mari

Hi all, I reviewed Hank's letter and am very thankful to him for taking the time to do it, but I feel at this point that too much time has passed for our name check and some higher authority should know that there are two people in this world going through a lot of pain and despair. I noticed in a thread some days ago that someone wrote down the e-mail address of Ms. Harty, I can't find it anymore. Will someone be so kind to provide it to me? And BTW, I'm confused about her position, is she "Secretary" or " Assistant Secretary of State"? Thanks!

Please don't forget us who are still waiting for our clearance to be completed, at least there are two of us CFL members in this situation. Next Wednesday will be 8 months since it started, and no good news yet.

Felix, it's time for your wife to receive the P3, you can also contact by phone the DOS to get a status of your case. They can tell you if the package was received by GZ and if they had sent the P3 to her. In our case, the P3 was lost 2 times in the mail, I wrote to them to change the mailing address and requested them to resend the P3, and they did. Good luck!

Great! Great, my friend!!! I'm so happy for both of you!! Let the fun begin. Remember you got an invitation to visit the Island of Enchantment with your soon-to-be wife.

I don't know if it will be worthwhile, with one hour for session plus Q & A's, it seems as she will speak about the virtues of the visa process. This woman should spend a whole day listening to the horror stories some of us could talk about, and questions like " why is it that our name check is still pending after 7 months and 17 days and nobody cares? Sorry, but I'm just so frustrated I can no longer see any positivism in anything.

We're also going through the security clearance nightmare (7 months and 10 days), I don't want to sound pessimistic, but my best guess is that when you choose " Other" as the reason for your e-mail, you get an answer from different officers so the message is different depending on who answers your e-mail. Anyway, I do hope I'm wrong and you're right. Good luck!

Based on the assumption that they're being in fact more flexible, and our particular situation which most of you all know, is there any chance that my fiance get one just to visit me while this long process is over? Or do they just say a plain "no" to a K1 beneficiary who is going still through the process? I can figure out the answer, but it's just so unfair, well, I guess life is not fair for all..... Anyway, I'm glad that your family will be able to attend your wedding, congrats!!

Really, really appreciate your good wishes. I do hope and pray every day that we get our interview date sooner than later. I can only tell you that this unfair process has given me and my SO so much sadness and deception, and it has helped me to develop much patience in my life. This week I spoke to an Immigration supervisor and she said there's not much that they could do for our case, as they're not supposed to intervene at this stage of the process, but she mentioned the 3 agencies involved in the second name check, one of them is particularly slow some times. Hope you get your P4 soon.

I got a pearl-colored silk in Beijing: one with a design of small dragons and the other with the typical chinese flowers, but still don't know what fashion to wear, got no idea at all. I'm not so young as some of you are, and it's my second wedding, so I think a 2- piece set will be great for the ocassion.

I'm still trying to catch up with work, CFL and so many other things after coming back from China. God only knows how I miss him!!!! Amber, I think it's a great idea to create the site, count me in.... As for CFL, it has a special place in my heart, so many of you (Carl, Don,John, lele, Jon, Clifford) and so many others had been such gentlemen and support in difficult times. I agree with the topic brought up by the gals, I think it's just a natural thing whenever there are many men in one single place, just remember what John mentioned about the diversity and the respect for it. And Taz, thanks for the article, my heart goes out to that woman and hope it will not be our reality, it's a shame that there are still people in America behaving as this. I for one thing had experienced some of it when I go to the states and speak my mother language (spanish), sometimes I get the stares and makes me wonder what's exactly the problem with it as I'm in no way saying anything wrong about nobody. We are all citizens of the world and it's about time that we learn to respect and value what others can contribute to our lives.

Marty, congratulations to you and Wei Ping, and many blessings on the years ahead.

Thanks so much guys, we both needed to spend some time together as we were apart for 11 months waiting for a visa interview that never came, I promised myself this would never happen again. Of course we had many discussions concerning our current situation and I did my best to convince him that the wait will be over soon, but it seems as he doesn't believe me any more, and of course I can't make any more promises to him. I've confirmed with DOS that the consulate had made several inquiries regarding the status of the name check, and to be fair, they have always answered my e-mails and addressed my concerns, like the time they called my SO's cell phone to coordinate the delivery of P3 as requested by me. Now I just hope that they keep tracking the name check and that it will be completed by Feb. 23, my SO and me bet on this one, I had told him that the longest wait for name check that I know of (Clifford's) lasted 7.5 months, and on this day it will be 7.5 for us, I"ll win the bet if it's completed by this time. Please don't tell me that there has been a longer one for a candle member!!!!! And John, I can't hardly wait to show those beautiful PR beaches to him.

Congrats, Jason & Jun, I'm very happy for both of you.

Among all, I do know Jun will do just fine, she's very smart and sweet.

Thanks Jason, and I'm waiting to hear the good news from you, good place to be on the waiting...

Hi all, it's been a while since I don't post in the Candle, but I had been sneaking in lately to keep updated on what's going on with your lives. I just came back from Beijing last Sunday, had a great time there, even when my SO had to work, he has great flexibility in his working hours (as he's available to them 24/7) so we had the chance to spend some quality time together. We visited the city of Zhengzhou on one of his business trips, and went touring to the famous Shaolin Temple, where we watched a Kung Fu show performed by the students from one of the schools in the city. I was starting to believe that our case was in the same "limbo" as Clifford's, wow, I never imagined that a thing like this will happen to us. It's been 6.5 months now since our name check started, our Congressman contacted GZ and the FBI, GZ stated that the interview will be scheduled as soon as they get the clearance completed, but FBI never promised anything, and never responded to my e-mail dated Nov. 30 nor my fax sent weeks before that. You can't imagine the feeling of frustration, anger, sadness, abandonment that I've been through in the last months. The system must improve indeed, it's just not fair. The consulate has always answered my letters, today I received a note stating that the name was resubmitted for clearance again, this time I sure hope that it will take the normal processing time (1 month), but still wonder what happened to our case during the past months, I just don't wish any of you to experience the anguish my SO and me had during this past time, but it sure made us stronger in our love and determination to be together for the rest of our lives. Now the journey continues, who knows when it will be over, and what the outcome will be, as the torture continues until that blessed interview day. Thanks for all the support I had received from all of you, and hope that all who have interviews coming up have the best of luck.

Happy Birthday Mrs. Du, I'm almost sure her "due" date arrived and she might be going thru the tough nights now.

Dear friend, don't even consider writing to the FBI, they just don't care anymore about people's inquiries, I've faxed them and e-mailed them to their published numbers without any success. Hope the new year comes with some good news for us.

Alex, I have not been here so often lately, it's just too painful to see so many others getting interviews while we're still in a black cloud, but I assure you all my prayers are with you and your loved one. I wish you a successful outcome and many, many blessings......

Why has it taken so long? The second name check maybe?

Lele, my friend, we can relate perfectly to what you're going through, as you know our hopes were to have a wedding on January or February, but now we're in this loop and the end seems so far away. Our name check is still unresolved after 5 months and 4 days. It's not easy to see so many of you getting interviews next month, it's just not fair, and it's really cruel. Just hang in there, you"ll finally be together.

Thank you all for your support, I'm aware that this is a true test of love, and my dear Qisheng knows of my commitment to him. T & X, after reading your story, which I appreciate so much you sharing it with us, I feel like we will finally get an answer and there will be a happy ending for us just like yours. I have not shared this with you guys before, but because of my present age we're running out of time for having our baby, and this visa process will definitely affect our aim y this being one of the reasons why I'm so frustrated with our current situation. Today my SO mentioned that he read a newspaper article about USA negotiating with China to allow chinese citizens to travel as tourists to US without visas and that they expect to reach a final agreement before May 2005. If this is true, then I wonder what will happen to all of us waiting to bring our loved ones home after going through such a bureaucratic process. Will they also make it easier for couples like us to be reunited sooner???

Jenny, last time I contacted GZ was November 2nd, they ussually write back to me the same day, but with no good news yet.

I'm a bank manager working in Business Banking, also an accounting college professor.

Thank you all for your support, I realize there have been couples with a much longer wait, but it's very hard to see others who filed one and a half month behind us, getting an interview in January, and what worries me the most is that GZ has confirmed that there will not be any interview for us until the name check is cleared. It just scares me to death to think that the name check never gets completed, it's a terrible feeling. Sylvia, I always tell Qisheng that we will finally get it, that I don't know of any unresolved case, but deep inside I'm also very scared, if only I knew that the name check is done, then my mind will be in peace and the wait will be bearable.