BIA Recognition and Accreditation

I have come to the understanding that God is never late, he is never early; he is always right on time.

A little over a year ago, I submitted an application to the Board of Immigration Appeals for their recognition of Elmbrook Church’s community center, James Place as an immigration counseling office and for my own accreditation as an immigration representative. The recognition and accreditation are necessary if a non-profit is to counsel people in matters related to immigration law. This was a direction that the leadership of James Place felt we needed to go because we were seeing a great need in the community for competent, legal, and inexpensive immigration counseling.

We were very optimistic and excited to begin this new way of serving some of the most vulnerable in our community. But, unfortunately, our first application was denied. So, I addressed their concerns and sent in another application… only to have that denied as well. Well, I figured we hadn’t struck out three times yet, so with the aid of an experienced Immigration attorney, we filed one last application.

Meanwhile, preparations for the office were in full swing and things were finally where they needed to be by the end of September… we were ready to take clients. A handful of volunteers had spent numerous hours in preparation of the office and procedures, and I thought it would be good to have a time of appreciation. So we got together on our normal Friday morning ready to pray yet again for God to move our application a bit further down the line. Just as we sat down to have some coffee and snacks, my telephone rang. I could not get to it in time, so I listened to the message. The timing could not have been more perfect: It was a call informing us that our application had been approved and that we would receive notification in the mail on Monday! So I set the phone on the table and hit ‘speaker’; you should have heard the excited laughter and exclaims of “How ‘ironic’ that God would choose to give us this news on our celebration day!”

Not only was the whole team together and the office finally fully prepared for clients, it was also the week before Harvest Fest, the mission conference at Elmbrook Church. God had everything planned out from the beginning… too early, and we would not have been ready (we have already been able to help almost 20 clients in the first 3 weeks), too late and we would have missed a great opportunity to present the ministry at Harvest Fest. Instead, it was precisely when God wanted it to happen – October 11th, a year to the exact week from when the original application was filed.

Thanks to all of you who have been praying with us concerning this. This is a great opportunity to demonstrate the love of Christ and it is exciting to be one of the ones God is using to do it.

Jason