s but we are whole heartedly trusting that God will give us the next step.

• Friday evening I was able to hangout with some friends, and took part in some much-needed laughter.
• Saturday we went roller skating and enjoyed a banquet for Heritage Christian School.
• Sunday Rob baptized Austin, which is such a highlight for all parents.  God has put baptism on Austin’s heart for a while, and although he was very nervous, he was excited to proclaim his faith in Jesus.
• We even ended the night having cow tongue for dinner, and much to our surprise it was great!!  This has been a long-standing joke since our November trip to South Africa.  Most of us stepped out of our nice little comfort zones and were pleasantly surprised.  Don’t ever say you won’t try something, it was way better than the boiled mice we were offered in Malawi.

A minor glitch….

Posted on February 25, 2015     1 Comment

First, I am sorry I haven’t posted in a while.  We have been busy finishing up the dental office remodel, visiting faith families to share about our heart for Africa, and continuing with our day-to-days lives.   I really don’t know where the time has gone.  We wake up each day with our feet on the ground running to get everything accomplished before we leave, and collapse at night, anxious for some much-needed rest.

As you know from my last post, I sent our passports in priority mail (2-3 day service) on January 30th.  26 days later – and many phone calls to numerous post offices between here and Chicago, the package was found.  Our package went to Elk Grove Village, Des Moines, Forest Park, Des Moines, Forest Park, Des Moines, Forest Park, Des Moines, Chicago, Elk Grove Village, Des Moines, Cedar Rapids…….finally we picked it up.

Rob opened the package at the post office in Cedar Rapids, as it seemed a lot lighter than it should to have paperwork and 6 passports in it.

5 of our 6 passports were missing.

The package had at least a whole roll of packing tape, and even still one end was opened and only 1 passport was in there.

Tanner was the lucky one!!  His came back, but for the rest of us…we have to start all over.  We went to the passport office in IC to see if we could expedite the process and get our new passports in 24-48 hours.  After that is completed, we still have to hand deliver them back to the South African consulate in Chicago for visas.

It seemed like we kind of had everything working against us.  The past 5 days we have been consumed with phone call after phone call to different post offices searching for our package.  We are still talking to the post office to see if they are willing to help with some of the costs of having to re-do 5 passports.  My printer stopped working, snow was coming down fast and the roads were getting slippery.  We decided to take a break from all of this craziness and rest.

 We still don’t know what our next step will be.  There is a good chance that we will have to delay our departure date a few weeks.  I made one last phone call tonight.  I called Delta to see what our options were with our flights.  They made documentation to our tickets and said there would be ‘no charge’ to reschedule our tickets due to an unforeseen issue with our passports/visas.  That was the best news I had heard all day!

We have had many people praying and keeping up with our day-to-day details….we feel blessed to have such a great group of support from our family and friends.  A friend texted me tonight and said, “trust that through this He is teaching you something you must learn before His next assignment…”

We will continue to trust God on this, and know His plan is greater than our own!!

Please pray for our visa applications

Posted on January 29, 2015     1 Comment

Tomorrow (Friday, the 30th) I am going to mail our passports with our visa applications to the South Africa Consulate in Chicago.  The stack of paperwork is thick, my hand hurts, and I pray that all of the spaces I was supposed to fill in are complete.

Please pray that they will arrive safely, and be approved, and returned with no problems.  I have heard one too many horror stories about visas so I am leaving the results in Gods hands.

Rob and I are also leaving tomorrow for Houston, Texas.  (My goal was to have our visa applications complete before we left).  We will be doing some cross cultural training, i.e., we are getting taught how to not offend every person we meet when we get there 😉

On another note, below is a picture of our house with a roof!!  Wahoo.

One-way tickets…

Posted on January 5, 2015     1 Comment

Our one-way tickets are purchased!!

Lord willing, we will be leaving Monday, March 9th.

Now that our date is set and the countdown has started the reality of what we have to get completed before we go, is setting in.  We are even more anxious to see what the Lord has in store for us in South Africa, but also know it is going to be difficult to say good-bye to our friends and family.

Merry Christmas

Posted on December 20, 2014     1 Comment

As we celebrate the birth of Jesus this year, we are reminded that He came to this earth in such a humble way, a beginning most would consider unacceptable.  He conquered the world in the most unusual fashion and died to save us from our sins, because He loves us unconditionally.

Our 2014 was full of many blessings, a lot of unknowns and daily struggles to remain faithful to His word.

As we look to 2015 – we continue to pray that God sets our hearts on fire for the people that don’t know Him.  That we can continue the race that is set before us and in doing so, that we show humility and give our Savior all the praise, because His hope is comforting and His promises are fulfilling!

Support raising…

Posted on November 27, 2014     Leave a Comment

Now that we are back from South Africa and our timeline in the states is closing in on us, we need to start support raising.  Our hopes is that our family and friends will come alongside of us with prayers, time, and finances to encourage our efforts in South Africa, and that what we do there is just an extension of the body of Christ.

We have prayed about this and are confident God will surround us with people’s resources to do His work.  If anyone would like to know more, we would love to share what God has put on our hearts.

Thank you for considering.

God’s work, done in God’s way, will never lack God’s supplies  –Hudson Taylor

Almost home…

Posted on November 17, 2014     Leave a Comment

Our week together is coming to an end. It has been a great week and the team has worked so well together. God has used each of our strengths to assist with our daily tasks and we have also had great devotions in the evening with individual transparency, which has led to personal spiritual growth as well.

Everyone in this group has enjoyed the smaller number of people. We all got to know each other on a deeper level, our stomach muscles have been exercised a lot this past week too, as we have laughed so much together!!

Thank you Jesus for blessing us with this past week. For having your hand of protection on us as we traveled and while we had our feet on the ground in South Africa.

Rob and I have felt blessed to have so many friends come along side of us and support us as we continue on with our journey. We have learned so much. Thank you for all that you have done for us!!

Sun is here…

Posted on November 13, 2014     Leave a Comment

We had a wonderful day of sun!! The guys got a lot accomplished. Dawn and I ran to town to help with a food distribution program for a church in Heidelberg, Dawn is also helping me try to think what we will need for the house when we do our final trip over here.

Rob’s strep is gone, Brian ate for the first time today and is feeling better, Michael was able to do a conference call to back home for work, Jim was happy not to get yelled at by Rob and Tim just makes all of us laugh. We love hearing stories from him.

In the evenings we do group devotions, which has been led by Tim. We are studying a few versus from Philippians, it has been great to study God’s word together and gleam wisdom from other believers.

The water is still really low, showers are limited but Brian and Tim have been gracious to let us use their shower so we can feel what it is like to be clean.

We are excited for another great day tomorrow. This week has gone fast, but we were all talking last night how we missed our loved ones back home.

Lastly – we all wanted to wish Dawn a Happy Birthday. Thank you for allowing us to have your husband this past week to get so much accomplished. Hope you have a great day.

Rain, rain go away…..

Posted on November 11, 2014     Leave a Comment

Well, that depends on who you ask. It is Tuesday afternoon and it feels like it has been raining on and off since we arrived. For most of us we packed shorts, t-shirts and sun tan lotion so we wouldn’t get burnt working in the sun all day. But that just hasn’t been the case. Almost all of us are in long pants, and long shirts or sweatshirts and with the wind blowing and the constant drizzle, we are all feeling a bit chilled. Hot tea, hot chocolate and hot coffee has been a common theme these past few days.

South Africa is in desperate, desperate need of rain so we are rejoicing with them for their sake, just hoping it would let up a bit so we could get some work complete. In the mean time, we were able to start Rob on some antibiotics last night as we think he has strep throat. He has been sleeping a lot, hoping to shake it.

Some of the group has been priming and painting the trusses, while others have been pushing through and working in the rain anyway. Pray that we are all safe working in the rain, that Rob will start feeling better and that even when things don’t go according to our plans we rest knowing His plans are perfect for us.