We Leave Bangkok Incomplete

We had a 3am wake-up call today, our plane leaves super early so we have to leave the Bangkok Christian Guest House at 3:30am to get to the airport. Some of us decided to stay up all night to see if we could just fall asleep the whole plane ride. So 3am rolls around and we start putting all our things in the vans and pray for safe travels and that Raphael, our XCITEM, can get through customs. Raphael is a citizen of the Democratic Republic of Congo and as such only has a student visa for the duration of his studies in the United States and it was xpired as of 2002 but even though it was xpired he had his papers from the university that were valid till 2009.

We get to the airport and as we all got our boarding passes we soon realized that we would have to leave Raphael behind. It seems that no matter how many times we had checked with the embassy that all things were in order the airline did not want to let him through because of some confusion with his paperwork. Being that it was early in the morning on a Saturday, there was no one that we would call at the Embassy of the United States or any where else that could help at that moment. Raphael would just have to wait till Monday to go to the Embassy in person and speak to someone about his case so he could get a new visa. As much as we didn't want to leave him there, there was nothing else we could do. As frustrated as we all were about the situation this is nothing new, it happens to many people. They could have all the papers they need but if there is no communication between authorities it is not worth anything. In these times it is easy to say, "thank God I am an American" but I think that is the easy way out. The system is flawed and what we have is a privilege that we should treat as such. We left an incomplete group of 9 and after 3 security checks and being patted down at 5 in the morning (yes, it was as fun as it sounds) we finally began our 16 hour travels which included a layover in Tokyo. We arrived in St. Paul and started reliving Saturday all over again since we had gone back 12 hours. Just when we thought we were done for the day and that we would finally get some rest we were greeted by our very xcited host families that we had stayed with when we first arrived in Minnesota in June. Our hosts gave us an x-file that said we would be staying with them for the night. To say that we were not happy is an understatement. We all had slept very little on the flight and we were all very cranky and smelling like flowers and I just didn't think we'd be very good company. But this just normal day in the life of an Xtreme Team member and it served as a lesson that missionaries don't get a day off, they go whenever called, jet lag or not. So off we went to stay at the homes of these people who were so xcited to hear all our stories and although I wasn't able to stay awake for too long I was glad that I could share a bit of our xperience and see the joy on their faces to hear news from home.

Hora para levantarnos hoy: 3:00 a.m., nuestro avion sale super temprano asi que nos tenemos que ir a las 3:30 a.m. desde el lugar que nos estabamos quedando (Bangkok Christian Guest House) para el aeropuerto. Algunos de nosotros decidimos quedarnos despiertos toda la noche para ver si nos podiamos quedar dormidos durante todo el vuelo de regreso a los Estados Unidos. Dieron las tres y comenzamos a acomodar todas nuestras cosas en los autobuses. Oramos por un viaje seguro y para que Raphael pudiera salir del pais. Raphael es ciudadano de la Republica del Congo y solo tiene una visa de estudiante para residir en los Estados Unidos, que expiro en el 2002; aun asi el contaba con los documentos de la Universidad que tenian vigencia hasta el 2009.

Llegamos al aeropuerto y tan pronto recogimos los boletos de abordaje, nos dimos cuenta de que Raphael no podia venir con nosotros. Parece que no importo cuantas veces verificamos en la embajada que todo estuviera en orden, la linea aerea no queria dejarlo salir por una confusion con sus documentos. A causa de que aun era temprano en la manana del sabado, no podiamos llamar a la embajada, ni habia nadie que pudiera ayudarlo al momento. El tenia que esperar hasta el lunes para ir personalmente a la embajada de los Estados Unidos para conseguir una nueva visa.

Aunque no queriamos dejarlo ahi, no habia nada que pudieramos hace. Todos nos sentiamos muy frustrados con la situacion. Este tipo de situacion no es nada nuevo, sucede todos los dias a muchas personas. Pueden tener todos sus documentos al dia pero si no existe comunicacion entre las autoridades de nada sirve. En estos dias es facil decir: "Gracias a Dios que soy americano", pero creo que esa es la manera mas facil de evadir la situacion. el sistema no es perfecto, deja mucho que desear y lo que tenemos es un privilegio que deberiamos entender como tal.

Nos fuimos como un grupo incompleto de nueve personas. Luego de pasar por tres puntos de seguridad en el aeropuerto y en uno de ellos hasta nos revisaron el cuerpo a las 5 de la manana(si, fue tan divertido como suena); comenzamos nuestro viaje de 16 horas. Consistia de un vuelo de seis horas a Tokyo y otro de diez horas de Tokyo a Minessota. Cuando llegamos a Minessota a la una de la tarde, comenzamos a vivir el sabado nuevamente(venimos de 12 horas mas temprano de diferencia).

Justo cuando pensabamos que nuestro dia iba a terminar y podiamos descansar, fuimos recibidos por nuestros hospedadores con mucho entusiasmo. Las mismas familias con las cuales nos quedamos en Minessota en junio, y recibimos un Xfile que decia que ibamos a pasar la noche con ellos. Esta demas decir que no estabamos contentos con esta situacion ya que lo mas que habiamos dormido eran cinco horas y estabamos de mal humor ademas de que no oliamos a flores y pensamos que no seriamos una buena compania; pero asi es como es un dia normal en la vida de un Xtremer y nos sirve como una leccion para entender que los misioneros no tienen dias libres y tienen que cumplir con sus tareas tengan "jet lag" o no.

Asi que nos fuimos a quedar con nuestras familias hospedadoras que estaban muy emocionados por escuchar nuestras historias y aunque no tenia muchas energias para mantenerme despierta por mucho tiempo, me siento orgullosa porque pude compartir un poco de nuestras eXperiencias y ver le gozo en sus caras al recibir noticias de su tierra natal.