Running a non-profit organization has been a very rewarding and challenging experience for me. I have attempted to do things I have never done before. Sometimes I have succeeded, and sometimes I have had to find ways around the obstacle. For the past two months, I have been trying to find a US Catholic bishop who would sign a Religious Denomination Certification stating my non-profit is closely tied to the Roman Catholic Church in response to a USCIS Request for Evidence for an R-1 visa for Father Boniface Barasace, the Roman Catholic priest we have been training, housing and caring for over a year and a half now. Yesterday, the lawyer from the Archdiocese of Washington told me that we are the first non-profit organization, other than those of actual religious communities, to try to directly employ priests. The Archdiocese of Washington is now working fervently to review our application and give us recommendations on modifications to our governing documents and possibly adding additional church officials to our board of directors so that the US Conference of Catholic Bishops may choose to approve our application. In the meantime, Father Bonifaces R-1 visa application is most certain to be denied, and he will have to return to Kenya shortly. Never in a million years did I think I would be faced with the situation I am in today. For sure, I never thought I would come up with an original idea that no other non-profit organization had thought of before. Maybe I should start seeing myself as an entrepreneur after all. What I have learned most from this experience is that when you believe in the mission, obstacles in your way become the stepping stones that deepen your desire to work harder to succeed. If no one else, I am sure that my childhood friend, Laura Benedict, understands how I feel. I promise that some day, I dont know when, I will make a post that Endelevu has been approved to be asterisk listed in the Official Catholic Directory and has successfully sponsored Father Boniface as the first of many, many priests that Endelevu will sponsor on an R-1 visa. Who would ever have thought that it would be so difficult to try to do good in the world.
Posted on: Wed, 04 Dec 2013 15:33:20 +0000