I sit in a foreign country. Running around trying to get paperwork from two other foreign nations on opposite sides of the globe… I am exhausted a bit. With tunnel vision I run and fight for this simple sticker that will hopefully be processed and placed in my passport in a few hours.
Honestly I think it is a little joke, the bureaucracy that goes with this stuff. But that is ok. The world needs a little bureaucracy. I think… (they just called my name)
I am going to go across the street. Praying for favor and grace as I walk out this journey. Attempting to walk in the authority of the Father. Yet not killing anyone in my path. Even if that may be how I came across this morning when the lady told me my passport photo was too dark. I was ready to kill!! Also that my NZ letter needed to be in “color” – what a joke!! but here I am. I have figured out these details and I am playing by the “rules”. Pretty much. Lord here You are. Here I am… send me (what does that even mean anymore???) OK across the street I go – interview at the embassy and Lord willing a visa will come. Success is at hand I can feel it!!! (11:22 am)
12:56 pm
Well I did not get the visa…….
(I thought I should come back to this blog entry and bring some sort of a conclusion to it – even though it is now months later)
I talked with this Indian guy, and then with his boss – who seemed to be the head guy of the show. He looked at me in the eye and I described my situation and the urgency of my need for a visa in order to meet up with the team I was connecting with. He told me that it is not possible in less than 72 hours. NOTE: 72 hours would have landed on the weekend, thus making it MON before I would get anything, thus basically missing my connection in INDIA and the whole purpose for the visit. I sat there, listened to the guy, argued a bit. In my mind all this guy had to do was sign on the dotted line and the visa was mine. But he seemed like he would not budge at all on the matter. So I walked back out to the waiting room. The girls in the office were looking at me papers and chit-chatting, in korean, about the situation. In my mind I wondered if they could just stamp the thing and give me my “golden ticket” and I would be on my way and soon on a plane. But that was not the case. They said to check back on Friday. To check the status of the visa or to pick up my passport without the visa and simply be on my way with just flying through India and not stopping.
I walked out of there somewhat distraught. I was sooooo sure that I was going to get the visa. LORD!!!! Lord it will have to be a miracle if I get this visa by Friday to get the last possible flight I could get to connect with the team. So with my hands in the air I let go and gave it to the LORD. LORD, I can do nothing more about this….my hands are up!
I simply wondered around Seoul a bit without any real idea what to do or anything. I sent an e-mail to my people discussing other options of travel and what we are to do now.
The next day I got an e-mail that said that I could come and pick up the visa. No explanation or anything. It was kinda weird, I went in, paid the money, then had to come back in the afternoon and get my visa. The lady seemed annoyed by me that I did not come perfectly on her time table – but I GOT IT!!!!!!
The security guard outside the building, that I had now been to like 5 times, was making a joke about haw many times he had seen me come and go. Honestly the whole process was ridiculous!!! I still do not know what it was that caused the release of my visa, but I have a hunch that GOD might have had His hand in it!!!
note: going to India for any length of time requires a visa – lesson learned
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