Service Learning Issue 2 - Out Of Control

Monday, March 8th, 2010

The alarm went off at 5:45am - didn’t sleep very well last night – too much on my mind. I have led teams on trips like this a handful of times in the past, enough to know that anything can happen and the best one can do is be as prepared as possible. I felt we were well prepared. The trip itinerary was set and the paperwork was all in order (I thought).

We drove to the US border in two vehicles on our way to Seattle airport. Our vehicle got through okay, I anticipated a bit of delay for the second vehicle – one tripper had a foreign passport and needed a travel visa for the US. As predicted, they were pulled over and brought into the building. I was waiting up the road. I got a call – they needed a letter.

I took the binder of documentation with me, sprinted to the border building and noticed right away that something was wrong. I walked over to the desk and the first words the border agent said to me was, “Where is it?” Of course I had no idea was “it” was, so I asked for clarification. He was agitated and impatient. He said we needed a letter stating purpose of trip, the name of the contact person, all on letter head etc..

So, I got on the phone to Jeff, and he produced a letter and faxed it in. Everything good, right? Nope. Supervisor gets involved. The trippers are praying (with eyes open) and my stress levels are in the red zone. It seems they interpreted our trip within the category of “work” and we needed documentation to clarify what type of work we will be doing. It seems when it was said we were on a mission trip to do service work in LA, we were needing a whole new level of documentation and permissions.

The supervisor is running out of patience. He starts reading us the regulations off his computer screen. This all takes about an hour now. He then says, “I need the correct documentation in 1 minute and if I don’t I’m sending you all back home.”

I felt out of control. All our preparations didn’t include this scenario. Mind you, next trip it will. I started to imagine what it would be like to go back home and one by one drop off all the trippers at their homes and having to explain what happened and why our 10 months of preparations and fund raising was out the window.

What was God doing? I resolved that if we did not get permission to cross into the US, that it was within His purposes and I may never know why, but I would have to accept it.

The supervisor looked at his watch – the minute was up. He looked at me and said, “You can cross as an exception, but next time I need the correct letter.”

In disbelief we all quietly and quickly gathered our stuff, didn’t look back, got in our vehicles and drove through Sumas on our way to Seattle. I thought, wow, that is grace. We were granted a favor without having it all together.

We made the flight and the plane landed in LAX at 4:00pm.

My heart rate was still above 120, and it didn’t change much the whole week.