I am a Christian, and believe in God’s will. I have seen seemingly impossible situations turned around, because I believe it was God’s will, and I truly believe that with God nothing shall be impossible. In many cases where one has already done ones best God’s will is usually what makes the difference.
But, now the big but is that I totally reject as false the belief in ‘if it is God’s will, nothing can prevent it from happening’, when one has not done one’s best. If you have not yet recognised it as such, this post is a RANT!!!!
I urgently need for my sister to be here in two weeks time. The first time we discussed this issue was at the beginning December, and she told me that particular week would be best because she would be on a training trip to the UK and could afterwards fly over for a week or so. Now, the visa procedure for a private family visit here entails getting an official invitation letter from the town hall (against a small fee), the original copy of which the potential visitor would need to present at the embassy during their appointment. Together with this document, they’d need a copy of the host’s birth certificate, if related, their own original birth certificate, health insurance as well as the other minor required documents.
Now I know from experience that getting an appointment is the bottleneck in the whole visa application process, for the country I live in, so I told her to already start working on getting an appointment as early as possible. I was unable to get the iv done as early as I’d have liked it, and I had to send DH*. He got it done and sent it via snailmail on Dec 23. We got into an argument over that as I was of the opinion that he should have sent it via DHL. Lo and behold, the package arrived at home during the first few days of January (Kudos to Nipost). I again repeated the ‘please work on getting the appointment’ plea. She assured me she – would. I called weekly to find out her progress.
So, would someone please explain to me why she only started trying to get an appointment last week only to realise that her passport would be expiring in April, so she had to apply for a new passport, which she only got last Friday. Since one’s passport is not required to get an appointment, I wonder why she needed to abandon the quest for an appointment, which by the way was left way too LATE!!!! Anyways, here we are, four days before she flies off to London and she is still trying to get an appointment. Of course, things have since turned to ‘don’t worry, my God has assured me that things will work out’; ‘if it is God’s will, I will get the visa and be there’; ‘what’s even the big deal about the visa sef, kini mo fe wa mu ni ilu won**, afterall I just want to come see my sister who lives there.
Father, forgive me if my faith is not strong enough to see how you can act through this shoddy planning to enable M be here in February as planned/desired.
I have seen this scenario re-enacted time and time again, this, I-am-not-suffering-in-Nigeria- they-should-even-be-happy-that-I-am-thinking-of-visiting-their-country-so they-should-bend-all-their-rules-and-anyway why-do-they-have-so-many-rules attitude. I have seen it more times than I can count. An uncle of mine came into the UK sometime last year telling me that he was heading to the Netherlands for a conference in two days time – meanwhile he hadn’t bothered to get the visa in Nigeria, because the process was so long – he planned on going to the Dutch embassy in London, getting the visa processed, ‘express visa’ he said, and then heading directly to Waterloo to catch the Eurostar, for which he already had a ticket. Of course it didn’t work out.
And instead of realising it was his fault the only thing he could say was ‘ they should go to hell, there isn’t anything special about their country and its their loss; What stupid rules’. Stupid rule or not, it is still their rule, and its is clearly written on their website and in all the information brochures that you can only get a visa in your country of residence and I mean, he had known about the conference for months!!! And this is a man who expects blind obedience to his wishes from members of his own family o.
That’s why I try to refrain from joining the continuous bashing of our leaders. Fine, they don’t follow the rule of law, but neither do most Nigerians, including, as annoying as I find it, even members of my immediate family. Our ‘bigman’ mentality makes us believe that we at least should be above the law, which was made for the common man. May God help Nigeria!
Hey, anyone care to substitute for my sister?
* - Dear Husband
** -what’s the big deal about the visa, there isn't anything I need in their country
