Have visa, will travel!

God is good – ALL THE TIME! God has truly blessed us beyond what we could ask or imagine. Rebecca had her medical exam this morning and everything went just fine. They discovered a vision issue with her right eye that had never been documented before, but it did not stop or delay our travel. We will get in touch with Tim’s pediatric optometrist and/or ophthalmologist when we get home. Our next stop was the US Embassy. We had to leave our backpack outside with Victor, our phones and camera with security and were “wanded,” but they let us in. ;-) The building was nothing at all like we expected. We were expecting some big, fancy, UN looking building and it was more like a series of portables with gargantuan steel doors. There was a short wait, but once we got to a clerk she was very friendly and helpful. She took all our papers and told us we could pay for processing down the hall – come back at 2:00 tomorrow for our interview and hopefully they would print the visa at that time. Going with our theory of “Ye have not because ye ask not,” I asked if we could come back at 2:00 today. She said she’d have to check with a supervisor and document a good reason (5AM flight on Wednesday was sufficient), but she thought so. We waited a few minutes to pay our fee and when we brought back the receipt to the first clerk she told us we were all set for the appointment at 2:00 today and could probably get the visa tomorrow morning. That was at about 11AM, so we headed out. Victor was waiting for us outside (I think you have to be a US citizen to go in) and we headed out to find lunch. It was another day for MickeyD’s. Beautiful quality about McDonald’s here, they have free wi-fi. I’m not sure if the ones at home do… I’ve never looked and rarely go anyway. We still had some extra time before we needed to be back at the Embassy and the snow flurries were starting to fall, so we wandered a mall and then walked back to the Embassy. We arrived there at 1:30. They took our passports around 1:45 and started processing our paperwork just after 2:00. The “big interview” lasted about 2 minutes. The officer asked if Dan and I swore that all the documents we turned in were true and witnessed us signing 5 or 6 forms. Okay, go sit back down we’ll work on printing her visa. While waiting, we met two really nice families from the US. One from Salt Lake City and the other from Minneapolis… we exchanged e-mail addresses and stories while we all waited. A little while later a clerk called us up to the window and asked to see the papers (Rebecca’s new birth certificate and court decree) because there was a problem. Oh no!!! He looked at them and obviously didn’t find what he wanted, so I asked what he needed. It seems the cover page of one of our immigration forms (current name, previous name, address, etc.) had been misplaced. Phew! No big deal – I have an extra blank one and will fill it out again! There was also another short form missing, but both took no more than 5 minutes to redo both for him. A little while later he called us back up to the window and said we were all set. Here’s your official immigration envelope (Don’t open it!!! Give it to customs in the US.), a form to send to Washington, DC once you’re home, and Rebecca’s visa and passport. That’s it! No more forms, no more government offices, no more hurdles! Now, I wonder if we can get home sooner?? When we bought her ticket, our 12/29 flights were sold out and we thought the visa wouldn’t come till Tuesday, which is why we had Wednesday flights. I am pleased to tell you that my wonderful husband found a wonderful Lufthansa employee who found us wonderful flights and we are leaving in the morning! Woohooo!!!! We are coming home!!!! Not only are we leaving a day earlier, but the first flight leaves 1 hour later (almost 7AM) and our total travel time is reduced from 24 hours to 20 hours.

Don’t stop praying just yet… the snow is still falling and they are predicting more overnight. We’ll be leaving our apartment mighty early in the morning, you’ll still be awake from today, so we will try to go to bed early tonight.