“What Happened?!”
July 28, 2010
Greetings from sunny and warm Edmonton,
Alberta! Yep, you read it right. I’m in Alberta! So the big question of the hour is “What
Happened?!” Well, let me explain.
On July 24th my brother (Gord)
and I left Edmonton with the plan to arrive in South Carolina by the 28th. We ended up making it as far as Estevan, Saskatchewan
the first day and decided to bunk down for the night there. As we went to bed that night neither of us
had any idea as to what adventure was waiting for us the next day.
In the morning we headed for the US border
and attempted to cross at Portal, North Dakota.
Upon arrival we gave the border guard our passports and documents and
explained our reason for coming. After a
short discussion we were told to park our car to the side and go into the
border office for further discussions.
Considering my entrance into the US was relatively unique, I was
expecting a slight delay at the border.
In all, my “slight delay” at the border consisted of filling out 3
forms, questioned twice by multiple officers, and had my fingerprints and
picture taken. After waiting over an
hour for admittance into the US the final verdict came. Denied!
I was told I could not enter the US because of “improper
documentation”. I know, I was shocked
too! Well, what do you say? What do you do? Well, the border guard informed us that
whatever we did would need to be done in Canada. So, back we went to Estevan,
Saskatchewan.
I immediately called SIM to let them know
what had happened. The border guard had
mentioned that I could still cross the border on a holiday so the decision was
that we should try to enter again and state we
were visiting SIM in South Carolina with the hopes of getting paperwork to
allow me to work there in the future. So
back to the border we went. We once
again explained our intentions in the country except this time requested a travel
visa. Once again we were told to park to
the side and come into the border office for a chat. They quickly realized that we had been to the
border a few hours before. So once again
forms were filled out, I was questioned again, and in the end we arrived at the
same result about an hour later: Denied
access due to improper documentation. So
guess what? Back to Estevan,
Saskatchewan we went.
After settling into our hotel yet again, I
called SIM and delivered the verdict.
This time the decision was to get an immigration lawyer involved and
sort out why I was unable to cross. The
original idea was that I would be able to cross the border under the NAFTA
Agreement as a “TN Non-Immigrant” but for some reason I was not considered an
acceptable candidate. Now before you go
and start getting upset at either the US border guards or perhaps SIM, let me
state this. Both did their jobs
well. I think we all can appreciate that
I was not performing a typical border crossing and that getting across the
border was going to cause some complications.
In fact the US border guards were quite helpful in giving me the
information the second time I tried to cross.
The verdict from the border guards was that I need to obtain “H2B
Status” which in layman terms simply means I need to obtain a temporary work
visa. The big question is, how long will
this take? At the moment this question
will remain unanswered until we hear from the immigration lawyer. So upon hearing that my problem wasn’t going
to be solved anytime soon, the decision came to head back to Edmonton.
So...what now? Well, first things first. I called NAIT to see what type of timeline I
was dealing with. I wanted to see how
late I could wait before I wouldn’t be allowed to perform my internship this
semester. The Internship Coordinator
said I could wait until about October 1st, but if I waited any
longer I’d have to drop out of the fall term and begin my internship in the
winter term starting in January next year.
So, my deadline on starting my internship this year is October 1st. Now we have a timeline.
After calling NAIT, I called SIM to discuss
other options. The first option is to
work with the immigration lawyer and see where that takes us. If that doesn’t work out, or will take too
long, we talked about the option of doing my internship at the SIM Canada office in
Toronto and helping out the International office remotely. It is possible that I could do some work
remotely but frankly, I wasn’t excited about it. I’m also not sure how thrilled NAIT would be
in this option. So we discussed other
options.
The only other option was to work somewhere
else in the SIM world. Considering I
only have until October 1st to find a place to go I felt heading
back to Botswana would be the best choice.
I’ve been to Botswana before so planning a trip there should be
relatively simple and I’d previously discussed
the possibility with them before so it won’t be a completely new concept for
them. So I’ve sent an e-mail to the
Botswana field to let them know what’s going on and to
ask what possibility there would be to return there.
So for now I’m pretty much in “hurry up and
wait” mode. I would appreciate your
prayers during this time. Emotionally
it’s been a shocking, disappointing and humiliating few days. However, God is still on the throne. None of this has taken Him by surprise and I
believe that He has a plan for this even if I can’t see it at the moment. The way I see it is that God could be working
in one of two ways. Either all this is
simply a “bump in the road” that I have to persevere through, or it’s God’s way
of closing a door just to open a window to another opportunity. Please pray for wisdom and discernment as we
(SIM and I) try to solve this dilemma.
For those wondering if I have a preference in where I go, I’ve always
said I want to go wherever the Lord sends me.
One thing is for sure, whether it is South Carolina, Botswana or some
other place, it’s bound to be an exciting time!
So thanks in advance for your prayers and I’ll do my best to keep you
all posted on how things develop.
Peace and prayers,
Graham Crawford <><
For more info on SIM Canada visit: www.sim.ca.
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