visas
Posted by Drew | Filed under General
We’ve been in America for a week now. Strangely it seems like much longer. I was talking with some people on my team about how strange the transition is coming home. I feel like there is no transition. There’s Italy, and there’s America. Totally different worlds. Right now Italy seems like a long way off, and a long time ago. The same thing happened to America when I got to Italy in September. No connection between. When I arrived in Salerno, it felt normal. When I came back home last week, it felt normal. I don’t understand it, but that’s the best way I can describe it. And when i say normal, my stomach would disagree. It is much happier in Italy - not so much for the way things taste, but for the way they feel afterward. It’s best if I don’t elaborate.
Our time in Miami went really well. We flew in Tuesday night, and caught a shuttle to the hotel. Wednesday we rested, and thursday we met with the lawyer who took us to the consulate and walked us through the application process. Thankfully, she’s from ITaly and knows Fabbio, the guy at the consulate who has helped us get our visas in the past. We were in and out in less than 20 minutes. He said he should get them processed and in the mail by the end of this week. It couldnt’ have gone any better. We still don’t have the visas in hand, but we should know within a few days whether we’re going back in January or waiting until March. Thanks for your continued prayers. God’s provision is both abundant and good.
As soon as we left the consulate, we went to the airport to rent two cars to go along with the one Adam’s parents brought down from Kissimmee, so that we could get all our luggage up to Orlando where Jutty and Abbey and some students from UCF Crusade (one of our partnership campuses) had arranged places for us to stay for a few days to relax and enjoy some good team time and evaluate the semester. Paul Mayer also came down as our coach to help encourage us during that time. They even arranged for us to spend a day at Disney World for free. Like the rest of the semester, it was a lot busier than we planned, but we had some good team time, ate some good american food, and were still able to slow down a little before going home.
NOw I’m in Auburn with a rental car that needs to be in Birmingham by tomorrow at noon. I still dont’ know how I”m getting to Tupelo from there. If anyone has any suggestions, I’d love to hear them. I have a few options, but all of them so far involve people going out of their way to take me places or pick me up. There’s one potential option that has me going north, south, north, southwest, then north again and will get me home on Saturday. But most of that is still up in the air. So if anyone is going from Birmingham to Tupelo between now and saturday, I would really appreciate a ride. Another potential obstacle is the 150 lbs of luggage I’m carrying with me. I know this seems really irresponsible. Just for the record, I would never do this if I weren’t travelling alone. I can already see people doubting my ability to lead a team of missionaries with so little foresight and wisdom. Either that or you’re amazed at my great faith.
