Down in LA

Yesterday, shortly after 8am, I was sitting in LAX waiting for my best friend to arrive at the airport. Eating $12 dollar oatmeal with a plastic spoon out of a plastic bowl (because airport food), I listened to my server tell me the woes of his failed business through Covid and his newfound gratitude for having a steady job with benefits today. The embassy opened at 9, but Kendra (my bestie) would not land until 9:30. I did a quick route check to find out that a Lyft would take 40 minutes plus to get to my destination at the South African Consulate eight miles away. LA traffic. Woot.

Ok. So best case scenario is that we hop on a Lyft and zip over there and get there at 10:30/11ish. Ok. I can manage that. (Wrong thinking here). I check my email and see a response to an email that I sent at 11pm the night previous asking for verification of registration for the school that the kids plan to attend in South Africa. While this element is not on the list of documents requested by the consulate, the immigration attorney suggested including it. It’s in an attachment on my phone and I need to turn it into a piece of paper to add to my dissertation of a visa pack. I also need to pick up a priority envelope from USPS to include with the pack so that they can send our passports back to us.

9am. Starting to freak out a little bit. I asked God to give us this document if we needed it and not give it to us if we didn’t. I received it, so I felt it was a sign to include it in the pack.

Kendra calls. Says she needs coffee and her friend Jess is meeting us at the terminal to ride with us. I’m happy that she landed early but I start rapid fire blowing up her phone with texts of all the things that need to happen in T minus 2.5 hours. My phone tells me that there is a FedEx office one mile away. Kendra tells me to ditch her and they’ll catch up. I call FedEx and find out that they are located inside the Marriott. They tell me to hop on a shuttle as I watch one slowly drive past. The shuttle takes off and my heart races in wonder for when the next one will arrive. Some confused drivers stall traffic in the arrivals area in front of the shuttle a ways off and God stops the shuttle long enough for me to catch up to it and climb on in the middle of the street.

An empty shuttle and a cheerful driver quell some anxiety as I take a seat and we make our way to the hotel.A bartender at the hotel points me to the FedEx office with a smile, and the 3 people in line at the counter step out of line (what?) as soon as I walk through the door. I pay 39 cents and place the now paper copies of the registration verification into their correct places in my accordion paper organizer. One down, two to go. Kendra and her friend Jess are still waiting for a shuttle at the airport. I get a Lyft to the post office, but the one on the internet closest to the airport is gated off and closed down. Uh… so let’s just double this Lyft cost and drive to the next post office. Success. I grab a priority mailer and add it to my pack.

Kendra and Jess are now waiting for me back at the Marriott. It’s after 10:30 and I’m in another Lyft headed back to them. I’m trying not to freak out about time and focus on the exciting moment of seeing my bestie for the first time in a year and a half.

After some giggly squeals and tight hugs, we all pile into the Lyft. We pray. We praise God together for what he has done to bring us safely to this point and we ask for favor for the timing and who will receive me today at the consulate.

Ashley trying not to freak out in a Lyft

Traffic is LA style brutal. At 11:45 the driver says “you’ll definitely make your appointment at noon” to which I try not to bark “No, they close at noon!”

Instead, I hand Kendra some cash to pay Carlos, our driver from Sierra Leone, for the ride (which had transformed somehow into a cash transaction?) and hop out of the car to run across the street. There is no time for a proper drop off.

I enter the pristine, light filled, gallery foyer and a man in a suit asks me where I am going.  I explain that I need to get to the 6th floor- now. “Oh, well then let me check you in. I’ll need to take your photo and see your ID.”

Trying not to roll my eyes and be a disrespectful pain, I comply and he politely escorts me to the elevator.

I reach the consulate office and no one is there. I ring the bell and try for the 50th time not to freak out…too much. I pray for favor again and a lady shorter than my 11-year-old comes to greet me.

She’s lovely. She’s polite, kind, asks me some questions about our pack and responds to my questions. She tells me that it will take 10-15 business days to get through and confirms the number to contact with any questions.

She assured me as she said that she will call us if we need to bring anything else in or if she has any questions!

What?!? This was not what I expected to hear. I expected a “Thank you, we’ll let you know. Bye.”

Favor. Favor from the Lord.

It’s noon. I exhale.

There are two, bubbly, hungry, caffeine starved, Jesus loving Tennesseans waiting for me in the lobby with my bag. As I ride down the elevator, I can’t help but say, “thank you, Lord.”