FBI Background Check!?!

As part of our visa application for New Zealand, we have to have a police background check done for both me and Becks. Never having had this done before, nor ever having the need for it, I had no idea what that meant. I researched it, and found out that it is actually done through the FBI - yes, that's right, we're talking about the Federal Bureau of Investigation! When I think of the FBI, I think of crime-fighting agents who go after mobsters, gangsters; I think of the Witness Protection Program. I think of 'America's Most Wanted' and of weird creepy aliens (i.e. X-Files). The word 'missionary' doesn't quite come to mind when I think of the criminals that the FBI goes after!

So to have them do a background check on me was kinda unnerving. I spent a whole night thinking - ok, what have I done in my past? Was there anything that I did before I became a Christian that might show up on a background check? Have to admit, I didn't get much sleep that night! Not that I could remember anything, but just the fact that they're checking my background!

Anyways, we had to go to the local police station (a first for us - never been inside a police station) and get our fingerprints taken (also, a first). I have to admit I was a bit nervous - I kept thinking the whole time that I would look up on their bulletin board and see my mugshot and the words 'WANTED' stamped in red across my forehead. Alas, that wasn't the case, thank God!

So now the fingerprints are taken, have been sent to the FBI and now we wait. Oh how I hate waiting, especially for something like this....

PS - all info from our fingerprint foto above has been removed, and the prints themselves have been blurred. To protect the identity of the innocent. ;-)