It's STILL Not What We Expected
Does everybody here know about the South African visa journey we’ve been on? My husband gives regular updates in the Ladd Family Friday Five, but here’s the short version: I was unknowingly issued a fraudulent visa in 2015. We were shocked when my application for a new visa was denied in 2017. I was ordered to leave the country immediately for being on a false visa, and my name is pending on a list to be permanently banned. Since then, we’ve been on a long and expensive legal journey to try to correct my status as a legal volunteer in South Africa - fasting, prayer and trusting that God will keep our family together. We’ve been unable to proceed with getting Lifa his necessary documentation or visit our families in the US for over three years!
There’s A LOT of expecting going on over here. 34 weeks today - and everything seems more urgent!
The good news (according to the lawyer) is that things have become urgent with Baby Benjamin on the way. We’ve filed every piece of paper, checked every box, and done the home affairs dance for two years now. We’ve prayed for our lawyer daily, and we’ve brought doughnuts. I must be legal so we can register Benjamin’s birth, get a birth certificate, passport and his own little baby visa. There’s been a two year build-up toward approaching High Court. Finally, our case has become urgent enough. Ain’t nobody got time for an emotional, illegal pregnant lady.
So many of you have tracked this journey with us, prayed for us, and even joined in rallying with heaven for overwhelming favour over our lawyer, Craig Smith. THANK YOU! Lifa’s in it to win it too. He prays at night for the specific forms we need (Form 20, in case you want to join in!) So… finally… We got the call last week… drum roll please…
WE WERE GOING TO THE LAWYERS OFFICE URGENTLY TO SIGN URGENT PAPERS FOR AN URGENT COURT DATE!
We cancelled the 100 other things we had to do that afternoon, and I gave Lifa a foreign language spelling test from the passenger seat. The Ladd family was going downtown on a Wednesday!
I was trembling with the possibility. This was it. Resolution was at hand. Urgently. We spent an hour in the board room, reviewing the court appeal and asking questions. Lifa tried to look convincing “studying” next to me - but was actually gaping at our larger-than-life lawyer with his fast flowing legal jargon. I initialed every single page of the appeal in a room stacked high with folders and appeals, and we were sent on our way to wait. Urgently waiting.
It was not what I expected.
It’s rider on the white horse time. Unleash the legal knights in shining armour. Come on Craig Smith.. COME ON GOD. The High Court is supposed to solve all my problems. We’ve done the time. We’ve paid the price. Let’s get this thing done.
As it turns out, this big, long, pricey High Court process is to grant me interim safety and not to make every issue disappear. It will protect me from deportation and allow Benjamin to be registered and protected. (That’s all great news!) BUT it does not give me the ability to travel or make all of this end. My lawyer offered a well-intended chuckle and exclamation, “This could take decades, but you’ll be protected!” Your chuckle missed it’s mark, Craig Smith. I expected to celebrate the freedom of our family to travel together, not not being a criminal.
The foot-stomping, entitled, and tired parts of me started to rise. I just want to go see my NaNa. I just want… But Chris Ladd is a smart man. He marched our family a few blocks away to Honest Chocolate. (I can feel only joy when I eat an original truffle.) After the truffle, when the world was beautiful again, I remembered that we’ve been here before. I’ve spent a lot of late nights confessing to God, “This is not what I expected.”
Two years ago, I wrote about dashed expectations while I shared some of Lifa’s family story. Just a few days ago, I skyped with NaNa and my mom’s hair - became Mom couldn’t stop crying long enough to look at the camera to face the pregnancy she spent a lifetime hoping to have a daily role in. I have pregnancy nightmares about not being around the whole family like I always dreamt. We survey the last two years of laying the groundwork for a new church in Cape Town and building our own personal network. And it’s a lot harder than we expected. And Lifa said Honest Chocolate was not as good as he expected. He knows nothing.
But, you know what? There’s nothing new under the sun here. We all have hopes and well-intentioned dreams. We need them to live. But when they get put in the wrong place, we are inevitably disappointed. I was made for family - to be a mom, a daughter, and part of something greater than myself. We all were. But when my hopes and dreams give too much weight to Craig Smith, a government system, or all the cousins and NaNa hugs, there’s going to be disappointment.
In the face of morelongerdeeper trials that I bargained for, the miracles I pray for have become more miraculous, more God-sized. They require the God who is greater than the government and exists outside of time and space. Greater than an original truffle… even a bon bon.
I’ve walked a line this week between insomnia-inducing disappointment, and a funny kind of hope. A hope that is not in the thing that I want, the dream that I hold, but in the God whom I love. The One Who loves me more than I can understand love. And Whose dreams for me are greater than I know how to dream.
I’ve eaten peanut butter and banana toast on rye at 3am this week and looked at what’s true: The specific miracles I pray for might not ever come to pass. He may let them - and parts of me - die completely before resurrecting life again. Just like Lazarus. The greatest good may have nothing to do with my hopes and dreams but in recognising there is nothing our God cannot conquer - not even something that was deader than dead.
God created me to love my family, Honest Chocolate, and to have specific dreams and desires for our future. He loves those things. But He didn’t design me to depend on those good things. He created us all for a life built on a peace that doesn’t shake when life disappoints us. So let’s all have a truffle, and take a big sigh of relief. God is God, and we don’t have to be. Neither does the government, our finances, or whatever circumstance you’re facing right now.
A picture from the last time Chris and I had a joy-filled truffle post-lawyer visit.
“Though the mountains be shaken and the hills be removed, yet my unfailing love for you will not be shaken nor my covenant of peace be removed,” says the Lord, who has compassion on you.” Isaiah 54:10
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