visa fiasco: the story from beginning to end

This is a story about crazy governmental connections and a miraculous G-d. It's well worth your time, I promise :)

While I was home for Christmas, my dad and I ordered airline tickets for them to visit me in Azerbaijan in April. EXCITING! The only thing standing between them and a spring visit to Baku was two little visas. No big deal, right? Riiiiight.

Dad called the embassy and was told that visas took 10 business days to process and would not be a problem. So being the planner he is, their passports arrived at the Azerbaijan Embassy in Washington DC on February 26.

Since he hadn't heard anything, Dad called on March 15 to check on the status of the visas. He talked to the consular, and she said she the visas were approved and processed and in the passports, and she was holding the express mail envelope in her hands and would mail it that day. FANTASTIC! When you mail your passports to get visas, you have to include a self-addressed postage-paid envelope...this envelope had a tracking number, so my parents could track its status all the way back to Michigan. That's how they knew it hadn't been sent.

They called again on the 22nd, and time was getting a little tight. Dad talked again to the consular who said there had been "technical difficulties" the week before, but again she was holding the envelope in her hands and it would be mailed that day. PHEW! It would arrive in time! Aaaaaaand, it wasn't sent. Ok, you're thinking that this isn't a big deal, they still had ten days until they left. But the problem was that the biggest holiday in Azerbaijan--Novruz, the Muslim New Year--was being celebrated that week, and the embassy had the rest of the week off. There was NOBODY in the office! My parents sent e-mails and left voicemails to no avail, and that Saturday they called worried that their passports would not make it to Michigan in time for them to make their Thursday flight! Yikes. Stressful. I called the American Embassy in Azerbaijan to see if they could do anything, and they could not.

So, Monday morning came in Azerbaijan (still Sunday night in America), and I began to pull strings and rely on connections that I've made during my time in Baku. My first call Monday morning was to the Minister of Communications, one of the top leaders in the AZ Gov't, who happens to also be my student. He was also looking forward to my parents' visit, and sprang to action right after I called him. He personally promised to call the Azeri Ambassador to the US at 9am Eastern Time and put me in touch with Azerbaijan's Head of International Relations, who also began making calls immediately on our behalf. My poor parents: I had to make several middle-of-the-night calls to them, all of which I had to start with "Dad, it's me, this is not an emergency..." because when your phone rings at 3am, that's immediately where your mind goes!

Monday in the US: At 9am (6pm Baku time), a call was placed from the minister to the Embassy in an effort to get in touch with the consular, who issues the visas. It just so happens that she was taking the day off. What?! Taking the DAY OFF?! The Director of International Relations asked for her home number, called her there and woke her up, and asked her to go the embassy and personally see to it that the visas were mailed THAT day. She was told that my parents were not only official guests of the Ministry of Communications, personal guests of the Minister, that the visa delay was unacceptable, and that they NEEDED to be mailed immedaitely. She promised she would go and they would be mailed that day.

Tuesday morning in Azerbaijan, Monday night in the US: STILL have not been mailed! It's Tuesday and they leave on Thursday... Uhhhh, major major major problem. So, at 9am Tuesday morning I went to the Minister's office for my lesson with him and sat down and further explained the problem. He was SHOCKED that they had not been mailed and he put me on his international line to call my parents to check on a few details, and he got on his other phone and started making calls immediately. The Ministry of Foreign Affairs was contacted on their behalf.

Tuesday night in AZ, Tuesday morning in US: More calls were made from Azerbaijan and from Michigan to the Embassy in DC, and sure enough, the passports had not been mailed. The Embassador was again contacted, and the consular apologetically assured the people here that it was not her fault, but that she would take full responsibility for personally handing the envelope to the Fed-Ex guy that day. Needless to say, we were skeptical. I was on the phone all night back and forth with my parents in Michigan and with the ministry, keeping him up-to-date with everything that was happening. I had the tracking number in my computer and I continued to hit refresh refresh refresh refresh. And nothing. Not good.

Then finally! I see pick-up confirmation, which means that they will arrive by 3pm the next day, which was less than 24 hours before my parents needed to leave... Finally, on Wednesday, I saw this...DELIVERED:

And this:
They'd arrived! I'd been having those terrible nightmares all week--you know, the kind you get before your wedding about spilling on your dress or your pastor only wearing boxers or the fire alarm sounding during your ceremony, but mine were about visas...they included: the visas were really to Kazakhstan!, the visas were correct, but in the wrong passports, the date said 2012 instead of 2011, and the weirdest one: my mom bringing her passport to school to show her students the visa and one of her students peeling it out and wearing it on his shirt. I didn't get much sleep that week.

But, all's well that ends well, right? Friday morning, April 8, my parents and I were able to sit down with the Minister and thank him for advocating for them. Without him (and a powerful G), they would not have been able to come. My parents brought him a gift from Michigan, and he presented my dad with a BEAUTIFUL watch and my mom with an authentic Azeri silk scarf.

Here they are:He extended an invitation to us for dinner that night in the rotating restaurant high atop Baku's TV tower. To give you an idea of just how cool this opportunity was, here's the TV Tower (that tall skinny thing that sort of looks like the Space Needle just to the left of the center of the picture (and no, I'm not talking about my Dad).) We ate in the middle floor of the big ball on top!

Here we are:

The dinner was incredible! We tried caviar from the Caspian (which I found repulsive, especially after I though I had downed it all and found one lone fish egg in my cheek), and enjoyed a fantastically fancy dinner with an undescribably incredible view. This picture does it no justice, but you get the idea:

A view of the restaurant from the bottom:

A HUGE THANK YOU to the Ministry of Communications for making this picture possible--both for the very fact that the visas arrived JUST in time, and for the invite to an incredible dinner!

WHAT A NIGHT! We taxied home, packed their bags, said goodbye, and they got in the taxi for the airport at 2am. The week: INCREDIBLE! The visas: A reminder that we serve the G of Miracles.