A verse that was given to me by soon to be mother in law on December 11th 2016. I held on to it for years, but never has this verse meant as much to me as it has in the last three months. I felt like that highlight in my bible was waiting to show me it’s true potential for years. Every single letter in this verse was so tangible, so real, and so close to what my heart was going through. I’ve taken my time to write this and I had made a promise to myself to write this the moment I land. So this is me fulfilling a promise I made to myself. And my goal here is for everyone to go back knowing Ephesians 3:20. This may be long, but I don’t want to miss out any of the details. Let’s start from the very beginning.
The .5 miracle
One of the first steps in immigration to Canada is to do an English language test – IELTS. Josh and I gave the test in May 2019 and within 15 days we got the results. Initial reactions, we were extremely happy with our band 8 (rating). It was only later that we found out that our writing scores did not make the cut. I for one didn’t not want to give the exam again, and we both decided to give our tests for revaluations. They were quick to revert saying my scores didn’t change, but we were waiting to hear about Josh’s score. The wait felt endless and after almost 45 days, we got news that his score changed by .5 and we knew that this was our first foot in the door for Canada as it took our overall CRS score up by a good 40 points, something even a Master’s degree can’t do. That’s what I call the point 5 miracle. It was only the start of God’s favour in our lives.
God’s timing will surprise you
Once we got all our paper work in order, we submitted the application on the system. From here, it’s a waiting game. Typically, there are two draws every month, your application is in the system for a year from the date of application, so we basically had 24 draws and a whole year to be picked. Now, remember Ephesians 3:20 – God is able? We got the invitation to apply in the very first draw after our application. We did not even have to wait a week, and it all happened so quickly that I did not even have the time to process it.
COVID or Not, God is Working
In November 2019 we submitted all the documents needed by the Canadian government to process the invitation. Typically, they should get back to us in 6 months if they are happy with our case file. They had to get back to us by May 2020 and everything was going as per schedule. Come March 2020 – the world stood still. COVID 19 had taken us by surprise. A part of my family was flying to Canada at that time, I remember going to the airport to say good bye, and there was so much uncertainty about our paper work that was underway, with things shutting down, delays in our paper work were predicted. But I cancelled every negative claim that was coming our way. God has perfect timing and He’d already shown us his faithfulness twice before. That very night, we got an email asking to submit our passports for visa stamping. Covid or not, God showed up again. Once again, what we thought would take 6 months happened in just 4 months.
God Honours your Faith
On March 20th, we travelled to the VFS office and submitted our passports for stamping. We were told that we would get our passports with the visa stamps in 4-5 working days. However, the very next day, a Bharat Bandh was announced in India, and the VFS offices shut. As of November 2020, the VFS office is still shut. So here’s where reason takes a back seat and faith does the driving. March went by real quick, April passed by and then May passed by too, no signs of the passports. We knew we had to enter Canada by October 2020, a year since we gave our medicals but we did not know where our passports were.
Both Josh and I had a three month notice period at work, so we had to put down our papers soon if we wanted to be released by September. How do you put down your papers in a time like this, we knew jobs were scarce, we knew we didn’t have our visas in hand, we knew we were in the thick of uncertainty with COVID, we knew we needed every bit of money for when we get to Canada. The odds were stacked against us, we prayed about it. That’s when it hit me, the odds were my understanding of the situation, my wordly vision of what was around me. Proverbs 3:5 started coming to life for me. That’s when we took a step of faith, put down our resignations. We trusted in God, to do the rest.
We both knew that God had begun this work and only He can complete it. This is the first part of my blog – stay tuned for how God shows up. Trust me this gets very interesting. Faith was tested, faith won. Sorry for the spoiler.
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