New Passport!!

I know that most of you are unaware of the passport drama I had last year around July, but let me fill you in.

1. I had my wallet stolen and sadly my treasured Nebraska Drivers License was inside.

2. I had to renew my Student Visa and when my school's secretary looked at my passport she informed me that the Chinese Gov't would most likely not accept it as a valid passport. The reason for this was because my passport had suffered some water damage. The story behind this lovely damage is as follows: I had gone to the large International Import store called Metro and had purchased several items. Most of them non perishable items such as dishes or trash bags but one of the perishable items I happened to buy was frozen hamburger. Here in China you are not given grocery bags, you have to bring all your bags with you. And I had, I had two large bags plus my backpack to carry everything home with me. I put the meat into my backpack. Now I had brought my passport to Metro because like Sam's club you need a card to get in and so I had applied for a card that day with my passport, student visa, and letter of residence. Now the trip home took an inordinate amount of time and while standing on the bus for hours isn't necessarily a terrible burden, when you have meat in your bag that melts and drips bloody hamburger meat all over the bus is. And although the bloody drips all over the bus provided me lots of breathing room while on the bus (for people didn't tell me i was bleeding they just stayed as far away as possible) I would rather have been crowded and not had my passport all bloody. Needless to say the damage was slight but to some noticeable. Thankfully, not noticeable to the Student Visa Official. For I was issued a new Student Visa last July to last until this March.

3. However, this drama made me nervous about accuireing a new one. I did a lot of research to determine what i would need to do to renew and discovered that water damage to a passport is considered "a damaged passport" which cannot be used as a form of identification when renewing your passport and two other forms of personal identification must be presented. One that is a valid picture id. Which sadly I didn't possess any longer since my wallet had been stolen.

4. What to do? So when I returned to the U.S. last Aug my mom was going to act as a witness to my identity and we were going to renew the passport in Chicago....alas the passport location in Chicago said that I couldn't get an appointment until I was in the states and once there it would take too long to process the application and I would have to file something or other in order to expidite the passport....plus they would confiscate my "damaged" one and all the visas in them would be invalid...blah blah blah....all in all it was ma fan-which is Chinese for troublesome (but has a more deep meaning that is perfect for so many situations and indicates an emotional aspect to it).

5. So in the end I didn't do anything while in the states and just prayed that no one would notice that my passport was damaged. Which on my exit of China in Aug and my reentry at the end of Aug no one mentioned or suggested any problems with my passport. So the next step was coming here to have it renewed.

6. Today I go to pick up my new passport- in precisely an hour and a half I will pick it up and I am again nervous that some one some where will have noticed and i will meet with opposition to the new passport issue. Truthfully, I know that everything will work itself out because Father is in control, but there is a little niggle of worry deep inside. Please ask that my trust would deepen as I move forward from this day.