Getting to Tanzania - a passport fiasco

Hey Everyone!!

So for starters, lets mention that my passport was "misplaced" (aka. I lost it) the weekend before our Monday flight. We checked everywhere for it! I was at home already and even my parents went through the stuff I had brought. My roommates in Tallahassee were scouring my apartment, visiting the FSU library (the last place I remembered having it) and even checking the lost and found. Unfortunately, no passport. I talked to Lee about it several times over the weekend, and he stayed pretty calm about it on the phone. His Uncle, our travel agent seemed somewhat pessimistic about my possibility of making the flight or even the trip at worst.

However, we were pretty sure God would not have me raise so much money to come only to leave me hanging, or grounded, in the end. Sure this passport thing was not His fault, but He is our heavenly father in the end and His love never fails us even in our imperfections.

My parents ended up driving me to the Miami Passport Agency Monday morning at 3:30 am. We arrived around 9 am. There was a line to even enter the agency, and only people who had appointments could pass through quickly. My Dad saw that we were not getting anywhere in the non-appointment line, so he called our Congressman and our Senator's office. Around 11 am, they called me out of the non-appointment line to go into the agency by name. I skipped the line! I didn't deserve to skip the line, but I am sure God wanted to honor my parents and their efforts to get me to this trip. Also, many people had prayed for me over the course of the weekend, a pastor's family in Gainesville, my roommates, family and friends.

So after I entered the passport agency, I waited in line again. For the second time, after waiting about 10 minutes, they called out my name and called me to the front. This time the lady at the window took all my paperwork. She told me she was an FSU grad. When she finished, I asked how long it would take, and she said she was going to put my papers at the front to get my passport soon. My passport came within 1 hour. We left Miami around 12.30 and I made it to the Orlando airport in plenty of time for our fight that evening. I felt like a V.I.P. (very important person), but the truth is that I'm not that important, but I know a V.I.G. (very important God) and He will make His power known through us if we let Him.