Terry's E-Free licensing interview

Halfway through March Terry had to go down to Denver to be interviewed and defend his church licensure paper. He had been working on his ordination/licensing paper for a whole year and it was finally time for the big interview. 

Last year, just before sabbatical began, Terry was putting the finishing touches on that paper and it was for the sake of him finishing it I was okay with him staying back from my uncle's funeral. Since then he'd heard back from the head councilman a couple times for corrections to be made to the 30 page paper. And finally, nearly a year later, after all the edits, it was time for the interview. Initially we considered making a little family vacation out of the trip but Terry quickly squashed that idea since it would make an already stressful time worse. After that we discussed me going along but I just didn't know how it would work. Terry already had Pastor Dave going as well as our friend Damon, but finally said he really wanted me to come. Thankfully my parents were able to watch the kids here so I could go. So the four of us departed the church on March 14. 

Chillin in our hotel

We arrived in our hotel seven hours later, relaxed a bit, and then drove out to a Cheesecake Factory for dinner. What was interesting about that was Terry shared the gospel with our new waitress and it and/or the attention touched her. We've been praying for her. After dinner we walked around the mall to ease our overfull bellies. While there some salesgirls tried to sell Terry their product and Terry decided to share his product, the gospel, with them as well. He said it was their fault because they started talking to him. Dave, Damon, and I just hung back and prayed a bit. Ah Terry. 💜 He has such a heart for evangelism and the lost. I'm so excited for eternity to see what God does with it. 

We went to bed early, slept wretched, and woke early for breakfast and a drive to the Littleton Evangelical Free church where the interview was taking place. There were seven or eight gentlemen, most of them ministers, present to grill Terry. They each had a copy of his paper with their notes written in to ask him clarifying or penetrating questions about his doctrine and theology. I had a copy as well and wrote all their questions down so we could remember everything; Dave did the same. It was more intense than I thought it was going to be. One man in particular was sort of blunt and difficult to read. The hardest part from my perspective was trying to discern the question behind the question, as in, what kind of doctrine were they trying to get Terry to discuss without coming right out and asking about the Trinity, etc. The hardest part for Terry was having to think on his feet and not over-explaining things. He got into a groove after the first hour when we had a break. 

After two hours of grilling they excused the four of us so they could vote on whether or not to pass Terry. They quickly called us back in to tell us he passed with flying colors. Terry did absolutely great and they all told him so, including Dave, Damon, and I. I was proud of him! And super glad that I will never have to defend myself like that...I hope. What a hot seat! So now in three years he will be able to go for the full ordination in the E-Free Church, but first he'll have to write an even longer and more detailed paper (as if 30 pages wasn't enough). 

From there we left directly for Rapid City but stopped at a Chic-Fil-A outside the city. Yum! People always give Terry that Chic-Fil-A sauce after Lead the Cause where he held up one of their sauce packets (pictured below) during a worship session and someone took a picture of it. Every since people are always gifting it to us. Yum! 

The only picture I took was of my wonky fork. 😂 Also I'll mention here my grilled chicken I had for lunch. Sadly I didn't have any breaded chicken because I've been on a gluten free diet since mid-February. In January I began having this heart burn pressure in the center of my chest and after a 14 day trial of Pepcid did nothing for it, I thought I'd cut out gluten and dairy (dairy as much as possible though I still have it for pizza once a week because the addiction is strong). It helped for a while but then came back. I finally went to the doctor and we're trying Reglan and Zantac to see if it's an esophageal mobility issue. I may have to get an EGD...

Anyway, the rest of that day was spent driving, driving, driving. I guess I took a few pictures total after I realized I had taken almost none. There's Damon ignoring me for his books' sake. 😂 

And Dave dreamily gazing out the window into the nothingness that is Wyoming.