Adventure in Chicago

For nearly two months now, I've been temporarily located in Iowa as I wrap up the last of my deputation meetings.  The view out of my car windows as I travel is usually of wide fields of corn and soy beans.  But for a short time early this week, I exchanged the corn fields for skyscrapers and busy city streets.  I drove to Chicago for a very specific purpose: to apply for a visa that will allow me to stay in France for some months to study the French language.  Applications for French student visas must be done in person, by appointment at the nearest consulate office ... and in my case, the nearest one is in Chicago.  It's long way to Chicago from central Iowa, but it had to be done, so, so I prayed for the Lord's protection and for good driving weather, and started off on Monday morning.

The journey into Chicago was really quite uneventful.  The weather was quite cold and cloudy, but no snow or ice; just a little light rain at one point.  Praise the Lord for giving me such good weather for driving!

I remember the first time I was in Chicago for deputation meetings, I was pretty intimidated by the size of the city and the very busy - and sometimes fast and aggressive - traffic.  As most of you know, I grew up mostly in the suburbs of the city of Melbourne, the second largest city in Australia.  But Chicago has well over twice the population of Melbourne, and nearly three times the population density (according to Wikipedia), so getting around in Chicago can get pretty intense.  Anyway, I wondered how heavy the traffic would be on this trip, but thankfully it was not too bad - only heavily congested in a couple of places.  Praise the Lord again!

I spent one night in a Comfort Inn near the consulate, then on Tuesday morning I walked the half-mile (1 km) to the French consulate, walking between the massive city skyscrapers.  The consulate is on the 37th floor of a skyscraper, high enough to see right across the city through the office windows.  I noticed a distinctly French flair to the furniture and decorations; a TV in the waiting area played a French news channel.  I had arrived more than an hour before my appointment in hopes of getting in early, and it worked: I was called over to the window about half an hour before my scheduled time.  The interview was simple enough: the employee checked my paperwork to make sure it was complete, scanned my fingerprints, took a photo, and that was about it.  It took about 10 minutes ... so short, after weeks of gathering paperwork and hours of driving to get to the office!  It will take a few days to process the visa, and Lord willing, I should get my passport back next week when I arrive back in Indiana. 

Praise the Lord for bringing me through this complex visa application process.  Except for getting my passport back, it is now complete.  Praise the Lord also that deputation is also nearly complete.  My very last deputation meeting is this Sunday!  Keep praying for the rest of my support to come in, and for the final preparations for my departure for France.  I am scheduled to fly out in 34 days!