Plan B
We left Hawaii in November to apply for a new visa and have been in Switzerland since then. Our plan was to join STN on their Egypt & Morocco outreach in December after we got our visa. While waiting for our visa we spent a lot of time with family and friends and got to know our two little nephews better. It was a wonderful time and we noticed how perfect God’s timing is. Junia got to say goodbye to her grandfather before he passed away and it was a gift for her to get to see him before he went home to Jesus. After three and a half weeks we still hadn’t heard anything from the embassy about our visa and because we had sent our passports with our application we were not able to leave on time for Egypt & Morocco. Finally, after more than a month and just before christmas, we got invited to come to the embassy for an interview. By this time we had already completely missed the Egypt & Morocco outreach and even though we were unsure what to expect we were looking forward to the visa process finally moving forward. To our surprise our visa got denied and we were not able to return to Hawaii to volunteer with STN. This was unexpected and came as a complete shock to us but we knew that God has a better plan for us in 2019.
Isak and his godchild, Joshua
We spent the time from Christmas to New Years processing what 2019 would look like for us, now that our original plans didn’t work out. It was a challenging time, trying to figure out what to do and where to go but it was also exciting because we had a lot of doors open before us. Before we tell you more about our plans we would like to thank all of you who supported and encouraged us over the last year. It means a lot to us and it helped us be able to pour into the community of Wahiawa and the people at STN. A big Mahalo!
Junia and Isak in the Swiss Alps
Since we found out about our visa I have been applying for a couple of different universities in Switzerland that would start in the fall and Junia has had the opportunity to do some painting work to save up for what’s to come. After telling my family about our visa being denied they invited us (and are even paying the flight) to visit them in South Africa for the month of February. We decided to accept their invitation and are excited to spend February with them.
A castle in the town near us
Because we ended up completely missing the Egypt & Morocco outreach it was clear to us that we still wanted to do an outreach in 2019. We have already applied for an outreach starting in March and are stoked for when we get to say more about it but for now just know that it might involve a little bit of craziness and a whole lot of God.
A beautiful view of the Alps
You might be asking yourself what our future plans look like? That’s a good question and it depends on how it goes with my university applications and how long our outreach ends up being; we will most likely be back in Switzerland in the fall of 2019.
21st of January 2019