A Visa Explanation

For those of you who were following the anxious Facebook posts of the last week, you read that Mark and I were unsure whether we would be able to renew our 30-day visas (which expired on Saturday). You may or may not have also seen that our prayers were answered and we are being granted visa renewals! We’re very excited that we don’t have to spend the last week of our trip in South Africa or take a sudden 12-hour trip by car to the Malawi border. God has been very gracious to us!

Let me just take a few minutes to explain what happened.

In the past, it has been acceptable (and standard practice for SIL) for visitors coming to Mozambique for a period shorter than two months to purchase a 30-day visa in the airport upon arrival in Mozambique and then head back to the Immigration office to renew the visa when the 30 days were drawing to a close. So, we purchased our 30-day visa in the airport, and had planned to renew them last week.

Unbeknownst to us, about two weeks ago, a law changed in Mozambique, making the 30-day visa nonrenewable. Now, in order for a short-term visa to be renewable, one must apply for it in one’s home country, before departure to Mozambique.

We, obviously, had not done this, so we were put in a difficult situation. To make matters a little more tricky, the missionaries who normally take care of matters at Immigration for short-term visitors, John and Susan, had to be out of town this week. The missionary Mark has been working most closely with, Edgar, took over helping us renew our visas, before we knew anything of this law change.

We were directed to go to Immigration with a letter requesting new visas, which we did with the help of Edgar and his wife. However, because of the change in the law, and because our letter didn’t specifically address the difficult situation we were in, and because our letter hadn’t passed through the Religious Affairs office first, our letter was rejected. As it turned out later, in the office of Immigration, it’s also a case of who you know, as much as what you know. So, because John and Susan, who are recognized in the Immigration office were out of town, it was less important to the Immigration office to make us and Edgar happy.

When John and Susan came back to work on Thursday, the situation looked a little hopeless. John and Susan drove Mark to the airport to see if we could jump on a flight to South Africa on Friday. The flight was full, and the next flight to South Africa wasn’t until Monday. We would have had to pay a fine of $100 per visa per day to stay in the country after Friday, so other arrangements had to be made. Another option would have been to make the 12-hour drive to the Malawi border on Saturday, stay the night, and come back on Sunday under a new visa, but no one was keen on that idea.

So, upon discovering that the Friday flight to South Africa was full, Susan went back to Immigration one last time to see if anything could be done. Lo and behold, something could be done.

Susan found out that if she re-wrote our letter, making it more specific to our sticky situation and if it was approved by the Religious Affairs office on Friday morning, she could bring it back to Immigration and it would probably be accepted.

And that’s what happened. So, we have papers saying that we are ‘in the process’ of getting our visas renewed, and by early this week we should be officially legal again. Thank you for all your prayers on our account! We are very happy to still be legal visitors to Mozambique!

--Hillary