Fun Story

We had been planning a trip to England for a couple of months in honor of my mother-in-law's 60th birthday this June. Fortunately, she had no idea what we planning, because it almost didn't happen. So, here's a fun story for you.

As a backstory, Will needed to renew his British passport as his current one expired in May. So mid-April, he filled out all the documentation, paid the renewal fee and sent it off. At that point the processing time for a renewal passport was about 3-4 weeks. Shortly after he sent off his renewal, we purchased airline tickets for June 24, arriving at Gatwick the morning of the 25th with the intention of surprising his mother for her birthday. We told nobody for fear that someone might accidentally write something on my facebook wall in the likes of, "Travel safely!" or, "Have a great trip - hope she's surprised!" which of course my mother-in-law would see and the surprise would be spoiled.
Two weeks before our departure date, Will's passport had still not arrived. Feeling a bit anxious, he called the passport renewal helpline to see what was happening. For some unknown reason, the consulate was inundated with passport applications; they were receiving about 300 applications per day!! With such a high volume, they couldn't keep up with the mounting paperwork and processing times had drastically increased. The man he spoke with that day said that if it hadn't arrived in a week, to call back again.
The Monday prior to our departure date, it still hadn't arrived. The person he spoke with this time told him it was in one of the first stages of processing and the chances of it being ready and in our hands for Friday morning were nil. Feeling extremely discouraged and disappointed, we realized that we simply couldn't go and our grand plans of celebrating with my mother-in-law wouldn't happen. In fact I think I said something along the lines of, "Not even a miracle of God could make this happen. It's not even in the realm of possibility."
Thursday, June 23rd at 9:15am Will called the consulate/British passport helpline for one final attempt to see if there was any way his passport would arrive by tomorrow before calling the airline to cancel our flights. Before you can speak to a human, they take your credit card details and charge you what is equivalent to $1.50/minute. The woman who was taking his details said, "Well, this is strange. For some reason my system shut down and isn't working right now. Try calling back in a little bit," or something on those lines. So he tried to call again and couldn't get through. He waited a few minutes and tried again but this time I beeped through on the other phone line.
Meanwhile at about 9:20am there was a knock on our door. I opened the door and see a UPS man standing in his brown uniform. He asked me to sign his little machine w/ the fake pencil. I stared in disbelief. Could this be what I think it is? Impossible. I shut the door and tore open the package. It contained two burgundy passports - an old one and a new one - date of process June 22, yesterday. We needed more than a miracle, and it happened!!! So, the day before our flight was scheduled to leave, the much-needed and prayed for passport arrived. Chloe and I squealed with delight and danced around the living room, rejoicing! GOD did it!!! Outside the realm of human possibility is not outside the realm of God's possibilities.


Oh, and it gets better. A friend of mine had a bunch of family coming into town for the 4th of July holiday and they couldn't afford to rent a hotel room for a week. Guess whose house will be vacant for that whole week? OURS! Prayer answered for us and them! We had folks staying at our house while we were out and when we came back, it was way cleaner than we had left it! Blessings abundant! Isn't God cool?