Friday, February 15, 2013

Spending time at the Boarder with Police

Today is Wed...the official third day in Sremka.  When we went to the boarder, Robert, the Serbian Elder was told that he had to surrender his Croatia citizenship.  His family has disowned him since he joined the church and his father is very high in the Croatian government.  His father made a formal request that he could not keep the family name (that is why he has an American name) and is no longer a member of his family.  When we got back from the boarder, he got a call that he had to report to the Croatian boarder and turn in his citizenship card within 24 hours.  So today, we drove again to the boarder to turn in his card.  When we got there they took his passport and were not going to return it to him.  You can not go anywhere in these countries with out passports.  Calls were made to the Mission Pres. and someone in Russia plus other calls and after 2 hours they gave back his passport but kept his citizenship card.  He is now literally "a man without a country".  He has to find a country that will allow him to have citizenship or he won't be able to get a passport when it comes due.  This poor young man has given up his family and now his country to be a member of the church and he is only 20 years old.  There is so much we take for granted and I sometimes wonder is we truly know the blessings that we have.

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