HAS TRAVELLED FROM USA
pares the body for viewings. Tara said: “The hardest one for me was a guy in his 40s who had dropped his son off at work, played a full game of basketball, came off the court and dropped dead.
“His wife came in with a friend, not knowing that he had died and was in a waiting room. The doctor and I were walking down the hallway and heard her shriek.
“He had four children and we had to get them all into the hospital. One was the same age I was when I lost my mom.
“That stayed with me. I can’t remember their names but I remember their faces.”
Tara is very close to her dad, Brian, who has supported her in her choices, and clearly adores her husband, Ramon, who she calls “amazing” and who she met while snowboarding in California.
They married in February 2016 during Sunday morning worship at First Presbyterian Church in Tyler and Ramon left the air force to be with Tara.
Tara said: “I told him that I would not be a military wife. Huge respect to the women who can, but that is not the life I want.”
A friend had told Tara that Scotland needed ministers and so, following a call to the Church of Scotland, the couple moved to Edinburgh where Tara then carried out 15 months probation.
She joins 46 Church of Scotland ministers who have been ordained overseas in different denominations and are now admitted into the church.
The reverend says her new congregation “have welcomed me warmly” and today she performs her first funeral in the church before her first Sunday service this week.
Tara is now looking forward to her future in her new parish.
She added: “The church is already doing so many things that I would hope to doing so I look forward to seeing how they develop and supporting the parish in any way I can.”