Things Don't Always go As Planned

"May the God of my hope so fill me with all joy and peace in believing-through the experience of my faith- that by the power of the Holy Spirit I may abound and be overflowing (bubbling over) with hope." Romans 15:13 Amp (paraphrased)

One thing I have learned here in Africa is that things don't always go as planned. HAHAHAHAHA!!!!!
We have a saying for that --TIA (This is Africa)-- But wait, that won't work, because this time it is
a problem with my home country. The US of A!
Ok, enough sarcasm.
Like I said last week on July 30, we were told that our home study would arrive Friday morning, and be approved on the spot and then the data would be entered into the computer system and then would travel through cyberspace to arrive here in Kampala ready for us to apply for our visas.
Based on that info, we talked with the consul and tentatively set a date for the visa interview for Monday afternoon at 2:30pm.
I kept myself busy all weekend and tried not to get too excited thinking we were finally gonna get the visas now and by the end of the week we would be home.
Monday finally rolled around and I woke up severely congested again with the continuation of my sinus infection and cough. This thing will let me feel good one day and then the next, I am knocked down with it.
I kept busy doing what I like to do best- cooking!- Ok, I really miss cooking, and so to help Brenda out with her busy schedule,(and give me something to do, I had volunteered to cook Sunday lunch and Monday dinner. Cooking over here though takes extra time because everything is really done from scratch but I thoroughly enjoyed myself. Cooking relaxes me mentally even though it wore me out physically here in this humidity. I guess you can tell I am bored or why else would I be telling you every detail of our day when all you really want to hear is the story of our acquiring of the visas. But alas, I am the story teller and you are the reader, so I get to tell you what ever I want! So, would you like to hear the menus I came up with?
Why of course you would.
For Sunday I fixed the following:
Stuffed Cabbage Rolls with tomato sauce that ended up being a little spicy because I mistook the bottle of Chili for Chili Powder!
Sweet Corn Casserole
Homemade Rolls with fresh Rosemary and Garlic
Rice
Roma Tomato Salad with fresh Basil with vinaigrette
and for our missionary fellowship in the evening, I made 3 Mississippi Mud Pies! (Unlike Mississippi Mud cake)

For Monday, Scott and Brenda ended up having a long day and so I fixed Dinner for the kids and a friend of mine from last year named Jimmy.
Oven Roasted Fresh Rosemary Chicken
Fresh Sweet, Maple Carrots (Allenni was so proud to go down into the village and get these for me)
Garlic and Onion roasted Potatoes
Creamy Caesar Cucumber Salad
Homemade Fresh Basil,Onion and Olive Flat bread
Successful and Delicious! Hungry now?

Isaiah kept both me and Maggie busy and by early evening I was READY to put him to bed. Let me just tell you what this kid can do.
Let's see all in a days work,
He kept kissing little 2 year old Bethany and he has a nasty cold. It seemed he really wanted to share the love (and germs) today.
Stripped naked and pooped and peed in the yard then found and broke Susan's nice beaded necklace slinging beads everywhere and proceeded to pretend it is was a lasso while he was a wild, black naked cowboy.
Pulled the dogs' tails multiple times and stepped on the cat's tail several times.
Rolled his eyes at me if I told him "no"
Ignored his name anytime it was called unless you mentioned " the green spank stick"
Pitched several all out temper tantrums.
The boy is attracted to water like a fish and kept getting into the filter water bucket, the wash bucket, the baby pool fully clothed
Got into everything and anything he thought looked interesting.
Did I mention he likes to dip toilet paper into the toilet, then chew on it a while?
Took his tuna pasta that he had for lunch and decided it would make a good massage lotion all over his body and therefore he stunk like tuna all afternoon.
Watched me pick Rosemary and thought he had to go pick Brenda's plants on her patio.
Took his dinner and dumped it out on the patio so the dogs could eat it and then asked for more.
Washed his hands and his face in his juice
Single handedly took down a 7 ft x 8ft wall mirror off the wall. (Thankfully, Two teens were nearby and saved him from being crushed and they caught the mirror and it didn't break)
And as I was visiting with Jimmy over dinner, I looked over to find that he had taken 3 bookshelves of books and had piled them all in the living room floor into one big heap!
Even with his decongestant, it took him over an hour to be put to sleep for the evening!
I do not know what that boy got into but he was a handful yesterday. He also got his share of spankings. Whew!
I am definitely not used to a toddler! He is usually not this busy and destructive. So ends Monday!

So back to the story of the visas.
I started at 7:45 in the morning trying to call the Embassy and after several tries throughout the morning I finally got through to someone and they asked me to call back at noon. I did only to find out that the consul had gotten sick and had to go home and had forgotten about my appointment. The receptionist tried to see if another officer could help me but after explaining our situation, he decided we needed to reschedule our appointment for the next day.
They told me to come in at noon.
Oh well, I thought, it will just give it another day to be in the computer system.
Today, Tuesday, I woke up to Isaiah planting kisses all over my face at 6:45 in the morning. I groaned at him and rolled over only to have him toss his shorts in my face and say "Gendeigh, mama." Which means, "Let's go! mama" I rolled over again and groaned and he laughed. I smiled and he took that as a " hey she's awake, lets get going!"
So started our day. I am not a morning person and so I was not ready to get out of bed, Isaiah got out of bed and started messing around in our room as there are plenty of things to explore.
Finally I was forced to get up and get ready. I had decided to wait until close to 10 to try to call the Embassy. I got through and asked to confirm our appointment. I told the lady that I was staying about an hour outside of Kampala and so was trying to confirm our appointment whether we needed to come in or not. She took my number so the consulate could return my call. By 11:15am, they had not called but our driver came and I decided to go on in. We got almost in to the Embassy(about 40 minutes) and my phone rang. It was the Embassy calling to tell me that my approval was not in the system and so there was no need to come in. The consul was very nice and asked me to call the states and find out why it had not been uploaded already.
Disappointed, I told Charles to turn a round and take us back to Seguku. Andrew was very disappointed and you could tell he was upset.
Later that day, The consul called me back and asked me for info on our USCIS district office as she had the State Dept. National Visa Center looking into why the approval was not registered yet.
I must admit, I was pretty bummed out and had to have a debriefing session with God and in the end, I still have HOPE that God is working all things for our good. I want to dance on the chains of these circumstances but as I told Duane later, I was having a hard time finding the beat!
I had to rest on what He has been teaching me, -- though the storm waves rise, I need to keep my eyes on Jesus the One who is my Redeemer. On my Facebook I placed a note about "IF YOU WANT TO WALK ON WATER, YOU'VE GOT TO GET OUT OF THE BOAT". Well, I jumped out of the boat and am walking on the water now, I just don't want to sink. I want to walk with Jesus and that requires total trust and Faith in Him, I have to be making eye contact with Him. So I deliberately decided to do that.
My disappointment and frustration today did open up a door to talk to a friend about some trials he was facing in his life and I was able to say, "Hey friend, Don't blame God, it is the enemy who is working against you. God means to do good for you. Sometimes we can't see the big picture, we think He is hurting us and not coming through for us but in reality, he is thwarting the enemy and actually doing better things for us than we have even planned for ourselves. God is faithful and will provide when it is time.
So that is a good thing that happened today.
Well, I better get to bed. Once again I have stayed up too late. Still hoping to have good news tomorrow. I put this on my Facebook:
H- Holding
O - Onto the
P- Promises of my
E- Everloving Father