The Baja Stop
One of the most important lessons we are learning in preparing for our move to Baja is to go with the flow. The culture there is so "easy." No one gets worked up about anything. Everything will come together in time. A way will be made.
We've come to call it the "Baja Stop." People in Baja don't really stop at stop signs, they roll through them. So when you just roll through something... Baja Stop!
It's fairly easy for us to meld into that lifestyle while we are in San Felipe. But as soon as we returned to the States, our minds suddenly looked like freeway traffic (going 80 mph only to have to slam on your breaks, swerve around the person who cut you off, and hit the gas again because it really does feel safer to go fast). It's completely exhausting.
But we have a huge list of things to accomplish before our move in November, and that isn't much time. So we feel a bit forced into this crazy pace.
Our main priority when we returned from San Felipe last week was to establish residency in Mexico. So we took the first appointment available at the Mexican Embassy in Sacramento. Excited and nervous, we filled out our applications only to be promptly denied.
The lady seemed more confused than anything. Why would we want to move to Mexico to help run a children's home?
To love on the kids, to show them they are worth more than what life has given them, and, well, why not??
You don't have enough money, she said. And then gave us the amount we would need in order to qualify for permanent residency. Which is more money than I have made in the past 4 years COMBINED.
She gave us a two-page list of requirements that we and the children's home would have to meet before she would even consider granting us residency. Ironically, she also told us how to get around the system. That legally you can live there for 6 months without residency. So every 6 months we would simply have to return to the States for a week to reset the 6-month clock. The big catch, however, was that we couldn't take any personal items with us if we didn't have residency. No computers. No furniture. No books (no!!!). No toiletries or clothes or dishes or tools. We put this in the back of our minds as a "worst case scenario" option, only if November 1 came around and we still didn't have visas.
We went home dejected. We were so excited to embrace this new country and culture and people as our own. But it appeared that they didn't want us.
We immediately emailed the directors of the children's home, a little frantic about what to do next. And they reminded us to do the "Baja Stop."
We'll see what we can find out on our end, they said. Meanwhile, maybe you should try a different embassy.
They seemed so cool and calm. Obviously we all believe God wants us in Baja, but was it really as simple as 'keep asking until someone says yes'?
We'd already planned on going to San Francisco to catch a Giants game this week so, in true Baja style, we figured it wouldn't hurt to try. Which is how we found ourselves at the Mexican Consulate on Folsom Street, chatting with perhaps the nicest lady we've ever met.
She's from Mexicali, which is where we cross the border into Mexico. She thought it was awesome that we'd lost our hearts to the kids in San Felipe and wanted to do more for others after a lifetime of thinking primarily of ourselves. The amount of money she needed to see in our bank account to make sure we weren't planning on living off the Mexican government was about 97 percent less than the number given to us in Sacramento. And, while she told us we had about zero chance of getting permanent residency without owning a home in Mexico, she did see to it that we got a one-year visa, which we can continue to apply for every year thereafter.
APPROVED!
There was only one catch. We couldn't pick the visas up until the next day.
We immediately reverted back to panic mode (aka American Go, Go, Go!). We were two hours from home, were attending a night baseball game, had a dog to pick up from the sitter and meetings scheduled for the next morning. How were we going to do it all?
But then we took a Baja Stop. We took a walk across the Golden Gate Bridge, taking time to think (because it was too windy and loud to talk!), and by the end had both come to the same conclusion. Let's roll with it.
(Okay, in all honesty, Randy was ready to roll with it. I required another hour of praying that we'd get a phone call that our visas were done early before I fully embraced the Baja Stop!)
We called a friend who suggested a great place to have a piece of pie. Made some phone calls to delay our meetings and dog pickup. Checked into the cheapest hotel we could find (one with a double bed and bathroom down the hall but still had clean sheets) near the baseball stadium and embassy. And went to a Giants game where we celebrated our almost-official residency status with hot dogs and garlic fries.
The next morning, in the same clothes and with coffee in hand, we waited for the embassy to open. We were so early we turned the lights on for them! We walked the familiar steps up to the visa offices and picked up our freshly stamped passports.
While we haven't yet perfected the Baja Stop, we are intentionally trying to breathe through the road blocks and be flexible until we see through to the other side. And I'm sure we'll have plenty more opportunities to practice this over the course of the next two and a half months!
We've come to call it the "Baja Stop." People in Baja don't really stop at stop signs, they roll through them. So when you just roll through something... Baja Stop!
It's fairly easy for us to meld into that lifestyle while we are in San Felipe. But as soon as we returned to the States, our minds suddenly looked like freeway traffic (going 80 mph only to have to slam on your breaks, swerve around the person who cut you off, and hit the gas again because it really does feel safer to go fast). It's completely exhausting.
But we have a huge list of things to accomplish before our move in November, and that isn't much time. So we feel a bit forced into this crazy pace.
Our main priority when we returned from San Felipe last week was to establish residency in Mexico. So we took the first appointment available at the Mexican Embassy in Sacramento. Excited and nervous, we filled out our applications only to be promptly denied.
The lady seemed more confused than anything. Why would we want to move to Mexico to help run a children's home?
To love on the kids, to show them they are worth more than what life has given them, and, well, why not??
You don't have enough money, she said. And then gave us the amount we would need in order to qualify for permanent residency. Which is more money than I have made in the past 4 years COMBINED.
She gave us a two-page list of requirements that we and the children's home would have to meet before she would even consider granting us residency. Ironically, she also told us how to get around the system. That legally you can live there for 6 months without residency. So every 6 months we would simply have to return to the States for a week to reset the 6-month clock. The big catch, however, was that we couldn't take any personal items with us if we didn't have residency. No computers. No furniture. No books (no!!!). No toiletries or clothes or dishes or tools. We put this in the back of our minds as a "worst case scenario" option, only if November 1 came around and we still didn't have visas.
We went home dejected. We were so excited to embrace this new country and culture and people as our own. But it appeared that they didn't want us.
We immediately emailed the directors of the children's home, a little frantic about what to do next. And they reminded us to do the "Baja Stop."
We'll see what we can find out on our end, they said. Meanwhile, maybe you should try a different embassy.
They seemed so cool and calm. Obviously we all believe God wants us in Baja, but was it really as simple as 'keep asking until someone says yes'?
We'd already planned on going to San Francisco to catch a Giants game this week so, in true Baja style, we figured it wouldn't hurt to try. Which is how we found ourselves at the Mexican Consulate on Folsom Street, chatting with perhaps the nicest lady we've ever met.
She's from Mexicali, which is where we cross the border into Mexico. She thought it was awesome that we'd lost our hearts to the kids in San Felipe and wanted to do more for others after a lifetime of thinking primarily of ourselves. The amount of money she needed to see in our bank account to make sure we weren't planning on living off the Mexican government was about 97 percent less than the number given to us in Sacramento. And, while she told us we had about zero chance of getting permanent residency without owning a home in Mexico, she did see to it that we got a one-year visa, which we can continue to apply for every year thereafter.
APPROVED!
There was only one catch. We couldn't pick the visas up until the next day.
We immediately reverted back to panic mode (aka American Go, Go, Go!). We were two hours from home, were attending a night baseball game, had a dog to pick up from the sitter and meetings scheduled for the next morning. How were we going to do it all?
But then we took a Baja Stop. We took a walk across the Golden Gate Bridge, taking time to think (because it was too windy and loud to talk!), and by the end had both come to the same conclusion. Let's roll with it.
(Okay, in all honesty, Randy was ready to roll with it. I required another hour of praying that we'd get a phone call that our visas were done early before I fully embraced the Baja Stop!)
We called a friend who suggested a great place to have a piece of pie. Made some phone calls to delay our meetings and dog pickup. Checked into the cheapest hotel we could find (one with a double bed and bathroom down the hall but still had clean sheets) near the baseball stadium and embassy. And went to a Giants game where we celebrated our almost-official residency status with hot dogs and garlic fries.
The next morning, in the same clothes and with coffee in hand, we waited for the embassy to open. We were so early we turned the lights on for them! We walked the familiar steps up to the visa offices and picked up our freshly stamped passports.
While we haven't yet perfected the Baja Stop, we are intentionally trying to breathe through the road blocks and be flexible until we see through to the other side. And I'm sure we'll have plenty more opportunities to practice this over the course of the next two and a half months!
Comments
Post a Comment