The long version

Most of you will probably be bored by the nitty gritty details of the lost passport saga I mentioned a few days ago, but I've decided (for those few who are interested in the whole story as well as for the sake of catharsis) to post it.

Last Friday I was getting ready to attend a women's retreat with some other expat women here in Beijing. In order to stay overnight in hotels here, you have to have provide your passport/visa information.  So (20 minutes before I was supposed to leave, of course) I remembered that I needed to bring my passport and went to the drawer where all those types of documents live.  Much to my surprise, when I opened the drawer, I found only Adam's passport; mine and the girls' were all absent.  It was then that I remembered packing the passports for our beach trip but never unpacking them.  Gulp.  Wave of panic, settling into a heavy rock of foreboding in the pit of my stomach.  In the next 20 minutes we tore our house apart looking for it....it's always fun to go on a retreat with your last minutes at a home spent in total panic, right?  No luck.
I took a copy of my passport and residence card and left for the retreat, hoping that it would suffice.  Meanwhile, Adam had our tutor (what would we do without Terry?) call the hotel where we stayed as well as the rental car company to see if they had found our passports.  Nothing.  By God's grace the hotel let me stay, and I was able to forget about the passports long enough to enjoy the retreat. 

Monday morning we resigned ourselves to the fact that we would have to get new passports and visas for the three of us.  Our tutor graciously agreed to accompany me to our district's Public Security Bureau (PSB, basically the police headquarters) to accomplish the first step and file a missing passport report there.  It was a little intimidating going there...this huge, landscape-dominating building and the knowledge that this is a place you want to stay out of at all costs.  I was so thankful for our tutor's servant-heartedness--not only was his translation help essential but he provided great moral support too.  The people there were actually very friendly and helpful, and we were able to file the report with very little stress (except for the motherly "Are you sure you've looked everywhere?" and good-spirited rebuke by the head police lady.)  Step one, done.

Tuesday morning the whole family headed over to the American Embassy to submit our application for replacement passports.  Can I just say, I love being an American!  Everyone at the Embassy was so friendly to us, and it was awesome gettting to deal with this situation in English and with a familiar protocol.  I think I'd forgotten how less stressful life is when you can communicate!  So, Step Two went off without a hitch.  Or so I thought, until I got a phone call that afternoon from the Embassy telling us that my and Katie's photos were out-of-date since they were the same as the lost passports and thus over 6 months old.  (I forgot to mention that on Monday I couldn't find any extra passport photos for Caroline and so had to take her to get new ones made.)  So, Tuesday afternoon Katie and I went to get new passport photos taken, and I planned to return to the Embassy on Wednesday morning to drop them off.  Step Two, almost completed.

Wednesday morning comes.  I'm rushing around getting ready to head to the Embassy and am trying to figure out how I can incorporate other items on my to-do list in the this trip back to the Embassy.  (Did I mention that the Embassy is on the opposite side of town from us?)  Since the subway station is right next to our Wal-mart, I decided to try to return a mattress pad I had bought last week on my way.  Ah, but where was the receipt?  Missing, of course!  (Are you detecting a theme here?)  So, before I could leave to go to the Embassy, I was determined to find that receipt.  Looked everywhere, of course, to no avail and decided to check my purse one more time.  As I was digging around in it, I noticed a "secret pocket" that I never use.  Might as well check that, I thought to myself.  Unzipped it and did not find my receipt, but I did find our passports!  AGH!  I couldn't decide whether I should be happy or hoppin' mad.  I didn't waste much time then trying to figure out my emotions, but immediately called the Embassy to see what we should do.  The lady checked to see if our passport applications had been processed yet.  Now, remember the new photos that I was supposed to submit that morning?  As it turned out, because our photos were wrong, my passport and Katie's had not yet been cancelled, but Caroline's (because her photos were up-to-date) had been.  Good news that we wouldn't have to get new ones for Katie and me, bad news that now I had to go back to the PSB to cancel the missing passport report that I had filed on Monday. 

I got our tutor to call the PSB to find out what we needed to do in order to cancel the report.  They said they would need an official document from the Embassy stating that my passport and Katie's were still valid.  So, that meant another trip to the Embassy.  I called the Embassy to see what I would have to do to get said report.  They made it pretty easy and told me that I could just come over any time and they'd put something together for me.  So, Embassy trip on Wednesday (because it took awhile to figure all that out).  And I never did find that Wal-mart receipt, but I decided to risk it and try to return it anyway without the receipt (Wal-mart takes anything back, right?)  I was once again loving America and its way of doing business...they gave me store credit without the receipt (which would never happen in a Chinese-owned store.  Wait, I take that back...the shoe lady did. God bless her.)  And can I just say that it feels like a huge accomplishment to be able to do a seemingly simple task like that in Chinese?  I'm not sure if I can really explain to you how stressful/intimidating it can be some days to accomplish simple tasks like...but I digress.

Okay, so Thursday.  I left early to get to the Embassy in order to pick up the document stating that Katie's and my passports were still valid.  I had high hopes of being able to go from there back to the PSB to submit the document, and so close that aspect of the passport fiasco.  I probably would've been able to do that if I had not gotten off the wrong exit of the subway and walked around for AN HOUR before I found the embassy.  (Those of you who live in this city can testify what a nightmare it can be if you get off on the wrong exit at a subway stop.)  I'll be honest...I was frustrated and feeling pretty much like a loser for the comedy of errors that was my life that week, since I seemed to be at the root of all the disasters.  I was really trying hard to follow the way of eucharisteo.  Some of the things on my list during my hour long "tour" of the embassy district: 
-that of all days to be lost in this city it was one of the 4 "blue" days we've had all summer and the weather was gorgeous
-that I had legs that worked
-that I had enough Chinese to be able to ask where the Embassy is and to understand the answer
-that God sent two English speaking foreigners along the way who had iPhones to help me figure out where I was
-that I had my iPod with Truth-filled music on it
-that I am an American citizen and didn't have to wait in line like all the Chinese people waiting to be interviewed for visas (oh, how my heart went out to them as I thought about so many precious friends who have stood in line at that very same place!) 
-that even though the Embassy couldn't reimburse the fees we had already paid for my and Katie's lost passports, they at least didn't charge me for the affidavit to take to the PSB

I finally made it home around lunchtime, not feeling very inspired to go to the PSB.  I had previously promised myself that I wouldn't trouble our tutor again and that I could go by myself to do it (so long as he told me all the vocab I would need before hand!).  But when he and I began practicing the dialogues I would likely have at the PSB, the stress of the week and the fear of looking foolish at the PSB spilled over, and I completely fell apart in a crying mess.  Poor guy, he didn't know what to do!  After a few minutes, I composed myself, and then sent off with his and Adam's prayers and our tutor's confidence that I could do it, I got in the taxi and headed back to the PSB to (hopefully) get our missing passport reports cancelled.  Thankfully, my taxi driver was super-friendly and kept complimenting my Chinese....just the encouragement I needed! More grace ensued.  When I walked up to the gate of the PSB, the guard actually smiled at me, and even though I totally butchered the pronunciation of the office I needed to go to, he figured out what I wanted (mostly because that's the only office there that deals with foreigners!).  After a few minutes, a lady from the office came out to me, and I was able to explain to her the whole complicated story.  (Just imaging trying to say everything you've just read on this blog post in Chinese! Much less detail and pathos of course, but still!)  Then, (I think because the document from the Embassy was all in English), she escorted me back to the office I had visited on Monday.  Thankfully, it was a different but still friendly policewoman working (I think I had mostly been dreading having to face that police woman who had asked me if I was sure I had looked everywhere!)  This policewoman had great English and said she would take care of it.  Problem solved!  (At least I hope...I asked her if she could give me any kind of report from their office as confirmation that the "lost passport reports" had been cancelled.  She politely declined my request, so I had to leave with nothing to "prove" that our passports are still valid in the Chinese system.  Plus, foolish me neglected to make a copy of the Embassy paper before leaving it at the PSB....more opportunity for trust!)

And so, that's the long version of this week's passport debacle.  Hopefully in the next week or two we'll get an email from the embassy telling us we can come pick up Caro's new passport.  Then we'll have to start the process for getting her replacement visa. We're hoping that at that time we'll also be able to check to make sure that Katie's and my passports are still valid in their system.  Pray for grace! 

All in all, it was a very humbling week for me. Fighting for joy and contentment was hard, and on most days and in the face of most of the setbacks my first response was not one of trust and gratitude.  I'm thankful for such a patient Father who "remains faithful even when we are faithless."

And to reward you for reading the whole thing--two of the cutest passport photos you'll ever see!