God is MIGHTY!!!

We want to SHOUT ALOUD that GOD is AMAZING, He is VICTORIOUS.

NOTHING can stand in His Way. When His Hand Moves, NOTHING can

stop Him. He can make a WAY in ANY situation. Nothing is too difficult for

Him or beyond His scope. I PRAISE HIM for His work on our behalf here in

India.

What am I talking about?

First of all, I would never advise anyone, if they can help it, to try to get an extension on your visa in India...

My original flight out of India was for Tues of this week, visa ending on Wed...

Then I found out my next connection in South Africa couldn't receive me until a week later... so my brother and I decided to check into extending my visa for a week or so...

Little did we know what that process would entail.

wow.

We found out we go to an Indian Foreign Affairs office, not our embassy, and

the ordeal began.

You go up to a man at a desk outside in a tree-shaded

walkway and get a number. Then you go to a room, with AC (really nice in India

right now) and packed with people, standing room only. Then you wait for your

number to be called. 20-30-40min, who knows, depends on the day. Then

you sign in at the front book with the lady in the pretty blue sari, and she

asks you for your permanent address in India, to which you say you don't have

one, you just stayed the last 2 nights in the YWCA, and it was getting too expensive so you checked out this morning. Ok. Write it here. Then she gives you a slip of paper w/ a number on the top of it, and directs you to go outside and around the building to the main building, 1st floor. Ok.

You walk w/ your papers and your brother, but they stop your brother b/c he doesn't have a slip of paper w/ a number. So he goes and sits under a tree.... to wait for an hour??? (we guessed wrong... an hour was far too short.)

Then you go to what looks like the main building, w/out your brother, but with Jesus, and head upstairs, following the direction of others. After entering the room, immediately to your left, you see about 10-15 people crowded around a sari-ed lady sitting at a small desk in a corner, elbowing their way in; it looks like a teacher's worst nightmare. :) You try to be polite and wait your turn, b/c that's what you were taught to do in your culture, but quickly realize that you will never be seen by the calm lady sitting at the desk, being handed paper after paper by people who keep cutting in front of you and are crowding from all sides of the desk. So you step forward with a little more "I don't care about anyone else, I'm getting what I came for" attitude, holding your paper firmly out in front of you. And sure enough, in the next few tries, she finally takes your paper. Whew.

She writes your name and number down on a sheet of paper (interesting - no computers to be seen) and tells you to go over to desk 4. You look across the room, and see crowds of people spilling out of a back area where you think are desks, but you can't see anything. But 1st she says fill out these forms and go get photocopies of your passport and visa....

You remember seeing a copy machine downstairs, and people again crowded around it, and you're kicking yourself for not having extra copies of the things she needs. So back downstairs you go, and are happy to find only 5 people crowded around all sides of the copier. One man gets done, and another cuts in front of all of us (but really there's no line, but we were there first)... and I could see another man pushing his way in, too, and then another younger guy come around the back side for a better angle at an entrance... I was getting more heated by the moment, and it wasn't from the outside temperature. There was one lady covered in shawls from Pakistan and myself, and all these men, practicing their India-line-rules, which I'm not sure are rules at all. So I spoke up to the younger guy while RAISING MY EYEBROWS in a back-down communication style that I learned while teaching... (I've been thankful many times on this trip for things I learned/developed during my teaching days in the inner city.)... He got the message, and told the next guy, butting in line, that the Pakistan lady and I were next. There is justice.

I need to cut this short, but basically here's what happened over the next 3 days:

1. I got my copies and headed back up to desk 4, trying to politely push my way through the hordes of people in that upstairs room. I found a seat in the back corner next to a man from Afganistan. When I found out where he was from, I didn't want him to know I was from America, in case any of his family or friends had been killed by us. I found out he was there trying to get a visa extension for his brother who was really sick and in a hospital in India. I met quite a few people in that back corner and we became friends. It's amazing what kind of bonding can go on between people who share in suffering.

2. I met a college-aged guy who had been there for 3 days, trying to get a visa. He ended up helping me and my brother out a lot.

3. A girl came in right before they closed, really stressed, saying she had missed her flight 2 hours ago back to America, and her visa expired today. Could she please get it extended so she could fly out tomorrow. Little did she know the process. I tried to help her the best I could, because I had been in there all day, and "knew" some of the people. But she was really freaking out, which didn't help me too much. But finally they listened and she got her papers stamped, which was a MAJOR miracle. (Seeing as how some people were there 3 days, just to get that stamp.) But she didn't realize the stamp was just the beginning. Then you had to travel across town to another office, that would close in an hour, and push your papers and your plight through another set of men who seemed indifferent to your suffering and to actually enjoy seeing people stress out.

4. At the next office, which looked like a regular American BMV, but who would put our workers to shame for their callousness. When one of the guys behind the sign-in desk, who seriously looked like Saddam Hussein, saw me, he got up and spoke to our Indian friend, Danny, who was helping us out. While I was filling in the next set of papers, and again looking for a copy machine!, Danny came up to me and said, this guy says that you can get your visa extended in 20 minutes, if you pay him $200 US. Are you KIDDING ME??? Is this some visa cartel, where they work off BRIBES?! I felt angry and insulted just by being asked to pay someone off. That's what thieves do. I will NOT pay someone for this. I will wait. I found the copy machine, thanks but no thanks to the help of Hussein. While back there, I saw a handsome Western-looking guy, who looked like Ken meets Crocodile Dundee. I overheard him say he had lost his passport. I figured, good luck, he'll probably be here for 10 years. When we went back inside, after about 10 minutes, I noticed Dundee going straight up to the final desk, doing some transaction with the clerk, and then walking away with a nice little blue passport. Are you JOKING me? Did he seriously just buy off those guys. I couldn't believe it. But I guess I could. While there, I saw about 3 more couples or individuals, all beautiful and white, come and leave in a matter of minutes, while everyone else, not as white, had to sit and wait DAYS for these government officials to decide to look at their papers and sign their names to grant them their request. It was pitiful. I felt ashamed to be American, or to be white, or to be from a rich place... it was really unfair. All those people were just as human as those rich-ies who walked in the door, and they had just as important reasons for wanting what they wanted. But a few could pay, and the rest couldn't. But I noticed that none of the rich-ies made eye contact with the other people as they left. I don't think they could.

5. After 3 days, waiting, being told, sorry, you'll have to come back tomorrow. Are you kidding me? I just spent 8 hours in here for nothing? All you have to do is look at my paper and sign it! My visa hasn't even expired yet, but it will on Wed, and then i'll probably have to start over, because now I'm an illegal visitor. During that time, I had to change my flight, which was another fun ordeal - looking for an international telephone. But our friend, Danny, came in handy. He knew how to speak Hindi, so he asked the locals, and they directed us to a phone in a small shop down the street.