This afternoon our agency finally heard from the embassy today, and they are willing to accept our court documents as-is. No further corrections are needed.

So we DON’T have to go back to court.

We DO get to move forward and file our immigration paperwork and begin the process of bringing the kids home!

So here’s what the timeline from here begins to look like:

• Filing with U.S. Immigration to classify the children as immediate relatives. We hope to have the paperwork completed this weekend. The approval takes 6 weeks on average.
• Filing for the children’s passports. This has been taking longer in the past couple of months. It’s hard to put a timeline on it.
• Embassy appointments are requested for the children. Appointments are currently being scheduled 6-8 weeks after they are requested. Passports for the children have to be in hand for the appointments to take place.
• Visas are applied for and issued, which typically take 2 weeks or so.
• Then we travel!

If I were to hazard a guess, I’d estimate that we’d be travelling between July and October. I know it’s a broad range, but represents the time ranges that other families have had once they’ve received CONA. 

Thank you so much to all of you who are “not okay” with our adoption not moving forward. I firmly believe that without your prayers, we would still be waiting for paperwork. It’s no coincidence at all that within days of your earnest prayers, we received what we had already been waiting 2 months for, and within 24 hours of each other.

You MUST be praying. HARD! Keep it up! There is more paperwork processing, officials reviewing, travelling and other adventures to come!

What a crazy hard, delightful, heart-wrenching, celebratory few days we’ve had! We drove up to Marion on Sunday and spent the evening with a wonderful friend with whom we had been on staff for five years. The next morning, Ken and I divided and conquered a couple of different visits with friends and colleagues, and then met back together to travel the final 90 minutes to Pastor Dave’s memorial service.

The last few weeks of his life, God woke me in the night to pray for Dave. On this side of heaven, he never knew how many times I was breathless from the pain he was in, or that I was “sitting up with him” praying over him — even hundreds of miles away. I believe God woke me when he breathed his last breath. I had learned when I was in full-time medical practice, God always told me the moment when one of my patients passed into eternity. Each time it happened, the Holy Spirit made it very clear to me that I had just lost my patient, even if I was miles away from the hospital, and even when death came unexpectedly. I would confirm it later in the patient’s chart, and it was always the exact minute. Though Pastor Dave was never my patient, I believe God woke me when He called him home too. The following night, after weeks of insomnia, I was finally able to sleep — until the night before the memorial service. It was time to pray over his family.

Pastor Dave’s family graciously offered to extend “family” status to us, and we met with Pastor Dave’s family, sat with them at the service, and then dined with the extended family afterwards. I don’t think I’ve laughed and cried simultaneously so much in my life. I miss Pastor Dave deeply, and a part of me had somehow hoped that we would be able to work together again — to relive the laughter, to see hundreds more souls come to Christ, to dream God-sized dreams together. I still can’t quite believe he’s gone. Though we’ve not lived in the same town for nearly a decade now, I feel his absence, and the world doesn’t seem quite right.

Pastor Dave preached at his own memorial service on video, and I’ll never forget the seven most important things he talked about. His genuine love for his lovely wife Susan, his family, his church, his neighbors, and his Lord were so clear. In the midst of all the tears as he said his final good-bye to all of us on video, and after the final song was sung, the officiate announced one last crazy plan that Pastor Dave had orchestrated: a treasure hunt. Clues had been placed, treasure had been hidden, and instructions were given to those who wanted to have one last adventure with Pastor Dave. Even at his memorial service, Pastor Dave couldn’t have us leave without smiles on our faces.

We shared more laughter and stories after the funeral with several former coworkers — one of whom is now living in Minnesota, one now living in Maryland — who had also knew they couldn’t miss the chance to honor and celebrate the life of the man who had such clear anointing on his life, and we were each blessed to have been a part of his ministry. Dinner with the family was like being “home” again.

We arrived back in Nashville in the wee hours of the morning, and we spent much of the drive remembering all the miraculous things that happened to Pastor Dave, all the fun times we had sitting at a table with him, how in some very dark days his love and friendship meant the world to us. I never want to forget a single story, a single laugh, a single lesson.

Here is one of my favorite Pastor Dave stories that happened during the time we worked with him in Marion, as he wrote it. Even if you don’t know Pastor Dave, please read –you’ll catch a glimpse of God’s anointing:

I was on my way up the elevator to the 5th floor of the jail chapel wondering what I was going to speak about. Chaplain Brady had called me just an hour ago to fill in as a speaker for someone who had cancelled. For some reason, I was reminded of a tragedy that had happened twenty years ago while pastoring my first church . . . four children were playing near a stone quarry the week before Christmas. Their mother had warned them not to go out onto the ice because it had not been cold enough yet, but as children do, they wandered out on the ice and one of them broke through. His brother tried to rescue him and broke through too. The sister tried a rescue as well, and yes, she broke through the ice also. The only one left on shore was the seven-year old brother and he ran for help. When the rescuers came, it was too late. All three of the children had drowned. I officiated the saddest funeral of my life. Three children, all of one family, three days before Christmas. If only they had heeded their mother’s warning!

Well, I told this story to the prisoners and made the comparison: You are in trouble now because you did not heed warning after warning. When are you going to listen? It’s too late for those children, but it’s not too late for you! You can still be rescued. Come to Jesus! He is reaching for you!

Thirteen men raised their hands to make commitments to Christ that night. When the service was over, one prisoner on the back row stayed with his head down, weeping. The guards were nudging him, but he continued to sit there and weep.

The officer gave me a look that meant, “Come tell this man to go, or we will.” I went over and sat next to him. The prisoner asked, “Are you really the man who preached the funeral for those three children twenty years ago?” I told him that I was. He raised up his head for the first time and looked at me. “I was that seven-year old boy who ran for help.”

By now I was weeping, the guards were weeping, one officer went over and looked out the window so it would not be noticed that he was crying. I asked the prisoner, “What are you in here for?” He said, “A car backed out and hit my car, and when the officer ran a check, he said there was a warrant for my arrest.” When I asked what for, He said, “It was for failure to pay child support, but I have neer been married and I don’t have any children. It’s a mistake, but now I see that God wanted me to be here to hear a message from a man who preached the funeral of my sisters and brothers. Now that I have accepted Christ as my Savior, does this mean I will get to see them again?”

“You will see them again,” I replied.

Now I understand why God would have a volunteer cancel in the last hour, why Chaplain Brady thought of calling me, why a ‘mistake’ in the police computer system held an innocent man in jail, why this twenty year old tragedy came to my mind. God had orchestrated all of these events to create a divine appointment to help heal a wounded 27-year-old man who saw his siblings drown when he was only seven years old.

Coincidence? No . . . A Divine appointment.

–Pastor David Terhune

How fortunate we were to spend some of the early years of our ministry with him! I’m so thankful that a Divine appointment caused our paths to cross with Pastor Dave.

The world lost a great and Godly man in the middle of the night. Heaven gained a whole lot of laughter and some really great stories.

Pastor David Terhune was our boss in Indiana for four years, but he was more than just a boss. He was a mentor, a friend, a pastor, a hero, a father figure. I learned and laughed more in those four years than at any other time in my life.

Being on staff  with Pastor Dave was an adventure, to say the least. Creativity and energy were encouraged, and even demanded. Pastor Dave led the charge well. Creating our own outrageously fun VBS programs on a nearly zero budget, holding block parties for a low-income apartment complex, even doing a Survivor parody on Sunday morning, the possibilities and opportunities were endless. Pastor Dave wanted to ensure that we laughed every day, so he had us all take staff breaks together. But to be honest, it wasn’t just break time, it was Pastor Dave’s story time! He was a phenomenal story-teller and we usually laughed ourselves to tears before heading back to our offices.

Ken and I were fortunate enough when we lived in Marion to be “adopted” by Pastor Dave as well. Ken and I were not just employees, but like family when he opened his home to us for Thanksgiving and Christmas. We thought it might feel a bit strange to sit at another family’s table, but it wasn’t. The same laughter rang through the house and we felt right at home.

One of my favorite Pastor Dave crazy plans was for our Christmas Eve service. At our 11:00 p.m. service, he wanted to have a reverse offering. Offering plates were filled with cash, and passed around the congregation. If you had money that the Lord was telling you to give, you put more money in the plate. If you needed money, you could take what you needed.

CRAZY.

As an extremely reasonable and cautious staff, we would counter. “What if someone takes the whole plate of money? What if we become known as the church that just hands out cash on Christmas Eve? We might get all kinds of people here who aren’t here for the service, but just for the money.”

“Then we’ll be known as the church that welcomes people who are just here for the money. But in the mean time, they’ll get a touch of God’s love.” It was God’s money, not ours.

And sure enough, we always had overflowing offering plates by the end of the night, which was set aside for the benevolence fund. We also had people who left in tears because they could get their kids Christmas gifts. One man had stopped to ask for help with gas money so he could get home for Christmas and he was shocked to be handed an offering plate and told to take what he needed! A nurse desperately needed a new pair of shoes for work. She grabbed a handful of cash quickly from the plate as it passed by. Later, when she counted it out, she realized it was the exact amount of the shoes she needed. The stories went on and on.

He had the gift of evangelism like I’ve never seen in anyone else. Pastor Dave led people to Christ at a gas station while dressed as a shepherd on the way home from the Christmas production. He refurbished bicycles for the homeless. He led our church out of a million dollars of debt in less than 4 years.  He dressed up like a homeless man and sat outside our church panhandling. He collected shoes for children Iraq. He dumpster dived behind Dollar General to get VBS supplies. He welcomed gang members from Ken’s basketball ministry to our church picnics. He planted a church in the midst of a terminal illness. He preached each week until he could no longer stand.  Then in the last few weeks of his life, he preached from a chair. He loved the Lord and his neighbor with his whole heart.

And I loved Pastor Dave with my whole heart too.

Pastor Dave is running up and down the streets in heaven with a new body today. And a crowd is gathering around him, waiting to tell him thank you for leading them to Christ, and ready to laugh at some really great stories.