visa Process

Being in Belize finds us again at the immigration office.

Every country has different laws when it comes to Visas. I can honestly tell you the Belizean process is not my favorite.



When you arrive in Belize, you recieve a month "tourist" visa. Once that month is completed, you must return to the immigration office. Thankfully for us there is one in Orange Walk.  Each month you must pay 25$ US to be in the country. After 6 months, the costs goes up to 50$ per person.

One must go to the office (in person) and present your passport to the officer. Sometimes they ask why you are here sometimes not. I have to say that this last time (our first time this term) the officer was quite pleasent.

Once they have taken your passport, they send you with a form to pay for your visa. We have about a 1/4 mile walk/ride to pay for the visa.  When you return, you  turn in your reciept to the immigration officer.  They stamp your visa for the next month, and you are on your way.

Last term, it was a toss up. In the end we paid the same total as would have been paid for the longer term visa. We had monthly visits for the length of our stay in Belize.

This term, our stay will be much more long term. We are starting our long-term visa process.

There are two visas we could apply for:

Pastor/missionary visa: volunteer visa, a one time cost.

Worker visa: any job that one applies for must first be offered to a Belizean. In Nathanael's case, there aren't any Belizeans who can do his specific job. Nathanael has spoken with the head of the minsitry of education. They are in agreement with moving forward with him getting a visa through the work.  This will allow us more likelyhood of having residency. This is a process that will most likely take a long time.

Honestly the best way to get things done in Belize is to go somewhere "in person". Nathanael had been emailing the ministry of education with little response. He went without an appointment and waited for a time when he could speak with her. She agreed to help, but there is still a process involved.

(Abigail waits with our dog outside of the minstry of education building)

The first step is going with an American who just recently received her residency and work permit. She is helping him navigate the process. This must be done in Belmopan, the capital of Belize.


I hope this has opened your eyes a bit to the process we are going through, and that you would know how to pray for us.

Thanks so much for your prayers and support of us!!

By the way, we discovered that it is an ardous process to get a new post office box. Instead we have decided to keep the one we had used with Nancy before.  Here is that address should you want to mail us a letter:

PO Box 158
Orange Walk Town
Belize
(there is no zip code required)

If you want to mail more than a letter or post card, we suggest you contact us. We have people visiting us or Dangriga often and it is the safest way to get something to us.

Thank you!

Spring

We have started using the "h" word

and it's not the word you're thinking of...

The word home can mean different things to different people. Yesterday we were watching Little House on the Prairie. Selah has a class through Landry Academy, and has been reading through these books.  We watched the pilot, released in 1974. :) We watched as the family said goodbye to grandparents, aunts, uncles and friends.  They would "probably never see them again"

They traveled to the unknown, in search of a dream.  Laura's father didn't want to continue to live hand to mouth. He wanted to own land, a wide expanse of land.  At one point the family gets very close to a town. Ma is elated! Oh to see other people again, and buy what they need. Pa is annoyed. They did not come all of this way to see town. They came to find land. 

Finally the perfect plot is found and house building starts. Ma must help Pa in the building even though she "wasn't built" for the job.  She tires, Pa feels guilty.  He should not have her do the work.  There is no one else to do it. He took her away from her home, her family all she has known.  Ma looks at Pa and says "my home is where you are."

The sentiment is sweet. We like to believe that she thinks this all of the time.

Us? we are just starting to experience things, culture, newness (or not so new), food, etc is really all different to us.  There are some things we like and some things we could do with out. There are a lot of things we are doing without.

How do we decide what home is?  All of the children have a different answer.  No one feels like here is home yet. Will that change? Probably. For now we find ourselves in the middle.  We appreciate both cultures, we dislike some things of both cultures.   As we work through this, we are finding the need to give each other grace.  Life can get messy.

One cool thing about leaving all you know is that you are called to more deeply depend on each other. It has been a blessing to watch my children become better friends with one another.  Does this happen all of the time? Absolutely not!

As you think of us, pray we can find our culture. We need to be dependent on Jesus. We need to find places and times to rest, and times to interact.  We need to find our "home" with each other.  Our home won't look 100% American or 100% Belizean, but it is our prayer that it will be 100% us. We pray that through finding this, we can reach those we've been called to reach.  Thank you for praying with and for us!

(Pictures taken from our monthly trip to renew our visa's, drinking water from a bag, Western Dairies, the Mennonite own ice cream parlor, the map book Zion is studying, and Zion's math today, we had to use coins from here.. it was fun!)