How did it come about?

I remember distinctly that during the time of the, now famous September 11 attacks, I was negotiating with a local “head hunter” and practically had a job for an IT contracting company in Sydney. When it came to accepting the offer my wife got cold feet and decided that an English country, far away from her family was not her kind of thing. The next December, at the family Christmas get-together, her sister from Tsumeb, Namibia, announced that they had applied for an Australian visa with the intention to emigrate.

Perhaps there is a bigger picture, a Divine Plan. One that goes back a long time, even before 2001. I recall back in the early 1970's my Dad wanted to move to Australia and farm rabbits. Perhaps that was before the Aussies realized that rabbits were a pest on their continent :-) In the 1940's one of my Dad's brothers ended up in Australia (apparently) when their family was torn apart by the Nazis during the Second World War. Whether any of the above is relevant or indicative, I'm not sure, but I do believe in Divine Plans. The fact that my wife's sister moved to Brisbane in 2004 prepared the way for her (my wife) to eventually agree that we apply for a PR visa (Permanent Residency).

One day, on my way to work, I was listening to Radio Pulpit (in those days they still had an FM frequency, now they've been relegated to AM) and they played an interview with Bruce Wilkinson, author of The Dream Giver. This was my first “Divine encouragement” to go ahead with the application. Based on what Bruce was saying through his book, I really felt it was Ok with God for me to go and look for a better life. Please understand that I was not living a bad life: The Lord was looking after us very well. It was all that I described in days 1 to 3 that I detested. Do yourself a favour and get this little book. It's a true gem! Short and very easy to read.

My wife and I spent a lot of time in prayer about this issue and the greatest milestone was to actually obtain the PR visa. I was not about to pay some company R30 000 to R40 000 to do some paperwork, so I set about handling the application by myself. With the help of some friends (and family) who were already in or on their way to Australia, I tackled the mountain of paper work! The first hurdle was to get a Skills Assessment. This involves (mainly) obtaining letters from your university and employers for the past 10 years detailing your position, responsibilities, duties and achievements at each company. This application came back once with a request for more information. Finally the Skills Assessment came back positive and I was then, and only then, eligible to apply for a PR visa.

The obvious route is Skilled Migration with a points test. I quickly came to realise that, while I would have qualified on the points basis in 2001, I had now aged myself into a new bracket (worth less points) and the requirements had been bumped up by 5 points. This left me short about 10 points. So I started looking at Afrikaans and various other little things to score more points. However, all those doors closed. For example: Proficiency in Afrikaans can count a couple of points but they cannot test it. So you need to prove that your university/college education was conducted in Afrikaans. Although I have a 1978 and 1979 Taalbond exam certificates stating that I am fully bi-lingual it did not help me.

I was getting desperate! Were my dreams to be dashed? My wife would never agree to go on government sponsorship because that would mean the Australian government would place us wherever they wanted; probably in the Kimberly or other similarly deserted place. :-) I was not keen on that idea either. Wading through the 57 pages of Book 6 I eventually stumbled upon a little thing called a Designated Area Sponsored Visa with Assurance of Support. It had a small note that I had to read about 3 times, slap myself and read again and still I doubted it. It simply read: “This category is not points tested.” Freak-out!!! Can you imagine! I was going to Australia again!! What else was required? The usual English competency, Skills Assessment, family member in a designated area, sponsorship by family member, and to crown it all, my wife's sister had moved into one of the designated areas around Brisbane! Fantastic!! All sorted.

Not quite. Closer inspection revealed that the family member living in the designated area has to be direct family as in mother, father, sister or brother. Does in-law qualify? Nope! Well, I could carry on for pages, but it turns out my wife is actually the primary applicant and, because I am the breadwinner, my Skills Assessment was accepted. On 20 October 2006 we got a letter from DIMMIA stating that we had been granted a PR visa. PRAISE THE LORD!!!