Wednesday, June 11, 2008

BIG Bump!

I am so irritated I could SCREAM!!!!!!!!!!!

We received a call today that due to the Russian Consulate deciding that were going to take 4 days for what would normally be a one day holiday; we at present have no Visas. In case you did not read that …we have NO Visas. The person I paid to take care of this obviously did not bother to check with the consulate for any possible delays in processing. You would think that someone who does this for a living would take the time to check with the consulate just because issues like this can happen. I paid for a 6 day processing, which we should have had plenty of time for. I should have paid for a 2 day processing and been done with it! So, where does that leave me now? Totally furious, without a Visa, and plane tickets that leave LAX at 10:25 on Tuesday morning. Not to mention the person I paid to take care of is not accepting ANY responsibility. “It’s all up to the Consulate” she says. Not “I’m sorry Kym, I should have checked to make sure there was enough time to process,” or “I’m going to do everything I can to get these to you”…Oh no, she stated. ”They are not processing them for me, they are processing them for YOU” they will be sending them to you Express Mail and the best they will do is Monday…” AND, she told my husband that she knew about this all day today…but was waiting to see about ‘something’ or so and so…I can’t even remember what she was trying to do…

Well, as far as I’m concerned, she needs to be waiting on their door step with a POA and
Driving them to me. That’s how angry I am right now. Even if we can get them from her Monday, we still cannot chance it.

John and I have thought this over through and through and we have no choice but to pay to change our tickets. If we wait to see what happens on Monday, and they do not process the Visa’s, we cannot enter the country. Even is they do process them we have to wait for them to be over nighted to us, and they would arrive around the time we are to take off on the plane. If we wait too long, we will pay even more $$$ for a last minute flight.

So, as much as we hate this, John will be calling the travel agency that we booked with and will probably be paying $1000 plus the difference for the flight, just so that we can make the court date ON TIME…meaning we will have to leave on Wednesday.

V had already emailed me yesterday stating that the judge was asking if we could change from the 19th to the 20th – in the end I guess that helps.

God help us. You are great and mighty and can fix this with the wave of your hand.

Friends, please pray for us. I don’t like being this angry.

5 comments:

Kim Abraham - Mom to the Fabulous Five! said...

Kym,

Our agency gave us the name and phone # of someone at the Russian National Tourist office (at least I think that is where she is). When we sent in our VISA applications, we were told to give this person our cell phone number to call in case she had any questions or noticed any problems with our entry date. Her name is Yelena: 646-473-2233.

It's a long shot, but maybe you can call her and ask to FedEx the extra payment for next day processing (if that would be cheaper than changing flights.) Best of luck to you guys!

Tamara said...

Kym - First of all .. deep breath .. you know God will take care of this. I had to keep remembering that as I battled my own visa crisis. All your docs are here, being translated, the weather is great and I have your POAs to give you when y'all arrive. Everything WILL work out. See you soon! Tamara

Nichole said...

I am so sorry for this huge bump in the road. I will be praying that things will go smoother from here on out.

Anonymous said...

Kym - That is so frustrating! We ran into the same problem. We should be leaving on the 17th as well, but since our notice was so short we hadn't booked our tickets yet. Our contact had us book the
18th instead and she is going to do everything in person on Monday to make sure it gets done. She was very sweet and helpful. Why can't everyone be like that?! I will pray it works out for you, though I'm sure it will. God speed!
-Future Family
P.S. We have court on the 20th too! :)

JB said...

Kym,

Any news? You're in my prayers ... God knows the whole process is stressful enough without Bumps from Russian bureaucracy (bureau-crazy!).

On my last trip to Ukraine, my ride to the airport was so late we barely made it to SFO in time. I'd been saying that "as soon as I got on the plane, God was in control." My late ride to airport - over which I had no control - was God whacking me on the head with the message: "I'm in control NOW, not just when you get on the plane." Isn't it annoying to be reminded that His plans and ours don't always match up -- especially when we've worked so hard on all the details of our plans?

Do you know what time you have to be at the Court on the 20th? I'd like to pray for you all at that time. Also, I'm in a Bible Study on prayer that meets Thursday evenings. With the time difference, we'll be meeting "all morning, Moscow time." It occurs to me that most of the women in the BS have either been to Ukraine or Russia and will be praying for me when I travel -- so they could use the practice!

May God Bless you, your husband, your family and friends at home, and the people you meet on this trip!
Jolene