My police clearance form (good behaviour report, as some may call it) as arrived!! After much prayer and waiting, my police clearance form arrived in the mail today. It came as a bit of a surprise, because though I was expecting it, I had been told today that it would arrive on Friday.
The story goes, as follows:
Yesterday afternoon, my father and I went to the Hoedspruit Defence Department Building (we were refered to the Department of Defence by the officers at the police station) to talk to the lady who had sent my police clearance to ask if there was anyone we could call. She gave us a number and told us to phone first thing this morning because otherwise we'd use all our airtime waiting for someone to answer the phone or to turn the hold button off. So this morning I phoned in, not expecting it to go through or anything, but my call was answered almost right away. There was a slight thingy (I don't know what else to call it) with the fact that I'm not a South African national, as she asked for my ID number (which is a mixture of letters and numbers). When she realised the fact that she wasn't dealing with a national, she asked for the reference number instead and then told me the police clearance form had been posted and would get to the family post box by Friday.
 |
| A mother warthog feeds her young in the garden |
So when my father suggested I check the post box this afternoon, I thought to myself: 'okay, but it'll the usual, empty, except for the dust'. When I opened the post box, there was my police clearance form, in a brown envelope. It was amazing for me, because I had told God that I was willing to wait as long as He wanted me to stay in Hoedspruit. If He had asked me to stay here forever, I had gotten to the place where I would have stayed. It wasn't easy because I know He called be to go to Australia, but His timing is perfect.
So its easy to say that I was thrilled. I've been praising God all day! My father and I then scanned the police clearance form, at a local printing place. When I got home I sent it through to the base I've been accepted as staff, in Australia. They'll send all my paperwork, as well as all the other needed documents, on to another base in the country. This particular base that my documents are going to handles all the visa applications for the Australian YWAM bases. They'll send it on to the right people.
The next step forwards, on my road to Australia, is getting my visa approved by the Department of Immigration. It may take a few weeks, depending on how many other applications need to be processed before mine does. Its a step forwards and I'm one step closer to heading off to the other side of the world.
So my prayer request is simple, that my visa gets approved quickly and that there isn't a long line of applications before mine.
I'll keep you posted, so watch this space!