What a long road it's been....

 

Meeting Beth at the airport after her second stint in Ireland.

It all started during the summer of 2017, when Beth was preparing to join our team here in Vienna. It had been five years since someone new joined Team WorldVenture in Austria, and Nate and I had just stepped into the field leader role. This was also the first time a team member of our would be applying for a "church worker visa" through the Free Church, since the Free Church just became a government-recognized religious group a few years ago. Since receiving that recognition, the church has had the ability for the first time EVER to bring over workers on it's own visas.

So, the field leader role was new, overseeing someone's arrival was new, and the visa process for the Free Church was new. We all had a lot to learn. Most of our information about the visa came from one particular family who had gone before us and received the visa two years earlier. We tried our best to do everything exactly as they had done it, not knowing if rules and laws had changed in the meantime. Beth applied for her visa at an Austrian Embassy in the U.S. and then, without hearing a final answer, came over in October 2017 for her first 90 days on an automatic tourist visa.

The questions started popping up from the immigration office - uncertainties about her income (which was not at it's full level until she arrived in Austria and became a full-time employee), questions about her rental contract (which was not long enough, apparently) and most importantly, questions about our American health insurance coverage. Little did we know, they had been cracking down on health insurance plans that had certain "exceptions to coverage", after an unfortunate incident the year before where someone came to Austria with insufficient insurance and ended up in the hospital. The national health insurance had to foot the bill and they sued the immigration office for letting this person into the country without sufficient coverage. Since then, laws became stricter and were highly enforced.

For several months, we had a back and forth with the immigration office. They asked for more documentation, we tried to provide it. Beth signed a longer term lease and provided more proof of income. We sent in more insurance documents, trying to prove our insurance coverage was sufficient. Then in January, Beth's visa application was suddenly denied without any warning. We were stunned! We had never experienced a denial before, and had through that we would have some warning if we needed to acquire different health insurance.

God blessed us with a friend in our small group who studied law. He was truly a God send. Richard helped us submit an extensive appeal to the decision and then we waited. Beth left Austria for her 90 days out of the Schengen Zone of Europe (required) and went to Ireland to join WorldVenture colleagues there. She returned in late spring, but still no answer on the appeal. She left again in the summer...still no answer. Finally, just before she returned in the fall, the appeals court contacted us and asked for copies of her passport. Then a date was set for a hearing before the judge on December 5th. This was 16 months after her initial application was submitted for a residence permit.

Celebrating the end of a long visa journey

Through all this, there were many ups and downs. The journey was very challenging for Beth, as she had no permanent home and while in Ireland, very few opportunities to serve and have "purpose" there. I was also struggling with a lot of guilt, that perhaps somehow I had made some wrong decisions along the way or wasn't thorough enough during the process. I kept wondering if I could have prevented this whole mess if I had done more research or asked more people how to proceed. But God provided comfort and reassurance that we had made decisions along the way based on what we knew then and there should be no regrets.

On December 5th, with hundreds of people praying (truly - so many people were praying that day!!), God answered our prayers. The judge was not very friendly, but he did decide fairly and in Beth's favor. She was granted the residence permit as of that day. We were so thankful and blown away. She is finally allowed to stay in country and can begin thinking more about her future here.

The official positive decision!

We are so thankful for the prayers for Beth and for us along the way. It's been such a long road, and a huge weight has been lifted. We are confident God has helped us all grow as a result of this experience, and God has already used Beth's challenges to help her understand and connect with the refugees she will serve (who experience an even longer and more difficult immigration journey).

Serious Pictures, Happy Faces

Today is a very exciting day.

Today is the day that we were handed our visa cards to live in Austria.  

Today it is completely legal for us to live here, and we are so excited for God's provision. Today is a day of rejoicing at what God has done on our behalf. But today was also a day where we breathed a huge sigh of relief.

Yesterday, however, was challenging. Yesterday we weren't sure what would happen. Yesterday was a heavy day of stress.

The first reason had more to do with the situation at hand and the importance of our visas being processed. There is a special quality to an experience like this, knowing that it "isn't real until it is real." Even though things had gone along as best as we could hope for up until yesterday, we still hadn't finished the process. We still didn't have the visas in our hands. For me (Nate), this added an undercurrent of stress. Before this trip to Vienna, as we set up meetings to view apartments and evaluated online listings, there was this nagging fear or doubt in the back of my mind, because the visas weren't in our hands. We were doing our best to plan for a future that still wasn't 100% certain.

The second reason yesterday was stressful was a bit more challenging. In our meeting at the visa office Thursday morning, there were new questions being asked and a new document that needed to be provided up before we could receive our visas. As we rushed to find the needed parties and get the signed pieces of paper, there were serious questions about whether or not we would be able to receive our visas or if we would have to wait until next year to start the process again. This is why this morning was so heavy for us...why we walked out of the visa office with so much adrenaline in our veins and our hearts pounding. Because there is always the possibility that they will say, "sorry, you did this wrong" or "you broke that rule and we can't give you the visa." 

These last few days have been a roller coaster of emotions. I think this was a reminder to us that we are not in control, but we serve the One who is. We can think we are in control sometimes, but the reality is that we are only stewards of what we have.

I read a prayer last night I read a prayer from the Valley of Vision. A few of the last lines cut me to the core:

I do not crouch at thy feet as a slave before a tyrant,
but exult before thee as a son with a father.
...
Preserve me from the intoxication that come of prosperity;
Sober me when I am glad with a joy that comes not from thee.
Lead me safely on to the eternal kingdom,
not asking whether the road be rough or smooth.
I request only to see the face of him I love,

That last line caught me most of all. Any time we hold onto something more than our desire for Christ, it needs to be pushed back into its place. The question I asked myself last night, as we wondered what today would look like, was "is Jesus enough? If this dream or desire I have goes on hold or even goes away, is He still enough?" It is a question we all must continually ask and one that is not as easily answered.Even if we know what the answer should be, we need to examine our hearts to see if it's what we truly believe.

Thank you for celebrating with us and praising our great God! Thank you for praying for us! Now on to the next stage...

An Invitation

Yesterday a letter arrived at our colleagues'  house in Austria. It was something that we have been waiting for and planning for for a very long time. A very official letter from the government of Austria. At the top in big bold black letters it said:

"Einladung"

which means "invitation." It said that we were invited to pick up our visas on Valentine's day in Vienna!

To be honest we were shocked! We were very hopeful that this day would come, but we were expecting this to happen in May, or even June. Not February. Our minds have been spinning for the last 24 hours as we have contacted family and team members. We have tried to figure out what this will means for our time here in the UK.

In short, we aren't sure yet. We have some tentative plans in place and we'll tell you more as things come together, but for now

Rejoice!

Your prayers have been answered by a great, powerful, and good God. One who loves to give us good gifts. A God that does not deal with us as our sin would demand, but delights to bring us into communion with himself!

What we do know, is this means is that the road is clear for us to live in Austria and continue our language learning. It also means we get to attend our spring team retreat in Grundelsee (we attended this retreat as appointees on a vision trip in 2011, we get to go back as full fledged team members!). And it means that we are one step closer to an apartment and a bit of stability. It means more stability than just guest bedrooms and vacation rental apartments anyway.

We are so blessed to see God move in this way and so thankful for all of your prayers and support.

Photo credit: dieraecherin from morguefile.com