Life Embassy

I was thinking this morning...... about life embassy. A close family of mine who was applying for the US visa for the first time was apprehensive when they finally got a date for a visa interview. While the children could not hide their joy at the prospect of visiting Yankee soon, the parents did not know what to expect as the interview date drew closer. The day came, they set out and by mid day we received the call. Disappointment! They were refused the visas. But why? Everyone wondered. This is not the first time they will be travelling out to Europe or the Americas. No need to have a headache waiting for a sensible reason, the US embassy officials owe you none. But why is it that someone with genuine intention to go on holidays will be denied visa while another with no intention of coming back will be granted visa? 

As I sympathise with this family, I remembered my very first experience with these same US Embassy officials many years back. We all had lined up on the rows of seat waiting for one of the three interview counters to free up for the next person in line to step forward. Where we were sitting, we observed a lady (who I would refer to as 'the rejecter') in Counter 1 rejecting almost everyone that came to her, while her male colleague ('the giver') in Counter 3 was granting visa to everyone that came to him. The only problem was that you do not determine what counter you will visit. It is entirely random, depending on the length of time any of the three persons at the counters will spend. I was praying, like I was sure everyone else was, that I should not fall to the lot of 'the rejecter.' Thankfully, I fell to 'the giver' and got my visa, while the person before me fell to 'the rejecter' and got rejected. I have been thinking about what determines whether one falls to the giver or the rejecter? Some will say luck, but I say favour. What I also know is that life is like the US Embassy visa interview. You cannot determine whether you meet a good or bad interviewer.

It starts with our birth. You cannot determine the race, nation or family you will be born into, otherwise you can guess where I will be. Parents are like the interviewers at the embassy counters waiting to take up applicants. The applicant (child) has no say as to the parents they go to. He may fall to a poor parent in a village in Sudan or to the Prince and his wife living in Buckingham Palace in the UK. Wherever he ends up, there he will grow up. Truly, life is like the US embassy visa interview. 

You know how sometimes you had prepared well for the visa interview. You have the right intention and your documents up to date. Yet, you stand before the interviewer and he looks at you and say 'I am sorry, I am denying you the visa.' Meanwhile, a friend of yours that is least qualified for the visa and has only a one-way ticket goes before the counter and gets the visa. Many times in life, you can't explain why, though eminently qualified, you are denied some good things at the time you need them, while someone else that is seemingly less deserving gets it. My friend, do not despair, life is like the US Embassy visa interview. Sometimes there will be no logical reason why you are denied a visa.

Truth is though it may seem that the outcome of your interview is not in your hands, it is expedient that you prepare and be ready for the interviewer. Having done your part, leave the rest to God, because it might just be for your good. Life is like US visa application, where the first sentence in the last paragraph of the rejection letter reads 'Today's decision cannot be appealed.' When a decision is reached on the outcome of your life, there will be no appeal. This much Ecclesiastes 11:3 says 'If the cloud are full of rain, they empty themselves upon the earth; And if a tree falls to the south or the north, in the place where the tree falls, there it shall lie.'

Cheerio!

......Just the thoughts of a certain Wey Mey