How is your SO passing the time? Working, taking classes, support group? Share by suggestion different ways to wait with a purpose.


Share if your SO has every been to the US and only returned home to process visa.



I thank you in advance.

My fiance in Sierra Leone copes by not putting his life on hold but keeping bussy
doing everyday ordinary things. Also watching a soccer game at the cinema occassionally.
There are no support groups he can go to.
Praying and hoping for a speedy approval........never losing hope.
Preparing documents now ahead of time so he will be ready for the interview.
Reading my many emails and following my advice on how to do his and assemble
all evidence of the relationship.
No, he was never in the US before.

My fiance David has been working & saving his money, attending Christian meetings and studying for the interview questions. He and I have been exchanging emails with factoids about me & my family & my past. I also sent him the Georgia State Driver's Instruction Manual, so he studies that too just so that passing the written part of the driver test will be easier for him. He prays alot too! Don't we all!

My husband copes with the wait time by planning ahead on the next step of the visa process. He and I are always trying to think of creative ways to get his police reports because he's lived outside of Ghana for quite sometime, so these days the stress of that gets to him thinking of all these things he needs to gather. He works full time playing soccer/football in Greece so he gets to be in a lot of beautiful places that I have only read about and dreamt of...lol...Coping has been hard on him as he has had many European visas but by far the American Visa has been the most challenging for him to acquire to date...He prays alot and listens to Gospel to maintain positivity and focus on what lies ahead. We send each other letters by snail mail and emails. We just always try to stay positive and vent when we need to but always managing to regroup and stay positive. He has never been to the United States before and the funny thing is when he used to live in Cyprus, we now learned shortly after we got married in Ghana that he could have easily obtained a visitor's visa to come here because that process in Cyprus only takes a day or so! Go figure...lol

Wow how interesting. Seems the visa process is a major part of all the lives in the VJ family. There isnt a day that goes by that is discussed seriously. We have even tried to omit talking about it only to have it to force its way into our conversation by either an email or letter from the NVC or embassy. It is important but I really want to add more to my life than a discussion on the visa process via the Lagos embassy.

In Lagos where my spouse waits there are churches everywhere, you wake up to the call of one religion and try to sleep when there is a revival going on at another. Churches seem more like a booming business in his area. You can not pass a block and not see or hear one it seems. That is always an option and an interesting topic to discuss as well.

My spouse was a world traveler. We met and married here in the US. When he returned to Lagos it was nothing as he remembered. He suffered sever culture shock because he was forced to stay against his will.
He is a proud Nigerian that educated all he came in contact with about the goodness and progress of Nigeria since its independence. However, it is a different story now. He had only been living in Lagos City area for more than 1 month at a time with family over 15 yrs. So his comforts were always minimally compromised. Now it has been over a yr and he is near stir crazy. It is too frustrating to go out and he is suffering from cabin fever. Can you imagine? And it is not like you can just up and travel to another place "alone" with any true sense of security.

Here in the US we ejoyed libraries, all sorts of places of entertainment, parks and places for recreation, all levels of opportunities in education to fill voids of time like short courses at Tech colleges for next to nothing in cost, online courses, fulltime courses, trade schools etc....

He has cable, internet access, web cam but an unpredictable source of electricity has damaged 2 PC's and one TV. The option of running his generator all the time is very expensive but in order to take an online course that is what he would have to do. Taking a class at a local college that is not accredited in the eyes of the US may be a waste of money and cause unnecessary frustrations. It is already frustrating just trying to look for options for classes to take. (He is interested in technical courses and computer certifications)

We are really running out of options for ways to fill the days, months, who knows how long. I am reaching out for more suggestions that may help us out.

Thanks again