Preparations

The preparations for our new calling have been interesting. We were sent a list of documents  that needed to be prepared and/or collected in order to apply for the Visas that we will be needing.  The first part of that list included 9 different documents needed to obtain the Visa for Belgium.  The second part of the list included 5 different documents needed for obtaining the Visa for the Netherlands.  these documents included items such as: our passports, 2 photocopies of our passport face page, 5 extra passport photos, a certified copy of our birth certificates with an Apostille attached, (those had to be ordered from our birth countries - Henk's from the Netherlands and Judy's from Germany - What a hassle to get that all taken care of correctly).  We also needed an FBI report on each of us with an Apostille (which meant we first had to be fingerprinted at the police office), copies of our marriage certificate with an Apostille, copies of our baptismal records, a notarized letter from our bank that explained our financial standing and extra copies of that, and ......Whew!!! What a relief it was to get through all of that!

We have had to get more immunizations and make sure our immunizations were up to date and included a bit of everything.  Our latest request was a letter from our doctor verifying that we are not bringing any diseases into the country such as cholera, hepetitus, syphilis, etc.