Getting legal and Staying legal

Waiting in line out in front of the Sous Prefect

Showing your passport at the front door and getting past the "Bouncer"

the Bouncer up close

One of the most pressing tasks for us here in Guadeloupe is to help the French missionaries stay legal.  The couple before us left us a small notebook full of instructions.  I must have read them a dozen times trying to get my head around the details.  After each reading, I would feel this impending sense of doom that we were gonna' mess this all up for our Elders and for the President.  I tried to get a sense of who was legal and who was not.  My regard for Elders from European Union countries took a leap upward when I learned that they were legal for all of their missions - no hoops through which we must jump for them.  I made lists and spreadsheets....I dreaded each visit to the legal offices.

When a missionary comes to a French country, he has a visa.  When he arrives in that country, he must register with the Office of French Immigration and Integration (affectionately known as OFII - oh- fee) within 90 days of his arrival with some papers that he brought from Salt Lake City that he has no idea he even had with him - he is handed a large envelope of papers and told not to lose them on his way to the airport.  I now know what those papers are and how they fit into the legal processes, but like the Elders, I brought that packet with no idea what they were for.  After he reports to OFII, he waits to hear from OFII.  They send him a letter with instructions to go and get an XRay....no big deal except for newbies like us who had to go into Point a Pitre days ahead of the appointment and FIND the place for the xray so that we wouldn't be late and miss this moment in the process.  Within weeks, or months, the Elder gets another letter telling him to go to some other location for a Doctor's appointment.  This too must be found and when one finds it, one is surprised that THIS is a doctor's office, sandwiched into some crazy part of town between a pizza place and a dress store.  The Doctor visit will have to wait for a face to face visit someday, but suffice it to say it makes me laugh very hard right now just thinking about the whole thing!  Weeks or even months later the missionary receives another letter inviting him to come in with his papers to receive what is called a vignette that gets put in his passport and he is legal until his visa expires which is usually going to happen in 6-8 months from the day he gets the vignette.  We are getting better and better at this process, but there have been some glitches and we are learning.

The pictures above are part of the second legalisation process.  Two months before the visa expires, the missionary goes to a place called the Sous Prefecture.  This too is in downtown Point a Pitre, right down by the ocean.  One lines up at about 6 a.m. and waits with anywhere from 50 to 100 people for the doors to open at 8 a.m.  The first day at the prefecture I felt like a helpless bug ready to be squashed by the much bigger and more powerful bugs.  The man in the pictures above is the Security Guy at the Prefecture.  I call him the bouncer.  He is gruff and yells and I found him pretty intimidating.  He wears a uniform and when Rich first met him, he complimented him on his tie and asked him where he could buy one like it!  The guy just roared and said in French to all the people in the waiting room (Picture oooooolllllddd government building jammed packed with people), hey, this guy wants to buy a tie like mine.  They all smiled. His tie is an official tie that government guys were who work in security. From then on, he loves Rich.  Whenever he sees us in line, he calls us to the front and lets us go in.  Leave it to Rich to make friends with his calm, kind, gentle manner!!!

Anyway, I have to admit, we are getting pretty good at this.  It takes hours of waiting, but we now do pretty well at having everything we need in the missionary's folder.  We have been caught off guard a couple of times when they ask for something we KNOW is not needed, but that they insist is needed.  Oh, that is tough on me....so much time goes into prepping for the big day....we wait in line for hours and then wait in the waiting room for hours and then are told no.....hold back the tears!!!  But recently, we have done quite well!

I will say, that the immigration process has been very good to us.  We have lots of immigration issues throughout the mission on the other islands and in the other countries, and the French side is the most consistent and the most friendly.

Anyway, it is a big part of our life !