Visas

Visas can be a scary thing. To legally be allowed to stay here and teach for the year we need to have a special visa, a TEP (temporary employment permit). Though it can be done with a visitors/tourist visa that gets renewed every month, it’s better to get the TEP.

Laurel and I were in difficult locations this summer. She was at Rosario with bad service, and I was in Alaska with no service half of the time, at least. Needless to say, we got our paperwork mailed in no more than a month before we arrived - in other words, late. Not exactly ideal. We got here and our passports were stamped with the visitors visa, valid for 30 days. Okay, no problem. Everybody else who has come doesn’t get theirs until AT LEAST December, and not even always then some never get them.

The doctor in charge of the school (in other words, our boss) sent somebody with our passports to get the visitor's visas renewed. He came back and announced that both of our TEPs were approved. What?!?! It was only the end of September, and we were approved to stay the whole year. We don't even have to think about Malawian visas any more!! Our boss told us that in her twenty years of living in Malawi and working with the government for TEPs, she had never ever seen it come through so quickly, or even both of them at the same time.

I have no more words. I am humbled. I serve an incredible God. Absolutely incredible.