Ok, so i just want to share with you my experience of applying for NET ministries:
I applied for NET earlier on this year after visiting the Franciscan Friars of the Renewal in London, Canning Town. I was visiting them whilst they were hosting a vocations retreat. N.B for a Catholic 'vocation', from the Latin for 'calling', particularly applies to a 'calling' from God to priesthood or religious life as a Monk, Friar, Nun, Hermit or as a consecrated celibate and it has its roots in Jesus' calling of the apostles:
Mark 1:16-20
"As Jesus walked beside the Sea of Galilee, he saw Simon and his brother Andrew casting a net into the lake, for they were fishermen. 'Come, follow me,' Jesus said, 'and I will make you fishers of men.' At once they left their nets and followed him." Like Simon and Andrew I too met Jesus but in the Eucharist and felt his calling to 'follow him'. So at this retreat we had the chance to do a lot of praying about our particular calling and the opportunity to speak with the vocations director. He, one other priest and a NET Alumni Nick Jacobson (a really amazing man of God) all mentioned NET Ministries and I felt my heart leap so i decided to test whether this threefold suggestion was from God or not.
'...Thy will be done...' I applied for the position on NET.
I had to email my application (which was quite a lot of pages) along with a picture to the States. A quick prayer was said, asking God to block that of which was not his will, and I waited for a response from NET. Shortly they came back to me with two 'web cam' interview opportunities over 'Skype'. Each Interview lasted about 45min and both were terrifying. I had to wait a few weeks for a response till the point i thought that I had not been accepted. But one day during work, at the vineyard, whilst i was sweeping some leaves and talking to myself I received a phone call from Matt at NET:
"Hi, is this 'Daaaan Driver?..." Straight away I knew it was them from the faint signal and signature accent and my heart sank..."Yes, Speaking" I replied as politely and confidently as my croaky voice could manage. "This is Matt from NET ministries and i am just calling to say.... You have been accepted into NET!!!..."
I think i must have sounded really ungrateful as I was about as enthusiastic as an anesthesised sloth. Or perhaps it was just the English in me - too afraid to show true emotion unless we've 'ad a few and England have reached a semi.
So now I was faced with the problem or task of having to raise £2200 for to cover the cost of the mission and up to a further £1000 for travel costs.Now would it surprise you that it took less time to raise the money than it has taken me to write up to this question mark?
Its taken me just under an hour to write this far. But over five 3-5min talks at local Churches on two consecutive weekends I reached my target (along with the help of certain individual benefactors) That's £2200 essentially from a total 20 minutes of public speaking. So that's roughly £2200 for 20 minutes at an hourly rate of £6600!
So God in this instant opened the flood gates and proved himself to be 'volente' (willing)
and i truly believed he wanted me to be a 'volente'(er) of sorts as well, at least etymologically.
Just before I had reached my target NET had contacted me with the information i needed to obtain a visa. unfortunately it was out of date, I searched everywhere for the visa they recommended but i could not find it. So i made my first of many phone calls to the £1.20pm profit making geniuses that are the US embassy and they advised me of this:
"From December 1, 2008, the employment be approved in advance by the United States Citizenship and Immigration Services (USCIS) in the United States on the basis of a petition, form I-129R filed by the United States employer, before the Minister of Religion or Religious Worker applies for the visa at the Embassy or Consulate. "Which means the charity has to apply for a 'green tape' ('
I-129R' ) form before I can apply for this new visa. I alerted NET of this change and played the waiting game. Net applied for three '
I-129R' forms as I and two others, from Brazil and another from the Netherlands, were apparently only eligible for the Religious Workers visa.
But not to worry I just had to wait for the instructions on how and when to apply for my visa. Presently I had a two week trip to Bardsey Island and a three week pro -life mission to Lebanon planned. And whilst I was on a cycle trip to 'Bardsey Island' North Wales (see documentary I made with Andy Hill) just before i reached Stroud I received a shock that cut me right to the heart - All three forms were denied. The US were not having anyone in their country from any other country under this visa type. I could not hold the tears back. I speculate that their decision was something to do with the current fear of certain religious extremist groups mixed with the ugly bastard child of some modern thought that is
'political correctness' -you know the school of thought that teaches 'If we deny one religion visas we have to deny them all! Here here! As not to offend anyone!' Well if this is the case then I am offended and your political correctness seems to be riddled with hypocritical defect-ness.
That day i reached my grandmothers house 'Nanny Ireland' - who is a very holy woman. i told her the situation. She told me not to worry and that i was going. After disappearing and returning from another room she handed me a little Infant Child of Prague Statue with the invocation of:
Matthew 7:7
"Ask, and it shall be given you: seek, and you shall find: knock, and it shall be opened to you. "She said with a profound wisdom something to the effect of '...If this is what God truly wants you to do, meaning; it will truly bring you peace and fulfilment of your hearts desire. Pray this with all your heart and with a strong faith and you will see he will answer - The infant child never lets you down.'
We continued on our journey and reached our rendezvous after 300miles of cycling. Bardsey has no electricity or Internet or phone line except for emergency use so i had to use my mobile which is not much use when trying to sort out a bureaucratic nightmare. After a few days on the island I learned that one of the two other over seas applicants, Gabriel, from Brazil had managed to find a possible loop hole in the system - We could apply for a tourist visa and try to enter on this.
So he set the ball running. Hope struck my heart almost as simultaneously as the anxiety to get off the island and get working on it. Though I had to wait another 4 days before i could do anything. In fact over the next few days the only thing i could do was watch them make progress to the point of their visa interviews being booked, whilst i was stranded on an island with not a thing i could do...
We returned home from our trip and I had 3 days before I had to leave for the pro life mission in Lebanon. Straight away I got working on what was required for my visa and i immediately hit a wall:
"Under United States visa law, people who have been arrested at anytime are required to declare the arrest when applying for a visa. If the arrest resulted in a conviction, the individual may be permanently ineligible to receive a visa. Applicants applying for visas at the U.S. Embassy in London or the Consulate in Belfast are required to furnish a police certificate from the Association of Chief Police Officers (ACPO) issued within 6 months of the date of the visa interview." Before I became a practicing Catholic I had a petty arrest, of which is a whole other story and i wont bore you with it here. In short this meant I had to wait a long time for a) the processing of the of the ACPO b)the booking of the interview and thusly the result of the visa interview/application.
To make matters worse I would be in Lebanon for the next 3 weeks, unable to receive and forward the ACPO and relevant forms to the embassy. Further still the earliest available slot for a visa interview was
currently August the 5th - 9 days before musicians training in the US and 15 days before actual training training!!! Not to mention the fact that processing times for a decision after that were up to 36 weeks!
'Don't worry you are going.'So i sent off for the ACPO form just in time to head out to Lebanon. A week into Lebanon I received an email from my father explaining to me that he had received the said police form. I asked him to forward it to the embassy for me. Now I just had to wait a while for their response before i could book an interview.
As i told my new found Lebanese friends about my predicament and how it looked 80% like i would miss this opportunity. They all said with great faith, and i suppose it could have been because it was easy for them: 'Don't worry you
are going.'
I remember one of my new friends, 'Charbel' - a great guy who has been waiting over 5 years to get a visa to the US in order to become a Franciscan - he said to me 'see man...' (he looked, in the nicest way possible, like a dodgy 1960s Colombian drug dealer with an open shirt a youthful beard-trimmed face and pair of ray ban aviators) in the scorching heat of the Mediterranean sun he said '...you see man, i got dis thing with deh Holy Spirit man, and he said to me, dat you are going to get your visa, man - you gotta have faith and trust in deh Holy Spirit.'
Everyone kept saying the same thing. In fact the only people who seemed to think otherwise were those with no or little faith. Which made me question 'Who are the ones who are mad here - those that trust and believe in the Holy Spirit or those who won't, can't or don't?' on the one hand those with faith that can blindly say 'You are going' are potentially, if wrong, misleading me by building up my hope just for it to be broken down which is kind of sad and a debatable madness. But to those that have no faith if they are wrong well they were not being misleading, but rather they are the mislead, and this is sad for they miss out on having an amazing relationship with a mystery that forever reveals himself through our desires by forever fulfilling our human needs for infinite love, beauty, truth and joy until it is bought to completion in the world to come.
Philippians 1:6 'And I am sure of this, that he who began a good work in you will bring it to completion at the day of Jesus Christ.'In fact i realised both the person with faith and the person without faith actually agreed on the same thing: That humanly it certainly looked like i was not going to go to serve with NET.
'Keep justice; and do righteousness; for soon my deliverance shall be revealed"(Ps56)
Days went past and during all this time my spiritual family in England were praying a novena for me to a Lebanese Saint : Charbel. A novena is a powerful 9 day prayer that echoes the time the apostles spent locked away from the world in the upper room. The Apostles, Blessed Virgin Mary, and other followers of Jesus prayed together for nine consecutive days, and they were rewarded with a truly amazing miracle: the descent of the Holy Spirit on Pentecost. (Acts 1:14, 2:1-4)
I was busy concentrating on the mission at hand and my prayer became a simple 'Thy will be done' - all day everyday. I knew that whatever the outcome was the Lord would move me to where my needs would be fulfilled, but deep down I hoped that my will would be synchronised with his will and that all these barriers of time and paper would be lifted.
Soon enough I got word from home that my visa interview could be booked, a sign that those barriers may be lifted. That was soon shattered by a quick £1.20pm phone call that emptied more than my wallet. "The earliest available appointment is the 18th at 10am" Even though it seemed pointless as the musician training had finished by then and it was two days before the real training started i still booked the interview.
This was the thread of hope my reason hung on to:
18th august still gives me two to five days maximum (if they allow me to turn up late) of having my visa being accepted and everything returned to me in time to book a flight...
So i quickly sent an email to Matt from NET and received this response:
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Hey Dan,
Thanks for the update! Allie has let me know what is happening. I will pray that the Lord intervenes & gets you into an earlier interview! Even if not, we still want you to come, so the 23rd or 24th or even the 25th would be fine. Obviously the sooner the better, but we want you here on the Lord’s time. Let us know if we can help in any way!
God bless your mission!
Peace!
Matt
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My hope was soon to be shattered as Gabriel (the Brazilian NET applicant) had his interview and was immediately denied his visa on the grounds that he was trying to access America with the wrong visa. He was told only with the religious workers visa he could get in.
To make matters worse I remembered the little Child of Prague Statue that 'Nanny Ireland' had given me to pray with on Bardsey and now Lebanon. I removed it from its case and it was shattered to pieces! Its head had snapped off and his hands were broken, I took this as a bad omen. When i thought about it it did in fact give me a spark of hope as it reminded me of the history of the Statue:
In the 1600s there was a devotion to the Infant of Prague that was lost after persecutions of the church and the statue was thrown into a pile of rubbish behind an altar. Here it lay forgotten, its hands broken off, for seven years until it was found again in 1637 by a priest 'Father Cyrillus'. And one day, while praying before the statue, Father Cyrillus heard a voice say,
"Have pity on me, and I will have pity on you. Give me my hands, and I will give you peace. The more you honor me, the more I will bless you." So he fixed and cleaned up up for all to see and as a result many miraculous claims have occurred from a devotion to Jesus as the Child of Prague ever since.
I arrived back from Lebanon on the 4th of August (after missing a flight four days before and eating into my mission funds) straight away I knew what to do:
1. Fix the infant child statue.
2. Pray
3. Ring up the embassy everyday for a cancellation and thusly and earlier appointment.
So I grabbed the superglue and stuck the little Statue of our Lord back together and left it to dry. For the next few days i attended mass and along side this I rang the embassy once, twice three times a day for a few days (at the nominal rate of £1.20pm) to enquire about any cancellations of appointments. No use! Every time the same! The long drawn out silent pause after my desperate request that was to be accompanied only by the distant interference on the line and the occasional broken 'tippa-tap-click' of a keyboard followed by the predictable response; she takes a breath in and ... "No sorry we have nothing until September"
I gave up. By now I was sick of the embassy sick of calling up to hear the same answer and I said to God "Look its your will OK! If you want me to go I will go, I have done all I can now and i am just wasting time and money calling up every day. I don't know why this is happening and I don't know what is happening but you are the one in control! I have submitted my will to yours now please shed some light!" And with that I let go. Gods will be done.
A few days pass. And one day whilst in the car with my mum I ask:
" Mum do you think it is worth me calling up the Embassy for cancellations given that its wasting so much money and I have only a few days left till my interview especially as every time the answer has been the same and Gabriel has been denied his?"
She looked at me and in all honesty said "Well you only have 4 days till your interview so you might as well wait till then."
"Yeah but it would make all the difference if I had an interview let say tomorrow, it could mean the difference between going and not going." i replied.
"Well there you go. You have just answered your own question." She said.
"Thanks mum."
So as soon as i got home I grabbed the now fixed infant child statue and reworded Father Cyrillus' prayer:
"Right I looked after you, now you look after me!"
Praying with all my heart I rang the embassy....
Enquired and embraced the long dreaded pause....
The deep breath came and.... "....Ok, so we have one available tomorrow at 8am one at 830am and one the following Monday, which would you like?"
Its his flipping sense of humour that did this I know it! He certainly takes delight in his creations at least in the mocking of them - You wait for one to come and nothing happens and then when you least expect it three come at once!!! All joking aside I thanked him so much for this and pondered about what it meant...
That night i poured my heart out into prayer and said a special prayer to St.Charbel, to Jesus as the Infant Child of Prague and the emergency novena of Blessed Mother Theresa (nine memoraes) along with the prayers and novenas of my mother, brother and friends.
I chose to have my interview at 8am the next day. That night I had an amazing confirmation of my want and need to serve with NET. I really felt more than ever that i must go. Something that evening, which will remain between God and I, made me realise that NET was the opportunity for me to
no longer look at my self but to be able to just ask him what he wants with me. This plagued my conscience though as, although I had confirmation of my will I was still unsure of Gods, despite all the barriers that had been lifted thus far and despite the encouragement from everyone who would say with such faithful conviction 'Its clearly Gods will for your life right now.' But i couldn't help it, and could you blame me for these pragmatic thoughts? After all What would i do for the next year? What would I do with all the donated money? Could i transfer it to a new mission? How would it look to the donors if I was chopping and changing missions to suit my circumstances? Furtherstill half the donors were annomynous which would make it impossible to return their money!
Regardless, the next morning at 820am I arrived at the embassy in london with 10 minutes to spare after getting a bit lost. As i went through security one of the yellow jackets, a young typical Londoner, pulled me aside laughing after checking my passport.
His thick East London accent added to the impact of his comments. "Man yoove changed aint ya? All yer 'air off, an' that."
"Yeah but don't laugh about it!" i replied nevously laughing myself.
"ooooooooh, Im just sayin..." he said shaking his head "...that they aint gonna like that one bit bruv, you best have a new photo on that or they will ask you for one!" He let me in and as I walked off he laughed out loud to himself almost paying no attention to the next person or their respective passport.
Well thats a good sign I thought at I dragged my feet across the grounds. I got into the building and it was just really depressing and souless like most business buildings. I felt quite disheartened and the woman at the desk was in a mood as well.
I had to wait almost a couple of hours for the visa interview. So i wandered around waiting for my number to be called and in actual fact the waiting room was not so bad they had some pictures of famous paintings from various American artists from different periods such as the one featured as the backdrop on this page by Albert Bierstadt 1830-1902 of the 'Sierra Valley'. When the time finally came I had learnt about American art and the different periods prayed the rosary, divine mercy, read some scripture, praised God for Him, passed 'our ladies special blessing' on to several people within the waiting room area and sent my guardian angel to go over the interview with the interviewers guardian angel.
The interview itself was in a booth not dissimilar to a service window at the post office. There was a bullet proof glass window separating us, wooden blinders either side of the window, a little gap to pass documents through and a grey and luminous green fingerprint identification unit to the left on the stomach high shelf.
During the interview he asked me several questions to do with my intentions and my arrest and whilst he was talking i thought to myself "Lord your will is far more supreme than any idea i can have for myself, i completely accept whatever the outcome of this interview is. And never in my life even in all the Churches and shrines have i felt the presence of your will as i do know in this dull secular and intimidating booth." and almost as soon as i thought this he said "ok so your visa has been approved..."
I can't begin to describe the joy. I kept repeating in my head "I love you, i love you, I love you, i love you - I LOVE YOU!" On a practical note it turns out that although my visa is approved for a year period I have to leave and re-enter north america after six months due to the type of visa.
Gods Will is always beyond our Expectations. If it was not for my repetition of 'I love you' i perhaps would not have realised why God put me through such a 'long' period of 'trial' and testing. You see he was not content with
just giving me the opportunity to serve on NET. In fact he wanted to give me much more! And he could not have given me these gifts i will now mention without the time of uncertainty:
The first grace was the conviction and confirmation that I truely wanted to serve with NET. Before there was any sign of me not being able to serve on NET i didnt really think about if I really wanted to go, i mean
REALLY wanted to go. In fact I just thought it would be fun a good and holy way to see America! On a side note before my conversion I used to all ways dream of seeing America 'Hunter.S.Thompson' style. But all the Fear and Loathing has now turned into praise and worship and God has brought forth the fufilment of that misguided desire. And i firmly believe that the time of uncertainty was god questioning me "Do you
really want to go?" to which the answer that was made apparent was "Lord I need to go!".
The second grace that He wanted to give me was the simple grace of being able to trust in His will. I had tried my best to abandon myself to Gods will, I dont think I had complete confidence in it though, and my faith was weak (still is) but as a result of the testing i now know from
experience that I can trust in his will in respect to my hearts desires.
The third grace was a humbling grace. You see when i raised the money so quickly and passed the interviews with ease, i think i took some of the glory away from God and put it down to my own efforts. But having the opportunity, in all human reasoning, wrenched from me and then having the opportunity given back as a solid reality after a powerhouse of prayer and perspiration really showed me that I am in total need of him to fufil my desires. But most importantly that it is He who has the power to do this and not me.
So the final grace is one i have already mentioned. It is the 'I love you's' and the joy that came with that. Never in my life have i felt
in love with God but that moment at the counter my heart could hardly contain itself. I thank God for this grace and I moreover thank him for the time of not having a clue what his will was; the time in which i learned to trust him, fear him, grow closer to him and to love him. With out this time perhaps i would have still gone to NET but with a spoilt brat attitude, less of an understanding of my destiny and with an ego that just takes God for granted.
Its taken me a while to write this and i am currently in Philladelphia airport on the floor with a sore bum. Its 4:30pm here (9:30pm in UK) and i still have another flight till i reach minneapolis St.Paul my destination. So I will begin my training tomorrow and I will update the blog with small entries and video diarys. All of that of course is...
DEO Volente!
w son." So thank you all for the friendship, struggles, laughs and for being there for me over the past two years since my conversion, I you are reading this then this is directed at you as you would have had some sort of impact.
