Summer fun!

 

We spent some fun time at the Children's Home where we played games and enjoy crafts and face paint tattoos. Such fun! The kids were so happy to see us!

We also had a fun day camp with some of the Sponsorship Children who come regularly to workshops as a reward - we took them to our friend's adventure camp spot in the forest and they had a blast doing their 50m slip and slide!

And no... I did not go down the slide :) We also had a wonderful day in Celinac with our sponsorship children there, doing a FUN oral hygiene workshop. After we taught them about oral hygiene, we used games to emphasis their learning. From a "run from the cavity" tag game to using the parachute to make the ball go round and round just like how you need to brush your teeth. And on the right we are doing a "floss your teeth" fun relay! Learning doesn't have to be boring!

Then it was time to enjoy making friendship bracelets! And get our toothbrushes and floss to use at home...

Celebrating God’s faithfulness | Story 22: Stalni Boravak

At the beginning of July, I celebrated 20 years of living in Banja Luka. And at the end of July I celebrated another milestone - finally getting my permanent residence (in America this is called a Green Card) to stay in Bosnia Herzegovina. 

So, for story 22, and after 22 years of living here, I am going to share some of the ways God has shown His faithfulness to me in the area of visas and now, finally, I am able to stay without having to apply for a visa each year! 

In order to get a permanent residence permit, one has to be here for 5 years with no breaks in your visa. After my first two years in Zenica, when I moved to Banja Luka, I inadvertantly had a break. I was then in Banja Luka on a volunteer visa for 4 years and 9 months (so 3 months shy) when they changed the law so that anyone on a volunteer visa couldn't get permanent residency. (I did hear of someone else who had it worse than me - he had collected all the paperwork necessary and came to hand it all in on the day AFTER the law changed... ONE day! So 3 months shy seemed better than that, but still it was a blow...) 

I would pray each year, asking the Lord if I should keep going on the volunteer visa or change the visa I was on, and each year felt peace to keep going on it. After a while of doing it, the volunteer visa became fairly easy to get each year. In fact I made it a game: I started on Monday morning and then had to get it in by Friday afternoon! And the people in the visa office got used to me coming in each year like clockwork with everything in order. 

Then in 2016, they changed the law again and made it that volunteer visas could only be renewed one time. So, I now needed to change the visa I was on. I had a few options - I could get a work permit and work for our NGO or buy a property and live in it. I didn't have enough funds to be able to buy the property, so the work permit was the best option left. 

Now, the work permit is not that easy to get as they want to make sure that no Bosnian can do your job. In fact, in 2005, when I had previously applied, I had actually been rejected as my undergrad degree was deemed equivalent to one that 10 000 unemployed people also had, and so one of them could do my job. This was also another reason I just kept going on the volunteer visa. In 2017, amazingly enough, I finished my Masters in Community Development. And now I could apply for the work permit with that degree!! God's faithful timing! 

I applied for the work permit and was approved, and then had to renew it for 5 years before I could then apply for my permanant residency. Somewhere in the third year I found out to my horror that I was only allowed to be out of the country for a total of 10 months in those 5 years. I do travel a lot for work and also go to South Africa a bit, so I was worried that I would be over this limit. In the end I found out that it is according to the scans they do of your passport (not the stamps) and they luckily don't always scan, so I thought I would be ok. 

Then of course Corona happened in 2020 and all travelled stopped anyway. But then, in 2021, I had the frozen shoulder and ended up going to South Africa for the operation and was there for over 4 months. I kind of hoped that they hadn't scanned my passport for that time and I would get away with it... 

In 2023, when it came time to get all my paperwork together, I went for a couple of weeks to South Africa to get two of the documents (my birth certificate and a police clearance certificate, both of which you need to apply for in person). I then collected all the other documents (of which there were quite a few as always!) and in April of this year was wanting to hand in everything. 

In the meantime, I had managed to get one of the more relaxed and helpful inspectors in the visa office to agree to help me with my case. It was a good thing that I did, because of course they had scanned me in and out for those 4 months, and it meant I had 10 months and 23 days officially, 23 days over the limit... 

And this is where having him involved in the case was amazing - he had already come up with a reason to give me an exemption and a way to get the extra 3 weeks overlooked. And praise the Lord, it worked with the commission who looks at the applications!! God's faithfulness again in action? 

So what does this mean? It means that I don't have to ever apply for a yearly visa ever again! I am waiting to be given an ID Number, and then I will be able to get an ID card (which does say "for foreigners" on it, but still...) I won't be a Bosnian, but I will be as close to one as you can be! 

I am not sure what life is going to bring... am I going to stay in Bosnia forever? I don't know. I do believe that He told me to come here, and I am committed to staying until/if He tells me to leave. One thing I do know that God has been faithful all the years I have been here, showing me what steps to take when, and I believe that He will continue to show me where He wants me in the future as well.