Fiance Visa Process

there are 4 steps in this process.
we are currently between steps 1 and 2.

Step 1. US Citizen (ME) petitions homeland security on behalf of fiance for him to be able to apply for a K1 visa. (my petition was sent on March 15 and approved on June 13)

Step 2. Petition was approved and sent to the National Visa Center, where it is assigned a new case number and forwarded to the foreign consulate, Ankara is our Consulate.

Step 3. Petition is receiced by Consulate and then foreign fiance can apply for visa. (this is a lot of work, putting together documents, getting medicals, etc)

Step 4. Interview. Avat will go to the consulate for an interview. He will either be granted a visa within 10 days or be put on Administrative Processing (more in depth background checks)

Step 5. (if put on AP) Wait until background checks are cleared, visa issued. Can be a waiting period of 10-90-365 days...no certainty here.

So there it is in a nutshell. All the layers of a fiance visa.

Its been a while

I am bad at blogging, it is official. In my defense I did create it in order to stay in contact with people while living in Istanbul and since I have been back I have not written. Now I am going to start blogging about our visa process, since there is so much that goes into the actual process and for everyone to get a better understanding of what actually happens during this process.

I am really excited to document this all because it shows God's faithfulness and provision to His children, specifically me and Avat!!!

All Glory to God.

Waiting

It is hard to believe that I have been back in Chicago for 6 weeks. Time was hard in Istanbul being so far from everyone, but being here makes me miss Istanbul. I feel like life is always like this. A constant longing to be everywhere other than where you are.

Avat and I have been chatting, emailing, calling, skyping this entire time. People warned me how hard long distance relationships are and I thought I would be able to handle it but boy was I not in store for everything we would go through apart. God has been faithful and here in the midst of it all but it is such a challenge.

Now we are waiting. Waiting to get his visa to come here. Waiting to be together again. Waiting for me to get a real teaching job, thankful for subbing though. Waiting for the UN to help him out of his horrible situation there.

Waiting on God has it's reward. Can't wait to see what and how He gets Avat here and how He does it. It is all in his hands.