We left the mission house at 7:00 this morning. Our friends at the Indian hotel were more than happy to let us leave the van in their care. They even offered to drive us to the airport but we did not want to take advantage of them so we walked down the street and caught a taxi. Please, I don’t think we have ever ridden in such a broken down vehicle. The clutch made a high pitched sound. The front windshield had been broken several times. It had obviously been wrecked; there was rust all over the body of the vehicle. It was a hatchback type vehicle. The driver had a long metal pole that he used to prop it open. The springs were broken down and a spring was peeking through. The radio did not work not to mention the air conditioning. The shocks were non-existent. We bumped and rattled all the way to the airport. The vehicle died several times on our way. How this vehicle got a road worthy sticker is beyond me.
Our vehicle and driver were waiting for us when we walked out of the airport in Accra. We went straight to the immigration headquarters and met up with the officer. He was a very nice guy and very helpful to us. The place that Steve had to go for his medical screening was in one of the buildings on the Immigration property. We were so happy to see a designated facility for the procedure. They drew blood and tested him for Hepatitis A & B; Typhoid, Syphilis, HIV and several other things. We found it interesting that the only thing that he could refuse to be tested for was the HIV test. There is lots of HIV here in Ghana; it would seem that they would want to test for that. They did not even test him for Covid which we thought was very strange in this Covid pandemic. We are supposed to go back tomorrow and get Steve’s test results.
When the officer checked our documents it seemed like he was just hunting for something that we did not have. He did not like the cover letter so we had to go out onto the street and find someone that could type us up another letter. He asked for copies of so many things; the Certificate of Incorporation and Certificate to Commence business for the Child Center, the Child Center Social Welfare Certificate, stationary with Child Center letterhead, the Child Center’s Charter, Tax ID numbers, copies of passports and visa, Steve’s nursing license for Ghana, marriage certificate, copies of non-citizen cards (that we renewed yesterday) plus we had to fill out a form and give them 2 passport photos. Fortunately we brought “ALL” the documents with us and were able to provide copies of everything he asked for. If we did not have the documents we would have had to go back to Yendi to get them and make another trip to Accra.
At the end of the day we satisfied all the requirements.
We asked the immigration officer if we could get a 2 year renewal instead of a 1 year renewal. We were beyond excited when he said he would give us 2 years! Do you realize what that means to us? We won’t have to go through this ordeal again for 2 years! Of course it cost twice as much as we expected but we won’t pay at all next year.
After we paid everything we asked if we could to have the visa expedited. He knew we wanted the expedited service but he said that after we had spent so much money to get a 2 year renewal he did not think we would want to pay for expediting it. He said that if we paid for the expedited service we would get our passports back in 2 weeks instead of 2 months. Yes! We want to expedite things! We hate being without our passports. He said he would send them by courier service to Tamale so we won’t have to come back to Accra to get them. After all was done and said it was a good day’s work!
Thank you for the prayers!
In His Service,
Steve and Kandie
