Ron and Sally Jo Blog

MCC has three young adult programs—IVEP, SALT, and YAMEN. IVEP participants are young people traveling TO North America and SALT participants are young people traveling FROM North America. YAMEN are young people, mainly from southern hemisphere countries, traveling to other southern hemisphere countries. YAMEN program is in conjunction with Mennonite World Conference. (We think this has been described before, but this is just to remind you!)

Laos has three IVEP and two YAMEN young people leaving Laos in a couple of weeks—two going to Canada, one going to U.S., one going to Indonesia, and one going to India. This means that we are working on four different visa applications with four different procedures! In addition we have never been involved this way before so the applications and procedures are new to us!

Last week we worked closely with these young people. (They are dubbed YIVEP in order to make the term shorter.) Four of them were able to come to the office and we spent a morning working through many MCC forms that must be completed. Bee was there to help translate English words to Lao when the YIVEPers didn’t understand. Sally Jo was there to explain the English words when Bee didn’t understand. For example, one “legal” MCC document that needed to be signed, had this phrase: “In Witness Whereof, I have hereunto set my hand.” What do you mean “set your hand?” And they looked at their hands.

After completing the forms, they came to our house for lunch which was Lao food served American style. They need to learn that most North Americans pass food around the table and usually eat with a fork only—not spoon and chopsticks.

Sunday evening we, Bee, and the two YIVEP going to Canada went by train to Bangkok. Canada does not have an embassy/consulate yet in Laos and so they needed to do their medical checks with Canadian-approved doctors in Bangkok. Bee went because she is learning the procedures and we both went along to give support and because we needed to renew our own Laos visas.

Bangkok is about 10-11 hour train ride. We reserved 2nd class seats which are made into beds for the night. The coaches were air-conditioned and quite comfortable and some of us were able to sleep. In Bangkok we stayed at the Bangkok Christian Guest House which was clean, comfortable and convenient to transportation and to the hospital to which we needed to go. (We met missionaries there from several places who knew Mennonites via their own work in various countries.)

All of us were awed by the hospital. The YIVEPers said it was like a 5-star hotel, and we agreed. The medical exams didn’t take long and we had time to do some exploring of the area. However, it was hot, so we were also happy to stay in our air-conditioned room most of the time! The next morning we went to the Canadian Visa Center so that the YIVEPers will know where it is. They will go there when they get permission from the embassy to have their biometrics (finger prints, photos, etc.) done.

All of this takes time! One day last week we spent nearly an entire day completing the U.S. visa application with the YIVEPer going to the U.S. The web site was slow and we weren’t familiar with it; so it took a lot of time. (It was also not particularly intuitive as to how to return to the application when we stopped to go for lunch and came back again.) This young person will be placed in Elkhart, Indiana, with the Seed-to-Feed program.

Today we spent all afternoon completing the India online application. For the most part, it went O.K. However, at one point we needed the “EFOP id number” of MCC in India! They had sent us a lot of papers but none of them had given this number. What to do? On a previous e-mail we found the telephone number of the India representatives. Ron called via Skype and got the rep travelling in a taxi on the streets of Kolkata! She was able to call her husband who then called us via Skype and provided the number! Fascinating world!

We hoped to go to the Indonesian embassy today to fill out their paper forms. However, they are closed because it is the end of Ramadan, and therefore, a holiday in Indonesia!

Such is life!

This entry was posted on Thursday, July 16th, 2015 at 8:01 pm and is filed under Laos, Thailand. You can follow any responses to this entry through the RSS 2.0 feed. You can leave a response, or trackback from your own site.