La Llegada

I have made it safe and sound to Jarabacoa. I got in the airport at about 9:20, got my bags, found my school director and his wife, and got to their house by about 10:45. Today I spent the day in the classroom setting stuff up with my cooperating teacher, meeting other teachers, taking care of some details, etc. So far I am so in love with the community at Doulos and am so excited for my time here! Everyone has been incredibly kind and helpful and inclusive. The campus is gorgeous and I feel like this is a perfect place for me to be at.

My adventures for this trip, however, began a little bit sooner than expected. I committed a bit of an oversight this past week and a half-I hadn’t seen my passport and it never really occurred to me to look for it. It’s always there somewhere. And I had it in my car 3 weeks ago. Monday night I went to go get it from the place in my room that I always keep it and it wasn’t there…or in the 3 or 4 other places it could have possibly been. With a weeks’ worth of nightmares of various things going wrong in my travels swirling around in my head along with all of the mounting anxiety of the last week (or couple months), my stress level climaxed and full-fledged panic ensued. My parents, Matt, my sisters and I all began to tear apart the house, ransacking every nook and cranny. No luck. It was nowhere to be found. I’ve made a lot of stupid mistakes in my time, but this topped them all and I had no idea where to go next. Do I keep looking? Do I look into getting another one?

I called an automated appointment system to try and set up an appointment ASAP in either Chicago or Detroit to get a new passport same day. The earliest dates were the 12^th and the 13^th at those offices. I was supposed to leave the 7^th. We continued searching places we had already checked 3 times over. My dad, the voice of reason, finally decided that we should just call and talk to someone in the Chicago office first thing in the morning.

So I got up the next morning, reported my passport as lost (which was scary because then even if I found it after that, I wouldn’t ever be able to use it) and then got transferred to an appointment specialist. She took my information and told me that she would send in a request to the Chicago office. At first she made it sound like there was no chance I would be getting in today yet, but then I asked how soon I would be able to know when I could get an appointment because I would need to change my flight accordingly and she said that hopefully they would call that day to let me know. I thanked her and hung up, still really unsure of what to do. I called my school director’s house to let him know what was going on and decided to just take a shower and then keep packing and getting everything ready to get a new passport so I could go right when they called me. I didn’t have to wait long. 1 minute out of the shower my dad called me over because he was talking to the airline to ask about the costs of changing my flight ($200 at least for each change) and my phone rang. It was the Chicago passport office calling me to let me know that if I could make it there by noon-12:30-at-the-very-latest then I could get my passport today. It was currently 9:15 and I was in a towel without any of the things gathered that I needed. I quickly changed and ran to Walgreen’s to get a passport picture as my dad sent forms to my mom to print out an drive home (our printer isn’t working well) and gathered the things I needed like my birth certificate. We got everything together and were off by 10 (thankfully Chicago is an hour behind). Nonetheless, we had very little wiggle room for traffic delays (which have happened every single time I’ve travelled to and from Bloomington-Normal this summer).

I never would have dreamed that I would lose my passport. Who does that? Apparently a lot of people. There was quite a line when we arrived to the office at 12 on the dot. As I waited in line I heard a few people say that they were trying to get passports to leave the country that same afternoon. I waited in line for 45 minutes, then got a number to put in my request. I waited about 10 more minutes, then got my request in and she said that hopefully they would get it in today yet. My dad and I, a little shell-shocked with our newfound relief of pressure kind of wandered around for a bit and then decided to go get lunch at a German café he had heard about. We wandered to the outside of Millennium Park after that, and then decided to head back to see if my passport was done.

With 30 minutes until the building closed, I was handed my new passport!

God is good. As are my parents and Matt, without whom I definitely would not have gotten on that plane in time.

When I finally made it back home, I ate dinner quickly and then began packing with Matt’s help. Or maybe he was packing with my help (he’s much more efficient with space). We got done at about 1:00am with everything. Then woke up at 3:30am to get ready and head off to catch my plane from Grand Rapids. I was travelling all day, with an 8 hour layover in Miami and snuck in a few short naps throughout.  I also ended up sitting next to and meeting a guy who works for a church just down the street from Doulos, so he helped me with a lot of traveling things and told me more about the city. It was wonderful to have the company on the trip, especially in the state that I was in!

Our flight to Santiago was delayed for about 40 minutes so I got in late but unbelievably, I made it despite all of the big obstacles! Life is crazy and miracles do still happen. And as my dad reminded me on our drive home, you never know what the day may bring (and don’t beat yourself up if you lose your passport because there are a ton of lost passports out there…).

The whole passport ordeal really made me question my self-proclamation as an adventure-lover. This was one adventure I could do without, I thought. It also really made me question why someone like me should be allowed to travel independently to another country in a kind of remote place. I had serious doubts about myself. And I was hoping for a clear reason as to why I lost my passport so that it wouldn't just be because I am scattered :) But nothing dramatic happened: I didn’t have to change my flight only to realize that a plane I was supposed to be on crashed, I didn’t meet any life-changing people because of it and I’m still out $200. But it did remind me that I need to trust God. He carried me through the whole process by using my amazingly supportive family and boyfriend and a very kind stranger. He took care of me and made possible the unbelievable. I’m still scared for all that this semester will hold and what I should do after it, but I know that He will carry me through and that everything will be alright. I just need a little more faith and trust sometimes.