Patience

.......and an update on our visas to Spain.

Maybe everybody feels this way, but the Lord seems to always be dealing with me in the area of patience.  I guess He doesn't think I've learned my lesson yet.  Ha!
I think back to when I was a kid and feeling that the Lord was calling me to ministry, but also getting no clear direction in the way He was leading.  Maybe He knew, at that age, I would be saying "No way am I moving to another country!"  Ha!  But I felt it was clear that He was wanting me to wait on Him for the big reveal and where He was leading me.
I remember the desire to get married and waiting on the Lord............at the ripe old age of 22 I got married.  Yeah, I was young. what can I say!  And to think I was getting old, ugh!  Oh my, was I ever young! 
If you've read much of my blog you know we waited a long time for our kids.  We first decided to wait to start a family (for 5 years) and then discovered our infertility and it took another 6 years before Karis entered our home.  Talk about a hefty dose of learning patience!
Then we waited 2 years before we could take Karis to the US due to the way we decided to adopt her (well, on the US side we didn't adopt her, we immigrated her).  Then a long wait in the US due to the US embassy in Prague giving us the incorrect visa.  That one almost caused us to have to take a leave of absence with our organization, but we got the much needed paperwork just in time to make Karis a citizen of the US and apply for the much needed passport to return to Czech Republic.  More stress diverted, thank you Lord! 

I should have known that God was not done with me yet!
Here we are now waiting on this, what seems like an eternity, visa process to get to Spain!!
I had all these ideas that maybe since we've already had a visa in an EU (and Schengen) country that the process would be quicker.  Or the fact that we have an EU member in the family.  Big, fat NOPE!!  Doesn't seem to matter one bit!!

People keep asking me if we've made it Spain yet or where we are in the process.  We've hardly moved!  We are STILL in the beginning stages.  Of course we weren't aware of what all was needed for this process.  We DID know that we would have to have birth certificates and our marriage license, but they also need to be apostilled.  Ok, takes some time but we can do that.  Ok, we have to have doctor's notes that we have no infectious diseases.  Ok, the kids just had a check up a couple of months ago and we can get ours done, no problem.
The one we weren't anticipating was the police report.  Ok, not really a big deal in Czech Republic.  Until I started looking closer at the specifics of the request on the visa application.  We needed to include a police report from each city that we have lived in for at least 6 months during the last 5 years.  Ok, so that means we needed to include Fort Worth, TX.  Alright, so we looked into that.  Oh. My. Word!   It is easier to get a police report in a foreign country than it is in the state of Texas?!  What?!!
To get a copy of our police record in the State of Texas we must provide a copy of our FINGERPRINTS!  Ugh!  And not only that, but they must be an a specific fingerprint card that they specify!!  Argh!! 
So, all this time we have been working with our contact who helps us with our Czech visas to see if she could find out where to get fingerprints done.  She doesn't even know!!  It is possible to get a notarized letter from the US Embassy stating that we do not have a police record in the US, but we are not sure if they will accept that.  So, we went ahead and paid the money to have those accompany the application.
Once we get the applications filled in and all the documents translated into Spanish THEN we can hand them over to the Spanish Embassy in Prague to await the verdict if they will indeed allow us a visa.  That could take anywhere from 3 weeks to 2 months.  Not so bad compared to what we've heard as far as the process goes when applying from the US.
It was our desire to be in Spain by about now.  It is best if we can apply for school in April, but we won't be able to if we aren't able to give a Spanish address.  The other concern is that our visas for the Czech Republic run out at the end of June.  We'll either have to apply for some type of extension to our Czech visas or vacate to a non-Schengen country to await our visa to Spain.    The closest non-Schengen country is the UK.  I wouldn't mind hanging out there for awhile, but that's not really ideal.

So, there ya have it.  The Lord most definitely must not be done with me in the area of patience.  Or He just doesn't think I'm getting it!  Ha!