Local pastor and missionary Bryan Nerren remains in India this week after being arrested and then released on a customs violation. Nerren is waiting for Indian officials to return his passport and permit him to leave the country.

Drew Hayes of Shelbyville, one of Nerren's mission trip teammates, returned to Shelbyville on Friday and spoke to the Times-Gazette on Monday. He's urging Nerren's friends and supporters to call the office of Sen. Marsha Blackburn, in hopes she can use her influence in the matter.

"Senator Blackburn's foreign policy team is actively engaged through all appropriate channels, including with the State Department," said Elizabeth Gregory, Blackburn's press secretary, in an email to the Times-Gazette. "We cannot comment further."

*** Comforting signs

An arrest in a foreign country, halfway around the world, is a frightening prospect, but Hayes said there have already been a series of occurrences that they take as signs of God's providence in the matter.

Nerren, pastor of International House of Prayer on Union Street, has been involved with missions in Nepal for 18 years, as the founder of the Asian Children's Education Fellowship. ACEF trains native church leaders in Nepal and in Nepali-speaking regions of other countries. According to the ACEF website, the group has helped to train more than 20,000 leaders. Following a devastating earthquake in 2015, ACEF raised more than $60,000 in relief funds. He travels to Nepal a couple of times each year for meetings and conferences.

In this case, Nerren, Hayes and a third man from Sevierville planned to go to a region of India with a number of Nepali-speaking residents and spend a week there before making their way to Nepal itself. They flew into the New Delhi airport so that they could change planes to another flight to Bagdora, India. From there, they planned to travel several hours on the ground to reach their destination.

By Indian law, Nerren should have filled out a customs form, on which he would have reported a large sum of money he was carrying with him to assist Christian families in India and Nepal. But he was not given the form until he was stopped by authorities.

"It could have been solved by simply filling out that form," said Hayes.

Nerren was questioned by customs officials for two hours at the New Delhi airport, but they returned his money and told him he was free to go.

But after he'd left, the New Delhi officials radioed ahead to the Bagdora airport, where Nerren was arrested.

*** Multi-day exile

"It was a very difficult experience," said Hayes, all the more so because it was far from where ACEF operates. "We did not know anybody, of course. Had it happened in Nepal, all of the Nepali organization team would have known what to do."

It was almost six days until Nerren's teammates saw him. He was given a public defender, who spoke to him the day after his arrest, but even the public defender did not see him again until he was released.

The lawyer, and the U.S. consulate, said that jail officials reported Nerren to be in good condition.

"But we didn't have any assurance of that ourselves," said Hayes. They only learned about Nerren's jail experience after he was released.

Nerren uses a CPAP machine. When he told jailers he needed it for health reasons, they put him in the infirmary, where there was a power outlet, rather than with the main population of 600 inmates. That also meant he had access to filtered water, as opposed to the general water supply that might have made him, as a foreign visitor, sick. His bed was in front of the TV, which was tuned to a foreign-language version of the cable channel Animal Planet.

*** Prayers go up

When he was put in the general prison for two hours, a Muslim inmate began protecting him and telling him what to do. A Nigerian inmate said he looked like an American pastor and asked for prayer and a Bible lesson.

Hayes was aware that news of the Nerren case was being quietly circulated in Shelbyville, and there were many prayers going up on Nerren's behalf.

"We heard that there was a lot of interest, a lot of prayer," said Hayes.

It later turned out that the public defender happened to be a former customs office prosecutor, who knew the laws and the officials involved quite well. That was the first of the occurrences that Hayes points to as a sign of God's providence.

Back here in the U.S., a friend of Nerren's wife Rhonda knew a lawyer with the American Center for Law & Justice, a conservative, faith-based watchdog group founded by Jay Sekulow and Pat Robertson. This lawyer, as it turns out, works with American detentions in that part of the world. The lawyer began working with various connections on Nerren's behalf.

Nerren was released on bail after six days. The head of the U.S. consulate said he'd never seen someone go through arrest, arraignment, bail and release in that short a time and that the process sometimes takes months.

*** Out of custody

Upon Nerren's release, a court date was set in a month. The Indian government is holding Nerren's passport, and he can't leave the country until it is returned. The customs official in Bagdora has recommended that the charges be dropped, but there's no guarantee if or when that will happen. Blackburn's office has been given the name of the Indian official with authority in the case.

Nerren is staying in an inexpensive motel in the area, with travel restrictions.

"That's kind of where we are right now," said Hayes.

The money that Nerren had planned to give the Christian families in India and Nepal was confiscated. Hayes is encouraging donations to replace it at www.acefnepal.org/#donate.