Hotel or Holiday

My one month work extension visa was set to expire on January 6. I knew the school was trying to push the paperwork forward, but with only 3 business days to go it was looking bleak. I figured the best solution was to leave the country and wait at a nearby destination for them to send the finished paperwork. My friend had just gotten his done and based on when we applied I thought it might just be a couple of weeks. Knowing that our annual conference was coming up in Thailand, I figured I would pack my shorts and just wait there. However, that was not the school’s plan. They wanted me to stay in a hotel by the school. I don’t know why but it sounded miserable to me to have to leave my newly set up apartment and live alone in a hotel for a month, in a different part of town, away from my friends with no good restaurants nearby in the dead of winter; but I wanted my visa to work, so I unpacked my sandals and put boots and sweaters into my suitcase.

I went to the school to retrieve my passport and check into the nearby hotel. My friend had driven me and she gently pushed the school rep, saying, “Are you sure a hotel is the best idea?”  The lady was very firm that I couldn’t leave the country, that staying next to the school in a hotel was the only way. I really felt unsettled about the whole situation. In the end, I told the lady that my friend and I were going to go sit on the couch out front her office and pray for God’s leading. I had gotten to share a few times with this fellow staff member so she wasn’t surprised to hear I would once again turn to God before making a decision. We asked our Heavenly Father to make it exceedingly clear what He wanted. After we prayed, I called a man who often consults with foreigners about their visas. He agreed that, if the school could renew it with me in the hotel, that that was likely the best option. I began to head back to the school woman’s office, when she came out to announce that she had just talked to the local police and they were no longer going to give the school permission to register foreigners staying at the hotel. “You will have to leave the country,” she said very definitively.

The ice-cold winter had made walking around town difficult. In that moment, it felt like a gift from God’s hand to get away from the slippery, slick roads for a few weeks to wait for my visa. While I waited a few weeks, I could work a little at the media office. I went home and for the third time in 24 hours I packed my bags. I purchased tickets and a day later, just before my visa expired I got out of the country.