Visa Limbo

The bus is threatening to rattle apart as I write this entry. We are on the road to home, Natitingou.
That's nice it is become like home, but really any place I live is just a transitional residence.
Home is up above. Just got to wait a while. It is a little hard to think any coherent thoughts, as the bus
speakers blare the TV shows and music videos being shown on the screens. It is easy to see why so many
Africans do not know how to show kindness, how to encourage each other. Most media and popular TV programming
is filled with conflict, someone fighting over this or that, you don't often see any ecouraging once, Not that I watch much TV
around here, but when I am, for instance, on the bus, it's on for hours, unfortunately.
We are finally finishing a week long stay in Cotonou, that including more than Manny and I imagined, which
in reality is not unusual in mission life. We had planned to leave Thursday morning, but we went to see if our Visas were
ready Wed. morning as they should have been, they were not ready, so we said we'd come back in the evening.here
The evening there was nothing again. So we asked at the kiosk, and we were directed inside. Normally visas are rewarded
easily, but there's is always that chance that something could go wrong. So what would it be? It turns out
that we could not just renew our 3 month visas over and over without have a resident card. It's the law
they said, if we didn't we would not be under Benionoise law, and that was a probelm if we broke the law
or something happened to us. So they agreed to renew our 3 months aa long as we put in the papers for our resident
card before we came back for our visas, no problem! That just means we now had to wait until
Friday evening for them to process the visas.I wondered why that had not told me this the first or
second time I renewed my visa. My friend stipulated that the problem was money! They didn't tell me
until it was absolutely neccessary, and because Manny was with me they told him to, but since it was his first
renewal they may not have told him otherwise. Could be a possible reason, nonetheless that how it worked out for us
But this was not so bad, because during this time we were able to
get the papers in Cotonou that we needed for the resident card, only one paper left which we will obtain in Nait.
Praise God. And because of confusion in ordering a car part, we had not paid the full sum, since we had
to only pay a down payment to reorder it, so we had enough funds to last until now! Praise God. And with
His leading, we smoothly got the papers we needed. At the hospital we were waited for the blood test doc, when
a lady passed and asked us if were here for resident cards, yes! She was the Doc's secretary and got us all
set and then we came back later in the day for the results, and papers. Then there was the courthouse.
We went to the wrong one first and then got a ride to the right one. At the right courthouse we were to get a proof
of residence, but the lady said, to come back Monday night! We couldn't wait that long. We politely asked
if if could be ready Friday evening, the next day. She said she'd try, and the next evening it was ready!
We had the opportunity to go to the market. I had only been in a little part of it. But we met an Adventist brother
there who showed the whole thing. It was massive. There were hundreds of booths sellig everything from pants, to hand bag,
to soccer jerseys, to shoes all you could want in clothing and such. I always wondered where all those used clothes
that don't even get sold at value village go. Also it seems the cloths some retailers can't sell, they send here.too. Someone
told me that some of the clothes are intended for humanitarian distribution,but logisitcs make it so that the clothes are just
sold cheap instead. Our Adventist brother took us to vistt different Adventists that work at the market. The next day we also went
back to see them the next day (Wednesday). We had pop and a tapoica dish, it was sweet and delicious, and the tapioca was
not like it is is tapioca pudding which I like too).
Sabbath we spent at the church I did all the Red Cross training in. I have a number of friends there, and for one of them
it happened to be his birthday, so we went to his home for lunch, and celebrated with hymns,prayer, sparkling red grape
juice, and pineapple. The afternoon also had an AY program which mostly discussion on what would happent throughout the year,
But Manny shared the beginning devition, and I shared a little meditaiton near the end as well. It all ended with a vespers service
and then we spent some time talking and that was it, time to go! A long adventure almost ended.