Illegal Immigrants!

On Thursday, I drove out to the village to pick up some of the guys who had stayed there. On my way back to town, I was stopped by immigration. They were looking for people involved in human trafficking and such. They asked all of us for our id’s. Zech and I only had our driver’s licenses on us and some of the Zambians didn’t even have that. The guy told us that he would be well within his rights to detain us until our passports were brought. Luckily, he let us go.

This stop reminded me that Dawna and I were supposed to have our visa’s renewed on January 8^th. It was now the 10^th.  Unfortunately, immigration was closed already that day. So, when I got back to town, I talked to Regina and she said she thought the fine was $100 per day that we were late. Since we were going in on the 11^th, it would have been a $300 fine for each one of us. Neither one of us has that kind of money.

So Friday morning, Mike, Dawna, and I prayed briefly and headed down to throw ourselves on their mercy. When we got there, Mike explained our situation to the lady and apologized and asked for mercy. She then informed us that they no longer fine people for being late. (Sounded good to me!) Instead, they just take them straight to jail to face trial. (That didn’t sound so good to me!) She proceeded to tell Mike that he would be joining Dawna and I in jail since he was harboring illegal immigrants. We tried to plead with her a bit more but she just told us to have a seat and wait to be taken to jail.

After a little bit, Dawna started to explain that she didn’t have any idea that she was supposed to renew her visa after thirty days and asked how much it would cost to get us out of this mess. The lady told her that ignorance is no excuse for breaking the law. But she also said that we could participate in some special program that would cost us $4000 each. It would keep us out of jail and allow us to be in the country for like two years or something. Well, as I said before, we definitely don’t have that kind of money.

We sat there for a little bit and then the lady asked us how long we would like to stay in Zambia. We told her that we were both here until February 20^th. She started to do something in our passports and asked us to have a seat. Our hopes soared! And then Dan came in. He informed the immigration officer that he was the ceo of the organization we were working with. She jumped right back to the “harboring illegal immigrants” thing and asked where the handcuffs were. Admittedly, I don’t fully remember what was said. I just remember at some point Dan asked what the law was and she said jail and he told her that we must follow the law. Then he left to go get some paperwork that we had left at the team house.

At this point, I was pretty sure that we were going to jail. I was actually a little bit excited. I’d never been to jail and I figured it would make a cool story. Plus, I’d be going with Mike so it wouldn’t be too bad. I reasoned that if I went to jail, it’s because God wanted me there so I was excited to see what would happen.

However, about five minutes after Dan left. She called us back up and gave us our passports and let us go! I should mention, the whole time this was going on, there was a British girl sitting next to us trying to cheer us up. When she heard we were going to jail, she texted a friend who got us the number for the American Embassy in Zambia (after this experience, I’d recommend you learn that number if you travel). That was really cool of her. I don’t think we ever got her name, though.

After we were released, I checked online and the law in Zambia is either $3750 or jail. When you go to jail, you appear before a judge who decided your fine and then you are deported. God really was looking out for us and got us out of some big trouble there. Needless to say, I don’t think we’ll be forgetting our next renewal date!