Sam’s visa expires on December 17. Her flight back to the States was set for the 12th because the airline wouldn’t let her have a return date after her visa expired. A few weeks ago, Sam and I headed to Yaounde with the Barillas to get to work on her visa situation. Mark and Sam spent a day and a half in the immigration office, waiting to get some response from anywhere. We stayed an extra day, hoping to hear back regarding the visa—to no avail. Mark heard back on Monday of this week that the visa was rejected because we were missing some documents.
Mark and Rachel then decided to take a trip back to Yaounde this week, to try to figure out the visa situation. Sam and I stayed at their house and watched the two older kids for them. Well, the visa saga continued—later that day, we got a call from Mark and Rachel. Apparently, in the morning before they left for Yaounde, Mark had to make some photocopies of Sam’s passport…. And then he left the passport in the photocopier. Since they were already in Yaounde (a 5-6 hour drive from Foumban), we had to find someone to take the trip down to Yaounde during the night.
Well, the passport made it safely to Yaounde. Mark had a meeting at the immigration office at 9 in the morning on Wednesday. He finally met with the guy at 1 pm. After talking to several important people at the office, Mark found out that Sam’s visa was rejected. She was rejected another 3 month visa as well as a 6 month visa. Today it was determined that the best course of action is for Sam to fly back home and apply for a 6 month visa to Cameroon from the States. Hopefully the embassy in the States will be more accepting. Sam flies back next week. And so, Africa wins again. But please pray with us that Sam would be able to return quickly to help us out.
