Vaso de Barro

As many of you know from Facebook, the process of getting my Visa to Brazil has been... well... long and much more difficult than it was supposed to be. At the suggestion of the travel agent our missions department decided to use I went through a company called CIBT, who basically were to act as a liaison between the Brazilian Consulate, located in Chicago Illinois, and I. I sent them my passport and the receipt for the visa application I'd filled out online. They took my documents to the consulate. Should have been a piece of cake. After a month of waiting to hear back about it, the employee from CIBT emailed me and said that the consulate wanted either a bank statement or a letter of financial responsibility from whoever was paying for my trip. After discussing it with Ben, the person who created Internship and is overseeing everything, we decided to send a letter from the university saying they were responsible for my trip funds. Now, we realized it had gotten a little sticky at this point: it was the end of May and I was leaving in less than a month. Would they get things in time? Well, as it turns out, things were trickier than we'd thought. Of course my university has the word "Christian" in it. And, not realizing how picky Brazil was about tourists versus people doing mission work, Ben also put his department (Global Missions) in the letter. Oops. On June 8th we received word that the consulate was asking for a letter of purpose. Why was I going to Brazil? What would I be doing? Was I a missionary? If so, I needed to be applying for a missionary visa, which are MUCH more difficult to get and take a lot more time. I didn't have much time left. I'm leaving the 21st of June. I emailed CIBT back trying to figure out specifics, and things got tense from there. The company was awful at communicating with me in the first place, but they got worse. The employee took a couple days to reply to my email a couple different times. Finally the replies came: there was really only one way to get the visa on time. I needed to make a personal appearance at the consulate and explain my purpose to them, hoping they accepted it. 

But it sounds sketchy, and very much like I could be what they would describe as a missionary. So on June 9th at 11:20, after I'd received an email from CIBT saying it would cut down the visa process to 4-7 business days, then a day of overnight shipping back to me which they'd take care of, I decided I had to go. I was really nervous because I thought I would be going to talk with some high-up official. I imagined myself being questioned mercilessly and thrown into the lion's den, so to speak. Fortunately, none of that happened. I walked in and took my number. When my number was called I walked up to a man who looked at the notes written in Portuguese and asked my purpose for entering Brazil. I told him that the university was not sending me expressly to do mission work, nor was I receiving any academic credit for my trip. I explained that I'm going as an intern, to learn. I'm there to learn the culture, the language, and be around the people. I will be visiting some alumni from my university. I will be living with a Brazilian family for 3 weeks. Will I be doing any volunteer work? Not officially that I know of. (I won't! If the missionaries ask me to do stuff, it's not like I'm doing it for any organization. Just for them and Jesus). 

Long story short... or maybe long story long, hehe. I'm a bit longwinded. I got my Visa this past Thursday. At the time I wrote this I was sitting in the airport waiting for my flight, which was delayed til 6:50. My layover was only an hour. Yay. First flight since I was 5? Check. First international flight ever? BRING IT ON. :D 

Update: I didn't catch my connecting flight in time due to baaaaaad weather. My first plane to Charlotte arrived at the airport at nearly midnight, and my plane to Rio left at 10:30. Without me. *sniff*. Dear plane. Don't EVER leave me again. EVER. You broke my heart. Love, Stranded in Charlotte, NC. Tomorrow night at the same time, 10:30pm, is the soonest flight to Rio. Boy is this an adventure. Actually... there's a story. Look for that blog tomorrow. For now it's sleep time. Goodnight, lovely world. When next I blog I will be waiting in the airport for my flight. I'm in a hotel now (kinda ghetto, but there's a very kind gentleman who's been looking out for me) and I'm safe. My bags are on the way to Rio without me. But I have my carry-on, in which my mother was wise enough to tell me to pack extra clothes. So I'm covered! 

I love you all!

Mindi