First approval

First it was more than a year.

Then it was 1-6 months but at least the files were being reviewed.

Now, today, we have the first of our approvals.  Exactly one week after being transferred to the California office, I got an email saying that the gov't has approved my family's applications for immigration. 

There are still a few more steps, but this was the biggest hurdle.  The first of the four files (one for each family member) was approved last night.  I'm expecting the other three today or Monday.  

That little light at the end of the dark tunnel just got really really bright.

Thank you everyone for your prayers.  Now, to get them here by Easter......

Hashtags

https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=57dzaMaouXA

(click on this link before you read this blog! It will open the doors of social media reality - not really, but it will, seriously #word #JT #Fallon #Latenight)

When I first heard about Twitter I thought it was stupid #forreal

Everyone talking about their "peeps" sounded stupid #realtalk

I had Facebook and Myspace and life was good #Ididn'tknowthenwhatIknownow

But slowly the power of the dark side drew me in #youdon'tknowthepowerofthedarkside #theforce #darthvader #starwarsrocks #epic #spoileralertvaderisluke'sfather #spoileralert2lukeandleiaarebrotherandsister

Twitter was faster, easier to use, and forced me to think about what I was going to post because I only had 140 characters #ifeeltheneedforspeed #topgun #tomcruiseisascientologist #thatsucks #ineverreadsuperlongfacebooksposts

As I began to use Twitter I discovered hashtags #hashtags

Hashtags allow you to connect with other people on Twitter who are talking (technically tweeting) about the same thing that you are #community #greattvshow #thislastseasonhasn'tbeenverygood #imho

Hashtags do NOT belong in the real world (as evidenced by the great video at the top of the blog) and this blog is NOT a study on how to use them correctly #doasIsaynotasIdo #sarcasticblog

Hashtags do not belong on Facebook (unless your Twitter account automatically links to Facebook) #ifyouonlyhaveFacebookpleasestopusinghashtags

So please use hashtags responsibly #withgreatpowercomesgreatresponsibility #spiderman #greatmovie #tobymcguire

Like me #me #likeme #Tim #word

Movement

Got back from Canada on Thursday night and checked my email.  First thing I saw was a letter from Immigration informing me that our files had been moved to a new office for faster processing.
Monday morning I met with an immigration officer here in Las Vegas and was told that our files are now in Laguna California and that we can expect an approval in 1 - 6 months.

We are praying for one month.

I will still need to return to Canada and take my family for the formal interviews at the US consulate before they can join me, but we see a small speck of light at the end of what has been, and still is, a very long and dark tunnel.

In the midst of darkness, any light, no matter how small or far away, is good.

In other news, my daughter thinks I am an old man trying to be hip and young because I occasionally use hashtags in my tweets.  But this is a topic to be dealt with on another day.  Trust me, I will deal with it.
#itison
#daddyversesdaughter
#imnotold
#wellsortofold  

Could a year apart turn into something longer?

I would really like to start this blog with a series of four letter words (and some longer words too) that describe exactly how I feel about our immigration system down here in the good old USA.  But I won't.

Here is the recap (in case you accidentally stumbled on to this blog and have no idea what in the world is going on in our lives)

I'm an American with dual Canadian citizenship.  Born in Boston.  Lived all over the world.  Met my wife in Canada where we were both going to school.

My wife is Canadian with dual British citizenship.  Born in Canada.  Lived all over the world.

We had three children while we were in school.  They all have Canadian citizenship.  Because of my gypsy lifestyle I did not have enough consecutive years of living in the United States to apply for them to become US citizens when they were born.

In 1999 I moved my entire family to Las Vegas where we lived until 2007.  During this time my wife and children all received their green cards and their Landed Permanent Residence status.  My wife owned her own Real Estate appraisal business.  We bought two houses.

In 2007 I returned to Canada to pursue post graduate work under a specific professor.  My family went with me (naturally).

In 2010 I was invited to New York to give a presentation on my research.  My wife came with me.  It was a mini vacation.  We got detained at the airport and my wife was told that because she had been out of the US for longer than 1 year, she had lost her green card and the United States now considered her to have "abandoned her status".  Same with the kids.  We were floored.  We had no idea.  Nobody told us that Green Cards were like milk and had an expiry date.

In 2013 I accepted a job back in Las Vegas.  We were told we would have to reapply for Green Cards for my wife and kids again and that until the Green Cards were approved, I could live and work in Vegas but Jo and the kids would have to remain in Canada.  They told us it could take up to nine months.

Yesterday I was on the phone with Immigration.  They told me that they are so backlogged that it will be nine months before they even begin to look at our case.  THEY HAVEN'T EVEN OPENED OUR FILE YET!!  It has been six months and this whole time we are thinking that in a couple of months we will get the immigration decision and the green cards and be back together.

I suppose I could get really angry at this point.  I guess I am.  But more than that I am disappointed.
I'm really disappointed in an immigration system that is so broken that an American citizen, married 22 years with grown children, can't get his family across the border.  I'm disappointed in an Immigration system that is supposed to work for its citizens, but is so hopelessly broken and backlogged, that citizens are forced to live separated from their families for what could very easily now become much longer than one year.

The past six months have been tough, but they were a little easier thinking that it was almost over, that the end was in sight. We've endured six months of separation, we can handle three more.  Now, it appears we have absolutely no time frame and no idea how long this process will take.

Could we be apart for one year?  Eighteen months?  Two years?
How does that affect family dynamics?  How does that affect my ability to be a good husband and father?  How much longer can I continue to effectively pastor a church while my family, my biggest ministry, is effectively neglected in another country?

Ultimately we believe God is still in control and that one truth will give us some measure of peace as we figure out how to navigate this newest piece of news.  At this point that is all we have.  But it will be enough.



 

I did not do anything right

I was not a great kid.  I was a horrible teenager.  As a young adult I was a mess.  If you knew me in my late teens and early twenties you are probably wondering how it is that I am still alive, still have a semi-functional brain, and for certain are wondering what in the world I am doing as a minister of the gospel of Jesus.  I wonder all of those things too.

I do not deserve the life I have now.  I do not deserve the family I have.  I do not deserve the love of God or the privilege of being a minister.  But I have these things and I know they are a gift from God.

For a guy like me, with my past, to have a beautiful, faithful, wonderful wife is beyond my comprehension.  I do not deserve her. I did nothing in my past that would make me say "I've been a good moral upstanding young man who loves Jesus and deserves a wife who will be his best friend." If anything it was the exact opposite.  Yet, here I am today, married 21 (almost 22) years to my best friend.  

I did not do anything right, yet God blessed me with Jo.  I wouldn't trade her for the world.

For a son like me, with my past, to have intelligent, focused, beautiful, loving kids is beyond my comprehension.  I do not deserve them.  My kids are all wonderful.  I'm not just saying that.  We actually like each other.  We get along.  I dare say we love each other.  They are 17, 18, and 19, and we still enjoy hanging out together.  We miss each other during this separation.  Every time I read my daughter's blogs, listen to my son play bass, or talk to my other son about his education and future plans I am reminded of how completely undeserving and yet how blessed I am.  I deserve kids who sleep around and do drugs and run away from home.  Yet, here I am today, with the three most awesome kids in the entire world.

I did not do anything right, yet God blessed me with Kyle, Skye, and Braden. I wouldn't trade them for the world.

In the same way, I do not deserve eternal life.  But, I dedicated my life to following a rabbi over 20 years ago.  I have not even been close to following him perfectly.  There have been seasons where I have gotten far off track and ended up following my own passions and desires.  Sometimes I wonder if He looks over His shoulder and says "Where is that guy?  Not again...."  

And yet, because I said "Yes" to him all those years ago, He hasn't abandoned me.  He hasn't let me get too far off track.  I live with the consequences of some of my choices, but I am still a follower, and I still know that when this life ends, a better eternity is waiting.

I did not do anything right, yet God blessed me with eternal life.  I'm living in the early stages of that life right now.  I wouldn't trade it for the world.  I wouldn't trade my rabbi for the world. 

Trust

Trust.  So necessary for relationships and yet so fragile.  Once broken, trust is one of the hardest things to heal, because at the core of all broken relationships is broken trust.

I trusted you with my heart and you broke it.
I trusted you with this job and you destroyed my company.
I trusted you to keep a secret and you told everyone.
I trusted you with our finances and you stole all our money.
I trusted you to be my friend and you betrayed me.

Everyone I know has a story of when and how their trust was betrayed.  I have been the betrayer and I have also been betrayed.  I have broken other people's trust in me and I've had other people break my trust in them.  Yet, if we don't trust people, we will never be in authentic relationships with them.

Jesus says we are to trust Him and be in relationship with Him and often when we get hurt by the church we think that Jesus has broken our trust.  Then we turn our backs on God altogether because we've been hurt by religion.

I want to tell you something that we all know:  The church is not Jesus.
I'm a pastor at a church and I know this all too well.
We don't always get it right.  Sometimes we get it wrong.  The church is made up of sinful, hurting, broken people who are trying our best to follow our Teacher and live out His teachings in our lives. That is our mission.  Sometimes we forget our mission.

So, if and when we do break your trust, please know two things:

First, not all of us meant to break your trust.  I know there are some religious people who are only in it for the money or the control or to sooth their own consciences, and those people will willfully break your trust and use you if it means they get more of what they want out of you.  We are not those people.  We are people trying out best to create a community where Jesus transforms lives.  Along the way we will make mistakes, but those mistakes are ours, not His, because only He is perfect; we are not.

Second (and related to the first), when we don't love you perfectly, Jesus still does.  When we don't treat you fairly, Jesus always will.  When we push to hard or not hard enough, Jesus remains steady. We may never fully get your trust back, Jesus will always be worthy of your trust.  When we are selfish, He is selfless.  When we are distracted and miss you, He is focused and never forgets who you are.  

We are not trying to be any of the things I just mentioned.  We are not trying to be distracted or pushy or mean-spirited or cold.  Instead, we are trying to love like Jesus does, to serve like Jesus served, to care like Jesus cared and to all be standing together as a community when He returns.  We are just admitting that we are human and not perfect and that from time to time we will mess up and perhaps that might cause you to not trust us anymore.  But don't let it ever cause you to not trust Him.

I'm not making excuses for when we break your trust.  I wish we never did.  But we do, and when we do I hate it and it sucks, because as a church I want us all to be in authentic community with each other and with God.  God created us to be in relationships with each other and with Him.  This means learning to trust each other and to trust God.          

I have learned to trust Him with my life, sometimes in spite of how I've been treated by church, but also partially because of how I've been treated by church.  It was a church that taught me that when I fall, they were going to kick me while I was down.  It was also a different church that taught me that when I fall, they were going to pick me up and get me back into community with other believers and with God.
God is worthy of your trust. He will never break it.  I trust Him with my life and I hope that you will trust Him with yours too.  Then, let's work together on learning how to trust each other.