Visa Adventure or Calvinball, Next Round

The Visa adventure continues. We sent my mom the documents that needed authenticated by the Philippine consulant in the U.S. She traveled to Chicago and in a matter of hours had the necessary paperwork with the fancy seals in hand. The only problem was that it took several people looking at Annalise's birth certificate before approval was given. My mom shipped the documents back to Baguio and they arrived safely. My parents went on vacation and when they came home there were the documents back. FedEx had returned them. Evidently they will only hold them so long but failed to let either of us know this important detail. So earlier this week she reshipped them.

Yesterday, we boarded the bus to travel to Baguio. Alexie stood up with Thomas for part of our journey to allow two ladies to have seats on the bus. Five and a half hours later the bus broke down. We travel as light as possible with only MP3 players to entertain and a few snacks. Since most of them had used up their battery life by this point in the journey, fun times were had! We sat there for 1 1/2 hours before transferring to another bus to continue to our destination. One of our girls was quite stressed when the replacement bus was headed the wrong direction and the destination sign said, "Bontoc". But it turned around and made good time in the right direction. So after 8 hours we finally made it to Baguio.

We were tired and hungry so we trudged in the rain dragging our luggage to McDonald's counting on some good ol' French fries to brighten the mood. One thing that it doesn't take long to learn is just because the Filipino speaks English doesn't mean we will have clear communication. Not wanting to add further distress to my girls, I remembered to request their cheeseburgers with only ketchup. When they arrived they had every topping except ketchup! I expected loud protests by the girls, but they ate them without one word of complaint. Our girls really bless us over and over again with how well they handle the realities of our life here. One day we are served rice and chicken feet and heads and two days later hamburgers with mustard, pickles and onions (with the unfortunate absence of ketchup).

Today our plans are to renew our tourist visas and, if our documents arrive, get on another bus to Manila. There the goal is to submit all the necessary paperwork for our missionary visas.

In the continuing game of Visa Calvinball, it appears we are losing, but the game is not over!