Bureaucrazy
I was at a bit of a loss for what to write this week, but it's pretty much come down to my current stresses and thinking of some conversations with some fellow missionaries last week. I served in the kitchen at a camp for missionary kids last week, and in between chopping up tomatoes, refilling five gallon coolers with Gatorade, and washing pots and pans, those of us in the kitchen got on the topic of residency offices, dealing with official papers in Honduras, and comparing nightmare stories of the money and time lost in bureaucracy (haha...I just mistyped "bureaucrazy," but that seems much more appropriate). I came to Honduras fresh out of college, so aside from the ins and outs of university paperwork, scholarship requirements, etc., I didn't have a whole lot of experience with "adulting" in the US. Unfortunately for me, I've also had what my dad calls "an overdeveloped sense of fairness," so, that usually means that I expect people to do their job, do it on time, and to generally be responsible. In general, we're all pretty like that in my family. We work hard in the jobs we have. We're usually very reliable. And, we're bothered by lying or people not keeping their word or laziness. At the very least, I'm not alone in terms of my family. But, it's been a rude awakening living here as I imagine it would have been also living in the States, as I've heard my fair share of stories of US institutions.
Hearing the stories of my fellow cooks did make me feel like I wasn't alone and maybe it wasn't just my overdeveloped sense of fairness. And some of their stories were even worse--being charged lots of money for the errors of the residency office and losing a foster child because of the personal vendetta of one government worker. I've spent entire days in the residency office here where I've gotten to the front of the line after lots of waiting, and their electricity has gone down, causing their system to go out. On the day that I was there from morning until they closed, that happened both at the bank and their office numerous times. I have also spent a whole day getting my driver's license for the same reason. I ended up coming back the following day. When Raúl and I got married, it was a nightmare. We went back to the mayor's office numerous times with paperwork. They gave us an initial sheet of paper with everything we needed, and I used it as a checklist. But each time we returned, they'd say we'd forgotten something (something that wasn't on their list). And, depending on who you talked to, those requirements changed periodically. The marriage contract we signed in our civil ceremony in front of a bunch of people, had my name spelled wrong (despite the numerous pieces of paper with my name spelled correctly and copies of my ID card that they had). I made them aware of this, and they kind of brushed it off as an afterthought to fix later. It took two months to get that fixed because the Registry office didn't pay their electricity bill. For two months, we'd go to their office to get my name fixed, and for two months, they just shrugged at us since they had no electricity and no way to get into their computer system. We finally got not just my name but also Raúl's name fixed, since people he'd known his whole life didn't know how to spell his name. Those two months delayed our application for Raúl's US residency. Even just a month ago, we discovered another error in our paperwork from that same office--it's also not fixed yet. I've had issues with the banks here--they can hold my identification card in their hands in front of their eyes and still spell my name wrong on every document, causing us to have to re-do everything. I get that my name is difficult even for North Americans, but at some point, I have trouble understanding what's going on when you can read my name from my hands for yourself. Raúl and various other people I know have had unending problems paying their business taxes. They go to the indicated office. The person in that office says they can't help, and they have to go to the office on a different floor. They go there, and that person sends them to the first office where they started. It's a never-ending run-around because no one actually seems to know how to do their job.
I've known of numerous people who thought they were married legally only to find out when they needed access to property following someone's death or when they tried to apply for a US visa that someone never did their job in entering their marriage into the system, and that lack of someone doing their job totally changes the course of that person's life. When we were in the process of getting our names changed on our marriage certificate, we met a family who had been in a months-long battle over their property. All of the birth records were kept handwritten in some ledgers in the registry office in a tiny small town. The roof of that office had a leak and water leaked all over those ledgers, smearing the ink. Someone in that office decided that their name was spelled however he or she felt like that day. Thus, they've had no legal access to their property since then because their ID cards say one name spelling and the ledgers another. When the bureaucracy is so loose and lazy, you'd expect that their expectations of the average citizen would match their own attitude. But, they don't. They will absolutely deny you over a misspelling, any tiny technicality, or even for their own errors.
Honestly, it's one of the most taxing things about living abroad and being a missionary. It seems never-ending. Over the last year with Raúl's residency, this stuff has been never ended for me. If it's not on the Honduran side, it's on the US side. It is stressful. I get up every morning, and there is a new headline about a small change in the US immigration system that could affect our case. After all of the hoops we've jumped through, all the battles we've had for just one sheet of paper, it's so discouraging and daunting.
My point in sharing all of this is that living in another country has a lot of pressures and situations where logic and understanding don't really seem to apply. The entire course of your life can be altered in an instant by someone's mistake, and it can take years to fix it. And, the reality is that when you live in that kind of an environment, you can become like many Hondurans I've observed who just have the attitude of, "Eh, that's just how life is. Life just happens to us here." That attitude, to me, is so unfortunate because people don't learn how to take personal responsibility, and many never act on their dreams or aspirations because they're waiting for something to drop out of the sky to make it happen (or maybe they've tried before, and they're waiting on some error by someone else to drop out of the sky and ruin it). My response hasn't been like that of many of Hondurans. My response has been stress and feeling defensive in life in general, like the whole world is a hostile place. I'm always waiting for the other shoe to drop. My husband has had so many people cheat him, lie to him, steal from him, etc. Yet, he miraculously has this innocent capability of believing that people in general will tell him the truth, deserve another (twentieth) chance, and that ignorance is kind of bliss in terms of bureaucracy. I am not that person mainly because my instincts have proven right too often. What do you do when you can sense what is going to happen, do everything you can to prevent it, and it still happens? How do you keep the hope and not become jaded? I don't know that I have an answer just yet.
What I do feel like I have discovered and have talked about with other missionaries is the meaning of that verse, Matthew 10:16, "Behold, I am sending you out like sheep in the midst of wolves; so be wise as serpents, and innocent as doves [have no self-serving agenda]." We're not trying to work any system; we're just trying to survive the systems in place. Is it self-serving to want to have your legal rights as a married person within your nation of residence? Is it self-serving to want your spouse to be able to meet family members he's never met before, participate in your home culture, and have accessibility to your home nation especially for when you have children? Is it self-serving to want to be respectful of the laws and drive legally with a driver's license? Is it self-serving to be as legal as possible in paying your residency fees, renewing your ID card, etc? I don't think that any of these things are self-serving. But sometimes, they do feel impossible. I think part of those instincts is being wise and cunning like snakes. And, I don't think that the solution is ignoring your instincts or not trying to cover all of your bases because it's futile. But, clearly, stress, anger, and jadedness aren't the correct answers either.
In situations like these, I often find my mind drifting to Heidi Baker and the numerous messages I've heard by her where she lists off something seemingly terrible or impossible and says, "Yay, Jesus! I don't know how you're going to fix it, but you're going to do something cool!" And, in her case, He has and He does. I don't take her attitude as a flippant, not-taking-responsibility or just letting life happen to her. She prays. She fasts. She actively trusts Jesus and worships God regardless of what crazy obstacle she's up against. This woman has come toe-to-toe with bureaucracy in Asia, England, and Africa. She knows what it means to wait for the impossible. I admire that. I want to get there, but I'm not there yet.
Over my time living here, I couldn't even begin to recount all of the disappointments, betrayals, and life's-not-fair situations I've been through. In just the past year, Raúl and I have battled over legal paperwork in both the US and Honduras. We have been cheated by car mechanics. We have had a nurse try to cheat us out of money while I was in the hospital. Raúl has had thieves known and unknown steal from his business. And we've had friends we trusted turn out to be different than we thought they were. So, this is me confessing--I'm tired, and I do feel jaded. In a lot of cases, I try not to take these things personally because they usually aren't personal. A lot of times, no one is intentionally harming us. But, the same voices who used to say, "God is working! God's going to bless you! This is just spiritual warfare. God is going to redeem this situation. God is going to give you back what you've lost. ETC" are the same voices who have now gone silent because they came from people who betrayed us. I'm not saying that their proclamations weren't true, but sometimes, they don't feel true.
I want to return to the place where I can smile and nod from the heart in the midst of difficulties, institutional or otherwise, trusting that God does work all things for the good of those called according to His purposes. I'm going to choose to say, "Yay, Jesus! I don't know what you're going to do, but I'm going to believe that you're going to do something," even when I don't feel the trust that that is true. But, in the mean time, I could use prayer. For a lot of us missionaries, you never get a breather from this kind of thing. Like ocean waves, you get knocked down and before you can right yourself fully and brace for the next one, you're overtaken again. And, I don't really feel like we need cliche sayings or condemning comments. We don't need to be on a pedestal where we're expected to take all of this stuff in stride. We're still humans even if we live in another country or do missions work. We're works in progress just like everyone else. What I think we do need is kindness without any other agenda and letting us be human, while gently reminding us we're not alone and there is hope. Sometimes, I need to rant and get things out of my system. Sometimes, a donation from an unexpected person or a kindness from my husband or my friend brings tears to my eyes or carries me for the day. Sometimes, it's God's gentle voice saying, "I haven't forgotten about you."
Therefore put on the full armor of God, so that when the day of evil comes, you may be able to stand your ground, and after you have done everything, to stand. - Ephesians 6:13
Friends, in many situations, I have done everything, and now, I can do nothing more but stand. Here are some of my favorite definitions of the word "to stand":
*to be at rest in an upright position
*to endure; to find strength
*to be safe
*to maintain a permanent attitude
*to abide
*calm, well-balanced steadfastness
Here's to the hope that I can actually embody those above definitions. I know God is present here too, and His goodness is irrevocable.
Hearing the stories of my fellow cooks did make me feel like I wasn't alone and maybe it wasn't just my overdeveloped sense of fairness. And some of their stories were even worse--being charged lots of money for the errors of the residency office and losing a foster child because of the personal vendetta of one government worker. I've spent entire days in the residency office here where I've gotten to the front of the line after lots of waiting, and their electricity has gone down, causing their system to go out. On the day that I was there from morning until they closed, that happened both at the bank and their office numerous times. I have also spent a whole day getting my driver's license for the same reason. I ended up coming back the following day. When Raúl and I got married, it was a nightmare. We went back to the mayor's office numerous times with paperwork. They gave us an initial sheet of paper with everything we needed, and I used it as a checklist. But each time we returned, they'd say we'd forgotten something (something that wasn't on their list). And, depending on who you talked to, those requirements changed periodically. The marriage contract we signed in our civil ceremony in front of a bunch of people, had my name spelled wrong (despite the numerous pieces of paper with my name spelled correctly and copies of my ID card that they had). I made them aware of this, and they kind of brushed it off as an afterthought to fix later. It took two months to get that fixed because the Registry office didn't pay their electricity bill. For two months, we'd go to their office to get my name fixed, and for two months, they just shrugged at us since they had no electricity and no way to get into their computer system. We finally got not just my name but also Raúl's name fixed, since people he'd known his whole life didn't know how to spell his name. Those two months delayed our application for Raúl's US residency. Even just a month ago, we discovered another error in our paperwork from that same office--it's also not fixed yet. I've had issues with the banks here--they can hold my identification card in their hands in front of their eyes and still spell my name wrong on every document, causing us to have to re-do everything. I get that my name is difficult even for North Americans, but at some point, I have trouble understanding what's going on when you can read my name from my hands for yourself. Raúl and various other people I know have had unending problems paying their business taxes. They go to the indicated office. The person in that office says they can't help, and they have to go to the office on a different floor. They go there, and that person sends them to the first office where they started. It's a never-ending run-around because no one actually seems to know how to do their job.
I've known of numerous people who thought they were married legally only to find out when they needed access to property following someone's death or when they tried to apply for a US visa that someone never did their job in entering their marriage into the system, and that lack of someone doing their job totally changes the course of that person's life. When we were in the process of getting our names changed on our marriage certificate, we met a family who had been in a months-long battle over their property. All of the birth records were kept handwritten in some ledgers in the registry office in a tiny small town. The roof of that office had a leak and water leaked all over those ledgers, smearing the ink. Someone in that office decided that their name was spelled however he or she felt like that day. Thus, they've had no legal access to their property since then because their ID cards say one name spelling and the ledgers another. When the bureaucracy is so loose and lazy, you'd expect that their expectations of the average citizen would match their own attitude. But, they don't. They will absolutely deny you over a misspelling, any tiny technicality, or even for their own errors.
Honestly, it's one of the most taxing things about living abroad and being a missionary. It seems never-ending. Over the last year with Raúl's residency, this stuff has been never ended for me. If it's not on the Honduran side, it's on the US side. It is stressful. I get up every morning, and there is a new headline about a small change in the US immigration system that could affect our case. After all of the hoops we've jumped through, all the battles we've had for just one sheet of paper, it's so discouraging and daunting.
My point in sharing all of this is that living in another country has a lot of pressures and situations where logic and understanding don't really seem to apply. The entire course of your life can be altered in an instant by someone's mistake, and it can take years to fix it. And, the reality is that when you live in that kind of an environment, you can become like many Hondurans I've observed who just have the attitude of, "Eh, that's just how life is. Life just happens to us here." That attitude, to me, is so unfortunate because people don't learn how to take personal responsibility, and many never act on their dreams or aspirations because they're waiting for something to drop out of the sky to make it happen (or maybe they've tried before, and they're waiting on some error by someone else to drop out of the sky and ruin it). My response hasn't been like that of many of Hondurans. My response has been stress and feeling defensive in life in general, like the whole world is a hostile place. I'm always waiting for the other shoe to drop. My husband has had so many people cheat him, lie to him, steal from him, etc. Yet, he miraculously has this innocent capability of believing that people in general will tell him the truth, deserve another (twentieth) chance, and that ignorance is kind of bliss in terms of bureaucracy. I am not that person mainly because my instincts have proven right too often. What do you do when you can sense what is going to happen, do everything you can to prevent it, and it still happens? How do you keep the hope and not become jaded? I don't know that I have an answer just yet.
What I do feel like I have discovered and have talked about with other missionaries is the meaning of that verse, Matthew 10:16, "Behold, I am sending you out like sheep in the midst of wolves; so be wise as serpents, and innocent as doves [have no self-serving agenda]." We're not trying to work any system; we're just trying to survive the systems in place. Is it self-serving to want to have your legal rights as a married person within your nation of residence? Is it self-serving to want your spouse to be able to meet family members he's never met before, participate in your home culture, and have accessibility to your home nation especially for when you have children? Is it self-serving to want to be respectful of the laws and drive legally with a driver's license? Is it self-serving to be as legal as possible in paying your residency fees, renewing your ID card, etc? I don't think that any of these things are self-serving. But sometimes, they do feel impossible. I think part of those instincts is being wise and cunning like snakes. And, I don't think that the solution is ignoring your instincts or not trying to cover all of your bases because it's futile. But, clearly, stress, anger, and jadedness aren't the correct answers either.
In situations like these, I often find my mind drifting to Heidi Baker and the numerous messages I've heard by her where she lists off something seemingly terrible or impossible and says, "Yay, Jesus! I don't know how you're going to fix it, but you're going to do something cool!" And, in her case, He has and He does. I don't take her attitude as a flippant, not-taking-responsibility or just letting life happen to her. She prays. She fasts. She actively trusts Jesus and worships God regardless of what crazy obstacle she's up against. This woman has come toe-to-toe with bureaucracy in Asia, England, and Africa. She knows what it means to wait for the impossible. I admire that. I want to get there, but I'm not there yet.
Over my time living here, I couldn't even begin to recount all of the disappointments, betrayals, and life's-not-fair situations I've been through. In just the past year, Raúl and I have battled over legal paperwork in both the US and Honduras. We have been cheated by car mechanics. We have had a nurse try to cheat us out of money while I was in the hospital. Raúl has had thieves known and unknown steal from his business. And we've had friends we trusted turn out to be different than we thought they were. So, this is me confessing--I'm tired, and I do feel jaded. In a lot of cases, I try not to take these things personally because they usually aren't personal. A lot of times, no one is intentionally harming us. But, the same voices who used to say, "God is working! God's going to bless you! This is just spiritual warfare. God is going to redeem this situation. God is going to give you back what you've lost. ETC" are the same voices who have now gone silent because they came from people who betrayed us. I'm not saying that their proclamations weren't true, but sometimes, they don't feel true.
I want to return to the place where I can smile and nod from the heart in the midst of difficulties, institutional or otherwise, trusting that God does work all things for the good of those called according to His purposes. I'm going to choose to say, "Yay, Jesus! I don't know what you're going to do, but I'm going to believe that you're going to do something," even when I don't feel the trust that that is true. But, in the mean time, I could use prayer. For a lot of us missionaries, you never get a breather from this kind of thing. Like ocean waves, you get knocked down and before you can right yourself fully and brace for the next one, you're overtaken again. And, I don't really feel like we need cliche sayings or condemning comments. We don't need to be on a pedestal where we're expected to take all of this stuff in stride. We're still humans even if we live in another country or do missions work. We're works in progress just like everyone else. What I think we do need is kindness without any other agenda and letting us be human, while gently reminding us we're not alone and there is hope. Sometimes, I need to rant and get things out of my system. Sometimes, a donation from an unexpected person or a kindness from my husband or my friend brings tears to my eyes or carries me for the day. Sometimes, it's God's gentle voice saying, "I haven't forgotten about you."
Therefore put on the full armor of God, so that when the day of evil comes, you may be able to stand your ground, and after you have done everything, to stand. - Ephesians 6:13
Friends, in many situations, I have done everything, and now, I can do nothing more but stand. Here are some of my favorite definitions of the word "to stand":
*to be at rest in an upright position
*to endure; to find strength
*to be safe
*to maintain a permanent attitude
*to abide
*calm, well-balanced steadfastness
Here's to the hope that I can actually embody those above definitions. I know God is present here too, and His goodness is irrevocable.
Comments
Post a Comment