Jeff, Braegan, and I depart for the Dominican in just over 5 weeks.  Last night we had a time of prayer and commissioning.  My dad, Steve Shaffer, and Mark Doebler led the service with scripture, words of encouragement, and a time of prayer. We also had the honor of having 7 Dominicans attend the service.  They are currently in Peoria attending the Global Leadership Summit at Northwoods.  We have had an overwhelming outpouring of support, and we are extremely thankful.

Jeff and I are in the process of applying for our Resident’s Visas.  It has been quite the process, I would compare it to a scavenger hunt of collecting lots of documents from around the United States all pertaining to ourselves.  Who would have thought that even the US government doesn’t agree on things.  One of our requirements is to have a criminal background check, no older than 30 days issued from the county we live in.  So Jeff and I venture over to the Sheriff’s department.  When we explained what we are doing, the officer informed us that since we are not criminals he can’t just run our report because it is illegal.  Well…that’s just awesome!  After about 45 minutes of him making phone calls and us explaining to him what we are doing, we were on our way to 3rd party fingerprinting agency.  Hopefully the Dominican Consulate in Chicago is understanding.

Here is a link to the requirements, in case you may want to obtain your own Resident’s Visa:)

All in all, things are coming together well.  It’s bittersweet saying goodbye, but we are being received with open arms from our Dominican family.
A few ways you can be praying for us in the coming weeks are:

-That we will finalize the details of our visas

-Safe travels

-Rest as we prepare to leave