We are still in the middle of our “Great Visa Adventure”, only things have gotten more interesting and frustrating as the days have gone by.
For one, we are officially staying “illegally” at a hotel in our province’s capitol city. “Illegal” you ask? Yes, because we do not have our new visas yet (our old visas expired on July 1st) and in this Olympic-sized nation foreigners must register at all hotels with a valid passport and visa!
We even had the po-lice come by our room this morning to tell us that we were not supposed to be travelling without our visas, but that they would ‘let us go’ this one time.
Here’s the catch: we were told to come to this city by the po-lice department in the rural region where we live! So the po-lice take our passports (and corresponding visas) to get them renewed, then tell us to go to the capitol city to do one more thing before they can issue us the visas, and the police in that city tell us that we are here illegally and we should be at home.
Why were we told by the rural po-lice department to come to the capitol city? Well, that is another story altogether.
The last time I went in to get our visas renewed (in the capitol city), I found out on the day that I thought the visas were due (the 15th of the month) that they had for some reason given my daughter her visa only until the 5th of the month. They told me that the fine would be $75 per day overdue (x 10 = $750!!!) and that I should pay the fine when I came to pick the up the passports with the new visas.
When it came time to pick up the passports, I was busy and I had a friend go by to pick them up for me. I told him to pay the fine for me if they asked and I would pay him back. They never said anything, so I thought we were off the hook. I had pleaded our case with the po-lice when they initially threatened me with the fine, and I thought that they had been nice and dropped the whole thing.
We were not so lucky. The reason we were just sent to the capitol city was to go and pay that fine before we would be issued our new visas. Evidently the guy just plain forgot to ask my friend to pay the fine. Someone has since remembered and now it is payday.
To make things more frustrating, I just talked to the boss lady on the telephone. She is accusing me of being dishonest by not reminding the guy (or having my friend remind him) to charge us the fine when he picked up our passports the last time. Unbelievable! As if she really expects me to happily hand over $750 to the po-lice in a situation where I feel I was the one who was cheated.
Remember what happened? My visa, my wife’s visa, my son’s visa… all set to expire on the 15th. My daughter’s visa, on the 5th. We are being fined $750 because my 1 year old daughter overstayed her visa illegally for 10 days!
If I sound frustrated, I am. I know that money is just money, and it shouldn’t be a big deal. However, two thoughts keep popping into my noggin every time I try to relax and just ‘take it like a man’:
1. We are currently broke. I am having to borrow from a different fund (for our Latino missionaries) to pay the fine. If it was just a matter of forking over money that we had plenty of, I would be a little less worked up.
2. The money is not going for anything good! Imagine funding the same people who persecute believers all over this great nation. So I don’t even want to ask anyone to help us financially, because who wants to give to that?!
So please pray for me that God would give me grace tomorrow morning as I go to pay the fine. I don’t want to argue and sin with my attitude (I have already argued enough), but at the same time I really don’t want to pay the fine. So please ask God to give me wisdom and the right words to say in love.
Also, please pray that God would provide for our financial needs, not only in this situation but for the rest of this year. It has been a tough year financially, and a bit frustrating with our family growing and our ministry expanding. However, we know that God will provide and we are grateful for the opportunities he is giving us to be more dependent on Him.
(To end this post, I want to acknowledge that I could have avoided all of this by studying our visas carefully during the past year just to see if perhaps they had messed up on the dates. They did mess up, but I could have caught it if I had been paying attention. So at least in that sense, it was my fault.)
I’m sorry Ben, but God is Greater than any situation, any finance, and I know He will work this out for you family beyond Great measure! Miss you all dearly!
Praying right now that in Jesus’ name, you would experience no shame for this, that the voice of the Enemy would be silenced, and that God would abundantly provide for your needs.