Tuesday, June 22, 2010

Rollercoaster...

It's been a bit of a rollercoaster ride this past weekend. Hugo went to the Indonesian embassy on Friday after hearing from the office in Jakarta that our visa's had been approved. Remember, we are in Enschede which is in Eastern Holland and the embassy is in Western Holland. The train ride is about 2.5 hours... At the embassy Hugo was told that they had not yet received the visa approvals. Even though Hugo had printed copies of the visa approvals, they would not accept our applications. So it was a wasted trip. On Monday morning Hugo hopped on the latest train he could take while still being on time to the embassy (it closes at 1:00 for visa applications). Just as he was getting on the train he finally got through to the embassy. Even though they open at 9:00, they did not answer his calls until 9:30. He spoke with a number of different people who all confirmed that they had not yet received the approvals. He called me. I called the MAF office in Jakarta and the woman there said she'd see what she could do. The train ride is 2.5 hours and then you have to walk or take a taxi to the embassy. Then wait in line. When Hugo came to the counter and handed over our applications, the lady said,"For seven people? The approvals just came in." Wow!! Whew!! So on Wednesday we can go and pick up our visas... Now the fun part is finding flights... We did not cancel our original tickets but are in the process of changing them. All flights with our Airline are booked up until the end of August so our agent is checking hourly for cancellations. It looks like we were successful and we may have flights out next week. It may involve an overnight in HongKong, but that's a small price to pay!
It's been a bit hard not to worry and to just trust in God's plan for us. As I've said before, it's a difficult thing for us sinful control-freak humans to do. We're learning!

2 comments:

Maaike HArmsen said...

Hai Erica, next time you and/your husband are in The Hague, come and visit us , we live a 13 min. tramride from the central station, Ligusterstraat 74, 070 7853945, Maaike Harmsen (Hugo's cousin) and Good Luck with the visa

AudreyU said...

Wow - I can so imagine it being hard to not want to control this! I'm glad to hear that it's looking like things are 'falling' into place - thanks be to God. I will be thinking of you ... ALL 7 of you! and praying that the rest of the journey home is a safe and uneventful one. Take care.