I am Undesirable

I knew I had let myself go a bit lately but to be declared undesirable by an entire country? Seems pretty harsh South Africa. I should have gotten a clue how the country felt about me when I didn’t have a single date for over six years while in it. But I never dreamed they would put it in writing and officially declare it. As if rejection on a country-wide scale wasn’t enough, they additionally told me not to darken their doors for 12 months!

While I am trying to remain upbeat by painting it in a humorous light, it is actually quite serious. I have been banned from returning to South Africa until December 2017 – banned from returning to my home, my life, my ministry. After all the highs of 2016, with so much hope and excitement for the growth of PLAY in 2017, to end out 2016 this way was a crushing blow. So what happened? Why does South Africa hate me so after I gave up everything to serve it?

It all started in August when I began the process of applying to renew my Volunteer Visa which is a Temporary Resident Visa. I have to renew every couple of years and it has been granted three prior times so South Africa has been my home for the last six years now. After three prior tussles with Home Affairs, I was getting pretty cocky - not cavalier confidence in myself, just a firm belief that my God is bigger than Home Affairs and He wants to keep me here. (See Home-sweet-home-affairs and Theres-no-place-like-home-affairs for my last two hoop-jumping go arounds where I emerged Victorious! Cue the trumpets! Seriously, you have no idea what an accomplishment that is.) But back to 2016.

My Visa was going to expire on November 18 so throughout August and September I gathered all the required documents – a radiological exam, a physical exam (I am not mentally disordered or physically defective in any way nor suffering from leprosy, venereal disease or trachoma - which you think would be enough to make me desirable right?), police clearance certificate (I am not a criminal, again a desirable trait in a person I would think), a letter from my hosting organization, bank records, and a copy of my plane ticket to return to USA on December 14.

I went to the new high tech, we-are-organized VFS Global Office – the private company that the Department of Home Affairs has outsourced its Permit Processing to for better efficiency. At VFS, things at first glance did seem to be an improvement. I was given a number upon entering and told to report to the counter when my number was called. Hallelujah! No amorphous blob of people randomly butting their way up to the counter.

Unfortunately, once one reaches the counter, things revert to traditional Home Affairs modus operandi, ie. information transmitted varies depending on who you talk to.  The hoop jumping began again and I was in that office for four days in a row attempting to submit the application. Each day they added another thing I needed which the previous employee did not tell me about and which is not included on the published list of things you need to submit. Finally on November 10 the application was accepted to be submitted to Home Affairs.

Five weeks later, December 14 rolled around and Home Affairs had not ruled on my application to renew my Visa. I continued with my plans to fly home for Christmas. I had been to VFS five times and spoken to five different VFS employees.  They had all seen my December 14 plane ticket and not one of them said I could not use that ticket if my Visa renewal hadn’t come through yet. They all said that I could legally stay in the country past November 18 – that I was not overstaying my Visa.  I had been told to just show the Acknowledgment of Receipt to Renew the Visa to any Immigration Official questioning my immigration status upon departure or return. I knew that the Immigration laws had changed since the last time I had applied so I diligently searched the VFS and Home Affairs website for any indication that I was not allowed to travel pending the outcome of the application. Nothing there, zip, nada.

So, believing myself to be a law-abiding non-citizen, I was dropped off at OR Tambo International Airport and I checked my bags through to USA and proceeded to the Immigration point.  Skipping along, light as a feather, la dee da dee da, heading home for romantic airport reunion with my new American boyfriend (that is a beautiful story for another day, soon) when screeeeech… thud (that was my heart dropping). Dispassionate Immigration Official bluntly states: “You have overstayed your Visa.”

I explained that I was legally in the country beyond the expiration date and showed her my VFS receipt. She frowned, held my passport up in the air and yelled across the large hall where hundreds of us were herded and waiting to get thru the switchback 90-minute Immigration line, “We got an Overstayed Visa here.”  All eyes turned upon me to watch the drama unfold. Not only was I holding up the line, now I WAS a criminal.

A new officer hustled over (or what passes for hustle in a line moving at a slothy snail’s pace) and I explained it all again. She informed me that yes, I can legally stay in the country while the application is pending but I cannot leave the country. This was the very first time I heard this, while standing in line at the airport with a $1200 non-refundable plane ticket in my hand, bags on the plane, ride long gone, just two hours before my plane was set to depart.

“You are telling me that I cannot get on my plane.”

“Well, we can’t keep you here against your will but if you leave you will be declared undesirable and you will not be able to return for 12 months. You have 10 days to file an appeal of that ruling.” She then handed me back my passport and said “What do you want to do?” Glaring silence.

What do I do? Initial anger morphed to confusion and despair. My eyes misted up causing brain to fog and flip the Auto-pilot switch (preprogrammed to seek home). I had a split second to make a life-impacting decision with hundreds of eyes watching and waiting…

“I am getting on the plane.”

In that split second before, this is what went through my head:

1. It was necessary to go. I am on a Volunteer Visa which means that I cannot get a job in South Africa. It is necessary for me to return to the USA each year to raise money to live on and to raise the funding for PLAY, Purpose Leadership Adventure for Youth, the program which my ministry runs. I am a Mission Partner for Twin Lakes Church in Aptos, California (go to Twin Lakes Church to see my smiling face listed as a supported missionary in South Africa) and they are expecting me back for World Outreach Week to report on my ministry. Big Valley Grace Church in Modesto, California has also generously supported PLAY from the very beginning but I have to go in person each year to request funding. Without funding, there is no program to run and no need to stay in or return to South Africa.

2. The purchased plane ticket was nonrefundable. I had spent $1200 to buy round trip tickets to get to USA and return to South Africa. If I did not get on the plane, that money would be lost. My financial state is such that I can’t just throw $1200 out the window and then spend another $1200 a couple weeks later when Home Affairs makes a ruling on my application.

3. Home. I am a single missionary (no husband or children) and I have not been able to go home to my family for Christmas for three years now and suddenly the thought of another Christmas all alone in a foreign country made me cry right there in front of the hundreds of people who were watching me intently wondering if I would be hauled off by police or if I would make a run for it. Overwhelmed in the moment, I did what I felt was necessary for me and my ministry and shakily blurted out, “I am getting on the plane”.  

Another officer took me by the arm and “escorted” me to the Closet where we immigration criminals are detained. I stood there for 10 minutes while they passed my paperwork around and pecked at computer keys, completely oblivious to my pertinent legal questions. When they shoved my paperwork back at me, they offered no answers. “Am I free to leave?” “Yes.”  I sought the privacy of a bathroom stall to process what just happened and cry without an audience – a place where business of this sort is often conducted.

The crying room 

When I emerged from my stall, a gnarled and crumpled cleaning lady stood smiling at me with missing teeth. She said just two words but it was exactly what I needed to hear, “Merry Christmas”. This struck me as odd in a country that doesn’t say it. It was December 14 but people don’t say Merry Christmas to random strangers, until it IS Christmas. For one day only on December 25 you will say and hear this greeting.  There are no Christmas trees or Christmas music (unless of course you go to the mall). So this out of place wish for me reached a place in my heart that strengthened me – a place in the Center where it is all about Him. Walking away, I knew I’d encountered Christ in that fluorescent bathroom in a South African airport.

I sat down in a restaurant to get a bite before starting my 22 hours of plane time when a voice at the table next to me said, “You’re undesirable aren’t you?” Yep, that’s me. That’s when I took a photo of my declaration and posted it on Facebook for all the world to see. I have legally been determined to be Undesirable.

And now I wait. I have filed the appeal, there is nothing more I can do. Could take weeks or months to get an answer. If the ban is lifted, I can use my return ticket on February 6 and be there for the four camps and three mission teams planning to come in 2017. If the ban is not lifted, then I will remain in USA for twelve months and run PLAY from here with the help of some amazing people in South Africa who have served with PLAY over the years. And maybe that has been God’s plan all along – to grow PLAY by bringing more local talent on board and giving them more responsibility and watch them flourish.

Who could stay away from this face for a year?

So I am confident that PLAY will continue no matter the outcome, me there or here. It’s just the Unknown in the Waiting that pokes me. There – a house full of possessions, a truck in a friend’s garage, a beloved puppy in another friend’s home, a ministry waiting for action to be taken. Here – where will I live? can I still receive support money if I am here rather than there? how will I get around? No home, no car – but family and friends galore.

How do I do each day while I wait to hear from Home Affairs? How do I make plans and move forward on two entirely different lives? Or not. How do you NOT make plans either way while you are waiting some indefinite amount of time? Because that is what I feel God is wanting me to do and it goes against every grain of my being. I am okay with the here or there outcome because I have faith in His Plan and His ability to bring good out of the bad, I just need to know which one it is!

The skills being developed in the waiting, a.k.a. things that make me squirm: saying I am okay with either outcome while not secretly desiring one over the other, not making plans, ability to say to other people (particularly to donors who aren’t going to like this answer): “I don’t know.”

On January 13 I head to California to start three weeks of presentations to crowds of people where I shall be fielding questions about PLAY and my future, will I be able to stand there and boldly answer “I don’t know and I’m okay with that.” That will be extremely difficult for me. It seems that if my faith is real, I need to say it and it needs to be true.