Visa Acquired !

A successful morning was had at the U.S Embassy yesterday. I am happy to announce that Ella was given a U.S tourist visa to visit her Granny and Grandpa in Montana and will be traveling there in just 8 weeks! Yahoo!

Our interview was uneventful, after sitting there waiting for two hours. Ella was an absolute jewel sitting there waiting that long. It wasn’t as hard for her as church because she could at least talk, but there was no room to run around as the place was jam packed with others in line for interviews as well. She struck up a conversation with the lady sitting next to us and generally draws smiles and laughs from people. She is truly a delightful child and will be an easy traveler. Why God blessed me with a kid this easy is beyond me but I sure am grateful!

Mr. Poker Face who “interviewed” me asked maybe two or three questions and only asked for a copy of our legal guardianship form and a letter from my NGO, both of which I had. He also inspected my passport while typing away furiously on a computer. Ella tried to be friendly but he had no time for little girls. At the end he did actually take a look at her and ask her if she was Ella, to which she looked at him like, “Duh!” and said, “yah”.

After some paper shuffling, stamping and banging her passport around, he told us that the visa would be done tomorrow at 2:30pm and that we could come and pick it up then. All of this was done in maybe 4 minutes! That was it and we walked out, rather in a daze. Hooray!! The Hallands are coming home!