MISSION UPDATE: Visas Denied

I can't not share this story.

Our visas were set to expire 3 days ago and so we need to rewind in time about three weeks. That'll take to somewhere around the first week of September when we were polishing off the to-do list we'd been given by our local immigration and city hall.

We thought all the t's were crossed and every i had it's dot. Until we were told the whole plan was a no-go. We were being denied our visas. It wasn't anything we'd done or not done, but it was a firmly closed door. It had been determined we weren't being given visas here, now or ever. So we needed to quickly discern how and where God was leading, which sounds calmer when typed out than it was in the moment.

We reached out to a few friends and asked for prayer. We gathered ourselves together to pray. We recognized the need to surrender our plan because His is always better. And while we knew that surrender may include the need to leave Thailand, we remained convicted that wasn't actually what this whole thing was about.

We talked to Gop from the Love for Asia office and he's not an easy guy to rattle. But even he was slightly alarmed at this sudden turn of events and he started helping us plan how to exit the country for as short a time as possible and then re-enter once we'd been able to secure new visas from across the border. We booted up the computer and started scouring for good flights and possible options for lodging near the Thai immigration in Malaysia.

We did all the investigative work and yet stopped short of making any bookings or reservations. It soon became clear why God paused us before purchasing.

Because following our conversation with Gop, he contacted an employee from a Thai visa agency that might know a way to help us. She told him they could help, but we first needed to get visas and work permits, so we were still going to have to leave the country on one-way tickets and then return when the way opened for us.

But God hadn't yet had the final word. A day or so later, that same agent had to make a visit to city hall just under 5 hours from where we live. Her business there was completely unrelated to our situation but while she was there God brought us to her mind and she talked to the officials about our problem.

That official made some phone calls, and then assured the agent that her province would give us our visas. She told us we could get an emergency meeting with the governor, because you have to have a letter from the governor in order to extend your non-o visa. The meeting was a few days later, and within two days of that interview Gop had the letter in hand that typically takes more than two months to secure. Later that week we went to Chiang Mai and were given the promised visas granting us another year in Thailand.

I will even make a way in the wilderness, and rivers in the desert.

Isaiah 43:19

One of the reasons it was so unsettling for us to have to leave the country, even for a short time, was because the need to go was going to coincide with the timing of our second evacuation every year due to flooding. (I know many of you on the East coast of the US are dealing with flooding right now, too, and we're praying for you!) Hannah and Abi are on a different type of visa and they were going to stay here to care for the children while we took Levi, Quinn and Zach with us. Providing care for 24 children while evacuated is just a lot and the idea of not being here to help them was undoing me.

Interestingly, this is the first year out of the four rainy seasons we've spent on this property, that we didn't have to evacuate during the initial push of water that always floods us out. But people were praying that we'd also not have to evacuate during the second time where the flooding is always worse. We're now almost to October, which is when rainy season officials waves the white flag, and we haven't had to evacuate yet.

I cannot tell you how grateful we are! Our evacuation location is our church. And our church is (actually WAS but that's another story for another post!) right next to a canal wall in the city that raised concerns this month that it may not hold under the pressure of so much water. Evacuating to a place where a canal wall might come down seemed unwise. But also, keeping almost 3 dozen kids contained indoors for two weeks is extremely difficult. We (and others) laid our concerns before God and asked that whatever happens it would glorify Him.

Our waters are rising, but very slowly. It's looking entirely possible that God is saying He'd like us to stay home this year. And even if we ultimately have to leave for a bit due to the water, we see how He's held the water back to give us a far easier end to rainy season than we've ever experienced before.

He's a God who hears and cares and who answers. He leads and provides and encourages.

He is worthy of all our praise and the lessons He teaches us through our trials are praiseworthy!

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