It’s 3 a.m. and I am just heading to bed. It’s been a long night. The boys have been preparing for their return to boarding school, packing and repacking, weighing and shifting their things, trying to make everything fit. Our trusted taxi driver would be here to pick them up just before 3 a.m. and we all needed to be ready.
But let me back up a bit … you see, this was the end of the holiday break and family time was over. Time to surrender the boys back to boarding school. It happens all too quickly. It’s just part of our life now, a cycle of seeing them and not seeing them. We try to make one trip every term to go see them, but it doesn’t always happen. They are just so far away and yet not so far. It’s an overnight bus ride or about eleven hours by car. Even if you fly, it ends up being a whole day’s worth of travel.
But boarding school has been good for them and we are convinced it is what God has for them for this season of our lives. It, too, will end … in time. We just try to treasure the time that we have whenever we have it. Our time together is often filled with movies, TV shows and games. Many times it is just being in the same room together doing our own thing. But we are together. We are family, after all.
But sending them off to boarding school at the end of this break is different somehow. It is our last one together here in this house in this country of Uganda. You see, the next vacation they have we will be packing up our treasures and selling off those things that we can’t fit into a suitcase or a footlocker to take on a plane. We have spent nearly a decade here of our lives. These boys have lived longer in Uganda than they lived in the states. It has been our home and so it was especially hard to have it come to an end, this last holiday vacation.
But the taxi driver arrived about 2:50 am, loaded them up and was off. So at 3 am, I headed to bed. I wasn’t sure if I could sleep but I would certainly try. The boys had instructions to call if there was any problem at the airport with baggage or whatever. My phone was on and the sound was on high, placed near my head next to the bed. Slumber didn’t come easy, but somehow I seemed to drift off …
But then suddenly, the phone rang. It was 5:55 am and it was my youngest on the phone. No problem with the flight check in or the baggage, but the immigration officer was refusing to let them leave the country! Instantly, adrenalin flowed what seemed like directly to my brain and I was more wide awake than ever. What could be done, I wondered … the immigration officer declared that there was no “entry” stamp in his passport from about five weeks prior when they entered the country which meant that he had entered the country illegally.
Now of course, our sons had not entered the country illegally. They went to the immigration window and handed over their passports when they had arrived at the border just like they were supposed to. Paperwork was passed between them and the passport handed back. If there was any mistake, it was on the immigration officer’s side, but there was no way we could voice that error in fear of upsetting the officer worse. I coached my son as best I could over the phone and just told him we would pray.
I called our trusted taxi driver to ask him to wait at the airport in case he needed to get the boys back. He was still there and no problem. In between thoughts and words, I continually cried out, “Please, Jesus, advocate for my sons!” I reached out to the rest of our immediate family (even though they were all on another continent in different time zones) and also asked them to pray! Then the phone rang again … it was my youngest son once more.
“Mom, he finally found an entry stamp in (my brother’s) passport and so he decided that he would let us through.” I uttered over and over again, “Thank You, Jesus … oh, thank You, Jesus!” As a mother there was little else I could do but pray (being 3 hours away) and the Lord answered by advocating for my sons!!! Hallelujah! What a relief …
Now you might be wondering why I would send my sons alone without accompanying them. You see, we do this every six weeks. Our boys are well versed in how to pass through the border and making sure they have all the correct documents. They are also 17 and 18 years old. They are young men. I also would not have been allowed inside the airport with them anyways and especially not as far as the immigration counter. But I would never have wished such pressure for them from the immigration officer! Someone else’s mistake caused a lot of unnecessary stress and an immigration officer accusing them of doing something wrong.
Now you need to understand that the immigration officer had every right to hold my sons and charge them money without allowing them exit from the country if he had so chosen. He could have continued to accuse them of negligence at the border upon entry and held them accountable. It could have cost us literally thousands of dollars. If he had done that, my boys would have missed their plane. They would have missed their bus on the other end. They wouldn’t have made it back to school on Arrival Day. It was no small thing!
After I hung up the phone, I cannot tell you how many times I thanked the Lord over and over again. I was so, so grateful! As you can imagine, it took some time for my body to calm down and the adrenalin to subside. I tried to go back to sleep and dozed in and out of slumber. Finally, about 7:45 am, I gave up and just got up. By 9:00 am, the boys reached the next airport and by 11:00 am, the bus had picked them up. They were bound for their boarding school and safe in the hands of a dedicated staff member.
I miss them terribly. The house is so very quiet without them … once again. I get to see them next month when I travel to their school for a special event. I cannot wait. It will be my turn next to cross the border and face the immigration officers. I will look at my passport closely to make sure no mistake was made. But I might miss it, too. I sincerely hope not.
Living in a foreign country that is not your own brings some challenges at times. But the call that God has placed on our lives in bringing us here is stronger than the fear of what might happen here. He continually demonstrates His presence with us here whenever things like this take place. We know beyond a shadow of a doubt that this is where He wants, at least for now. So we know that He will provide and care for us through whatever comes our way. And today, yes, today … I am grateful for that, perhaps more than you might imagine.