I suppose administration and bureaucracy are necessary - but sometimes they can be very frustrating.
You may remember we have been trying to organise a visit to Scotland by two of our friends from Kiambaa Church (our partners in Kenya.)
[The photograph shows some of the young people of Kiambaa church just before we left in 2005]
In the last few days and weeks there have been many messages (telephone and text) flying across the miles between us and today there was some good news. At last. One of our guests, Nancy, has been granted a travel visa and thanks to the very helpful people at Key Travel, I have just managed to book a flight for Nancy for tomorrow night and she should be with us by Sunday morning which will enable her to begin the World Without Walls Training Course in Bo'ness on Monday morning. Unfortunately, Wilson has been asked to go back to the British High Commission on Monday morning and has not yet been granted a visa. At this stage we have no idea whether he will be successful or not. It is all very frustrating.
Of course, as I probably mentioned in a previous post, if Wilson was married, had lots of money and lived in the city he probably would have had few problems in getting a visa, but clearly the authorities consider that there is a risk that he will choose not to return home and somehow just disappear in this country. It is all very frustrating.
However, I suppose half a loaf is better than no bread... and if we keep on hoping and praying maybe Wilson too can have the privilege of leaving the warmth of equatorial Kenya to come to the sub-zero temperatures of central Scotland.
On that point, I have been getting quite irritated (once more) at all the fuss in the TV news about the weather in England. Honestly....a couple of inches of snow and you'd think the world had come to an end! For goodness sake... it is February. It is winter time. Sometimes in winter it snows in this country! And sometimes (for reasons that didn't seem to apply when I was young) that means schools are closed... oh, and traffic has to move more slowly. So what? There are other more important things happening in the world. Learn to live with it.
5 comments:
I was watching "The wright stuff" yesterday morning as I was getting ready for work and the comment was made: "As the weather is getting milder the less able we seem to be to cope with it." I remember as a child having a couple of weeks of regular snow in the winter enough to make a decent snowman! Not the little covering we seem to get now with an odd exception. I wonder how countries such as Canada manage to keep running with the extremes of temperature either freezing or boiling and yet their trains, roads etc still seem to be usable. Here in the summer the rails soften with too much heat and in the winter are too frozen for the trains to run. I would love a big heap of snow as I have always wanted to go sledging and have never had the opportunity yet! I feel I have missed out. Also my three year old niece after watching the snowman dvd at Christmas stands at the window waiting on it snowing so she can build a snowman AHHHHHHHH cute.
well said
Had to laugh at your take on the weather -- if it's any comfort (and I know it isn't) the TV and radio personalities here have a cow over winter snowstorms and summer thunderstorms (both of which we have plenty). Heaven help them if (when) the world really does come to an end!
:-)
Well, Pam, when the world comes to an end we probably won't be sitting around watching the news. And the weather forecast itself might not matter too much. :-)
that's a good picture!
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