Little face time, is it a big issue even if we have known each other for a long time?

[KF & OS 109]

Hi everyone, I have a few questions here.

 

I am the beneficiary and met my fiance in my home country (where I live) in 2012 and became friends. She went back to the USA and we kept in touch thru the years as friends but we never met again until last year in November when we got engaged after dating for a whole year starting in November 2015. ( we have a genuine rtnship with a lot of evidence of daily communication, we have no red flags like age difference or criminal record, we are both college educated and currently employed, we share the same faith, and we front loaded the petition)

 

1. My question is whether meeting only once when we got engaged and after like three years of our first meeting when we were just friends be a problem at the consulate in Nairobi? How tough is the Consulate in Nairobi?  

 

2. Our case has been at the Consulate for the last three weeks with not appointment date since we are unable to generate an MRV fee payment slip due to the fact that the website is telling us there are no available appointments and when we call the embassy they are telling us to wait until there are available dates so as to be able to pay. But we have read that many people have always been able to pay and book three or four months ahead. Is there anyone in the same situation as we are or who has any idea whats going on?

 

Thank u

 

 

Edited April 19, 2017 by KF & OS

[KF & OS 109]

16 minutes ago, KF & OS said:

Hi everyone, I have a few questions here.

 

I am the beneficiary and met my fiance in my home country (where I live) in 2012 and became friends. She went back to the USA and we kept in touch thru the years as friends but we never met again until last year in November when we got engaged after dating for a whole year starting in November 2015. ( we have a genuine rtnship with a lot of evidence of daily communication, we have no red flags like age difference or criminal record, we are both college educated and currently employed, we share the same faith, and we front loaded the petition)

 

1. My question is whether meeting only once when we got engaged and after like three years of our first meeting when we were just friends be a problem at the consulate in Nairobi? How tough is the Consulate in Nairobi?  

 

2. Our case has been at the Consulate for the last three weeks with not appointment date since we are unable to generate an MRV fee payment slip due to the fact that the website is telling us there are no available appointments and when we call the embassy they are telling us to wait until there are available dates so as to be able to pay. But we have read that many people have always been able to pay and book three or four months ahead. Is there anyone in the same situation as we are or who has any idea whats going on?

 

Thank u

 

 

Please Read this better version of my post. I cant delete or edit the first one.

 

 

Hi everyone, I have a few questions here.

 

Background: I am the beneficiary and met my fiance in my home country (where I live) in 2012 at church where I was serving and became friends. She went back to the USA and we kept in touch thru the years as friends and we have facebook messages to prove that and a photo we took together at our first meeting. We started dating in Nov 2015. In Nov 2016 she flew to Uganda and we got engaged ( we got engaged infront of my family)  and she met my family and friends. In Dec 2016 she filed the petition, approved March 2017 and at the embassy. ( we have a genuine rtnship with a lot of evidence of daily communication, we have no red flags like age difference or criminal record, we are both college educated and currently employed, we share the same faith, and we front loaded the petition)

 

1. My question is whether meeting only once when we got engaged and after like three years of our first meeting when we were just friends be a problem at the consulate in Nairobi? How tough is the Consulate in Nairobi?  

 

2. Our case has been at the Consulate for the last three weeks with not appointment date since we are unable to generate an MRV fee payment slip due to the fact that the website is telling us there are no available appointments and when we call the embassy they are telling us to wait until there are available dates so as to be able to pay. But we have read that many people have always been able to pay and book three or four months ahead. Is there anyone in the same situation as we are or who has any idea whats going on?

 

Thank u

[Penguin_ie 5,986]

1.  The knowing eachother for a long time won;t be a bad thing- if anything, it will help.  However, the meeting only twice, only once after you got engaged, can be a problem as you are going through a very difficult embassy.  Any chance she can fly to be with you for the interview?  That would definitely help.

[KF & OS 109]

4 minutes ago, Penguin_ie said:

1.  The knowing eachother for a long time won;t be a bad thing- if anything, it will help.  However, the meeting only twice, only once after you got engaged, can be a problem as you are going through a very difficult embassy.  Any chance she can fly to be with you for the interview?  That would definitely help.

sigh, thank u for the reply. I have read that this embassy doesnt allow the fiance to attend the interview. We have talked about her flying here to go with me to the interview coz we know we have had little physical time together. 

[Penguin_ie 5,986]

Even if she cannot attend the interview, having more photos that are recent (ideally with family too) will be good proof, and you can bring her passport with you to show she is waiting outside.

[KF & OS 109]

5 minutes ago, Penguin_ie said:

Even if she cannot attend the interview, having more photos that are recent (ideally with family too) will be good proof, and you can bring her passport with you to show she is waiting outside.

Okay. Thanks a lot. Thats wat we gonna do. This is the only flag we have in our case and it has made me so worried. Though truthfully the reason for the limited face time is because we both have jobs that cant allow us get this time. on top of that, B1 visas are so hard to get here in Uganda, its almost impossible. sigh. I pray they can look at other evidence we have and the fact that this relationship took time to develop

Edited April 19, 2017 by KF & OS

[JGUnion 10]

lack of facetime won't necessarily hurt you. Skype you could screenshot length of discussion times, but IMO and Viber are hard to pull up evidence. If you are texting a lot, such as WhatsApp, you can email yourself theentire chatlog and printout samples...or whatever means you have been speaking. If you have been only talking via phone, then maybe at least access a call record.

In short, the consulate prefers to see the natural development of a genuine relationship of when you claim it started taking that path.

[Lelah22 8]

My fiance and I have the same situation basically (same faith, close in age, etc). We met in 2013, and got engaged in 2016. He had his interview at the beginning of the month, but the embassy requested more financial documentation. We're collecting that and he's taking it to the embassy tomorrow. Just make sure you have a lot of proof (facebook, skype chats, pictures, copies of her entry stamps in her passport). It's true that she can't attend the interview with you, but of course, her visiting again is always a plus.  

[KF & OS 109]

wow, thank u guys for ur replies, I do appreciate them so much and I feel so much better and encouraged. When it comes to skype, whatsapp calls and texts we have so much proof that show the natural development of the relationship and we made sure it was all loaded in the petition. with facebook we have all our conversations from way back in 2012 until whatsapp came around. So on that front we are fully and totally covered. we included all this information in the petition even before we knew what front loading meant, Thanks be to God. Lelah22 praying for u and wishing u all the best

[Ben&Zian 4,397]

Will comment that a lot of African embassies don't like 1 time meetings especially when the first meeting was to get engaged. All can do is go in prepared as can be and go through the process.

 

 

[KF & OS 109]

5 minutes ago, Ben&Zian said:

Will comment that a lot of African embassies don't like 1 time meetings especially when the first meeting was to get engaged. All can do is go in prepared as can be and go through the process.

 

 

I have also noticed that, but technically this was our second meeting. our first meeting was as friends who remained in touch thru the years until the end of 2015 when we started dating, so by the time we met again at the end of 2016 it was to simply seal our love with an engagement ring and move on to the next level

[Ben&Zian 4,397]

1 minute ago, KF & OS said:

I have also noticed that, but technically this was our second meeting. our first meeting was as friends who remained in touch thru the years until the end of 2015 when we started dating, so by the time we met again at the end of 2016 it was to simply seal our love with an engagement ring and move on to the next level

 

While that is true, there was just a married couple who got denied after 2-3 years of marriage and about 5-6 trips over that time span for a cR-1.

 

Regardless just have to go as prepared for this as you can.

[KF & OS 109]

Just now, Ben&Zian said:

 

While that is true, there was just a married couple who got denied after 2-3 years of marriage and about 5-6 trips over that time span for a cR-1.

 

Regardless just have to go as prepared for this as you can.

woooo, thats so painful! maybe they had other red flags coz thats just outright cold. There had to be a better reason besides simply little face time. Sigh. They make it hard for us to get B1 visas and then turn around and use that against us!! smh. Anyway, i am really hopefully that the other evidence will stand and that we will get a nice CO who will approve our visa. Thank u Ben&Zian for ur input

[KF & OS 109]

4 hours ago, Lelah22 said:

My fiance and I have the same situation basically (same faith, close in age, etc). We met in 2013, and got engaged in 2016. He had his interview at the beginning of the month, but the embassy requested more financial documentation. We're collecting that and he's taking it to the embassy tomorrow. Just make sure you have a lot of proof (facebook, skype chats, pictures, copies of her entry stamps in her passport). It's true that she can't attend the interview with you, but of course, her visiting again is always a plus.  

Lelah22, how many times did u come and visit him?

[Lelah22 8]

I only visited twice. The first time for 3 months, which is when we met, and the second time for only about 2 weeks. Not as much as we should have, but I'm also heading back next week.