BR_Joshua

hello how is everyone doing - hope things are going good for all of yall. Things have been good for Angela and I we jus got our recipt for our AOS and AP but no luck on the EAD yet. gogo NOA3's

well i jus wanted to check in and say hello and wish everyone the best of luck.

Thanks for the congrats!

BR_Joshua, I know you must be SUPER excited! We probably won't see you around for a while, but let us know that your love gets through the POE okay!

Haha true dat - Angela finally made it in on the 11th of july, she was scheduled for the 9th, but being that neither of us has done this before. well lets jus say that there was a issue with the seminar. Luckly she was able to take it later that day after being denied boarding. jus under two bills later and a couple hours in seminar and alot of panic she was booked for saturdays flight in july. it's august now, our wedding date is set for september 5th and things are moving along fine now. well other than trying to plan and pull off a wedding in short notice and low budget but im not complaning. Angela is here - were happy and things are falling into place. just yesterday her social security card arrived and as far as the wedding goes, the list of things to do is getting pretty short.

Im glad when i log'd on that i see everyones case moving forward and i wish the best for each and everyone of us. Good luck to you all and best of fortune of happyness find each an everyone one.

Grats Nat & cereza!!

WOOOOOHOOOOO!!! My baby is about to board the plane in a few hours to come home, im so nervious and anxious, i wished i was there! im going to be a total nervious wreck till she lands tomorrow. Im so excited wow i can't wait!

Thank yall, apperciate everyone whose been here for Angela and I. Its nice finally havin the weight lifted off our shoulders and our destiny in our own hands. I am so excited i can't wait till shes here. One thing i have noticed is that the flights one way arn't the same available round trip. At the medical exam they asked her what POE we were planning on useing - we said Dallas - now it looks like either Houston or New Orleans will be better choices. Does it matter which we pick? Is it set in stone now that she answered Dallas in the medical exam.

WOOOOOOOOHOOOOOOOO!!!!!

APPROVED!!!11!OMG!!!ONEELVENTY!!!!11

Thats the only details i have of yet, i spoke with her for about 10 mins earlier tonight, i jus got off work and she is taking a nap right now. Poor thing only got a hour before the interview, when i called to make sure she woke up for it - it didn't even sound like she had made it to sleep

But FINALLY, the hard part is over with!!

Joshua, I wish you the best of luck. I had the same fears. I literally made like $400 over the poverty line for a family of 6, which we are. I was terrified. Also, last year I made just under it & when you look at my taxes, I had so much other stuff taken out that reduced my taxable income that it looked scary as hell. I didn't think we were going to make it.

You know what? They didn't even look at my proof! I couldn't believe it lol.

I hope you get the same kind of luck

Thank you, i hope so too, tomorrow is the BIG day, i don't know anything else we can do. Every document is completed, all information is correct and filled in. Angela and I have been over everything mutiple times. Only thing left is interview, still have a serious case of the butter flies though, we both do.

Grats NatPatBen on the touch!! wooohoooo!! soon its going to be NOA2 city for you

me im still nervious as a long tailed cat in a room full of rockin chairs... I have crossed all the :T's" and dot'd all the "I's" on every form we have had to use. But still nothing unsettles my stomach more than having mine and Angela's fate determined by someone else.

June 25th is the date i can't wait for it to be over with and have a Approval, i dare not think about the alternative... my heart will be broken (

125% of poverty level for she and i is $17,500 i jus make 20k at the moment and im worried that they will deny us for some lame #### reason, scratch that im terrified...

i wished i could see in the future and know, i need sleep, i need less stress, most of all i need my baby here!

BR_Joshua, that's great! How long did she have to wait from the first time it was scheduled until the second time?

she jus went back the next day, at st lukes its not a appointment style clinic rather it is a pure clinic in the sense, first come first serve. Had everything not gone wrong starting the night before the first day i think she could have made it in a day... photo's were lost and had to be retaken on the day of the medical, had to print a letter from the embassy so she would be admitted, and manila's famous traffic. she did it all on two hours sleep. yes it did take a while to wake her up both days.

I jus hope the days keep going fast - we are so ready to be done with all this and be toghter

yaaaay! I passed the medical exam will now get ready for interview, the judgement day

congradulations!! Angela passed her's too this week, she had to go back twice - horrible traffic the first day and didn't arrive till late. there was no problems and now shes all ready for the interview comming up - im so excited

i pray for everyone who still hasn't gotten there app's approved. i can only imagine the frustration, but be positive, there is going to be a day when this is all behind us. we can all say then, thank friggen god that is over with!!

Wooooohooooo!!!

June 25th Interview date!!! its all down hill now. Im a total nervious wreck, mixed emotions of anticipation, worry, excitement, worry, happiness, worry, exhilaration, worry and sheer awe. did i mentioned im worried that its all out of my hands now and into manil embassy and Angela's hands

Bump

Joshua

My work is Life and Health Insurance, so I can easily answer your question regarding Cash Value of a Life policy. Only Whole or Universal Life Policies have Cash Value. Term Life, which most people buy today has no cash value. If a person dies the Death Benefit is the Face Value of the Life Policy; in other words, the amount of Life Insurance you purchased when you got the policy. Cash Value is only a factor if a person turns in a Life policy before their death, since the Cash Value can never exceed the death benefit. If you have a Whole or Universal Life policy, your cash value begins to accumulate usually after the fifth year or so. It will then increase with each premium payment you make until you reach age 100. At age 100 almost all Life Policies mature, and at that point the Cash Value equals the Death Benefit.

Hope that helped.

Carl Ehrlich

Indeed it is.

side note: here is my situation: i lost my job back in febuary and with mine and angela's approval looming i took a job at wal-mart. the pay is what you would expect not being a manager, annually $20,385. i looked up on the USCIS web site the minimum poverty level for two people = $17,500 if i am not mistaken. Just to be sure am i looking at this correctly and indeed cover the magic 125% income requirement?

my case like everyone elses is unique, my employer doesn't give out employment verification letters with salary information. who ever is intrested has to use "the work number" seems like a pain in the #### and a cop-out for HR not doing their job. Suffice to say i asked someone at the embassy in manila for advice on how to approach this situation. their response was to include pay stubs and explain the situation. I guess what i am trying to say is i am a nervious wreck with things not happing how its laid out and not understanding this whole process completely. not to mention, riding on this is mine and angela's happiness for the rest of our lives.

so am i right is $20,385 enough money and if faced with the same situation as i about the employment verification letter could anyone be so kind to crituque my letter i wrote explaining why the salary and annual income was left off the employment verification.

Below is letter i wrote to go along with the I-134 packet:

I-134 Supplemental Information

Dear Sir / Madam,

The following information is being submitted for reasons to make clear information left off on the employment verification for part of the I-134 Affidavit of Support form. Due to employer policy they cannot write letters of employment verification which include salary information. Enclosed in this letter are the last 3 pay stubs I have received. Make note pay period 04/25/2009 to 05/08/2009 exhibits only 57.6 hours due to a short work week because I just acquired employment with Wal-Mart Inc on 04/28/2009 and the first few days of employment were not full days. The latter two pay stubs marked in order which they were received exhibit typical pay. I am paid every two weeks on Wednesday/ Thursday morning.

My Pay rate currently is $9.80 an hour, I am full time and work 40 hours a week plus overtime. However Wal-Mart can only guarantee 40 hours per week. Minimum annual salary is $20,384.00 calculated for an average 40 hour work week using the following formula 9.8*40*52 = 20,384. Where 9.8 is hourly wage, 40 the number of hours worked, 52 weeks in a year. The rate of pay may be verified using attached pay stubs. Pay rates are noted under the description column and types include; Regular Earning ($9.80), Overtime Earn ($14.77), Sunday Premium ($1.00). Sunday Premium is a dollar added to Regular Earnings for hours worked on Sunday.

Going by the minimum poverty tables posted on the USCIS website for two people in the household, in this case Angela and me. Based on the table located on the USCIS.gov website “How Do I File an Affidavit for Support for a Relative” my income is indeed above the 125% of the minimum poverty level for a two person household. Humbly this yearly rate of pay is not as much as originally posted due to the loss of my professional occupation, Geologist. I currently am seeking professional employment; no doubt word of the difficulty of the endeavor has reached around the world during this recession. Suffice to say, I submit the bare minimum at present and proclaim that Angela and I will not ever be a burden to the State or Federal Government.

I hope that this enclosed information answers any questions in my ability to provide for myself and my dearest Fiancée Angela De Los Puyos Era. I love her with all my heart and I want to live the rest of my life with her as my wife. I hope this information and the rest of our application suffices to fill the role of needs for her to join me here in America, specifically Baton Rouge Louisiana.

wow thanks for the fast responses, appericate yall - i was stuck on those - thankfully i have all the info that yall listed. and much thanks on the new form update.

I am filling out the I-134 form and pretty much have everything filled in except for a couple things and i need some help with those;

the first is related to number 7 on the form where it asks " i have life insurance in the sum of: with a cash surrender value of" my question is what is the cash surrender value? is that the payout if i die?

my second question is related to the oath or affirmation of sponsor.

i get the part where it says signature of sponsor, subscribed and sworn to (affirmed) before me this 20th day of may, 2009 at __?????____. My commission expires on _______ Signature of Officer administering Oath______________________ title <---- this part of the form - who is suppose to give me this oath - or what happens here? because i was under the impression that the I-134 did not need to be notarized for a K-1 visa. I am lost and frustrated and in definitely in need of some help here.

Thank you in advance for yalls responses.

Thank you Xaenyth, i was really worried!

@BonoBGood the manila embassy has a pay call center, for questions or scheduling interviews you have to use the call center - it cost 18$ us or equivalent in philippine pesos. I guess they did this because of the volume at that particular embassy. kinda rediculious, thankfully though for my direct calls i have international on my phone so its not as expensive as it could be. but i will check out skype - sounds like i may need to use it soon, however the 18$ is for a 1 800 number and i still have two charges left on it.

thank yall for yalls help - was totally freaking last night!

ohh okay if yall think so, jus freaking on it is all, i was led to belive the same. guess time will tell.

I am having the same problem as Fourjudge

attached is a photo - stateing that it is to be sent directly to the consulate, here is my hard copy NOA2 for what its worth, what course of action should we take? i spoke with the manila embassy - they have no record and swears that it will go to the NVC, NVC swears it will go to the consulate, i haven't involved the people from USCIS yet, but i can only imagine how that conversation will go...

My job uses that a work line thing for verification. I didn't give them a chance to say no. I wrote a letter to the HR people and told them exactly what I needed, word for word. I told them a phone number wasn't going to be good enough as it was for immigration purposes and I sent it off fully expecting to be told no haha. To my surprise, I got a letter with exactly what I asked for - even the extra copy. Prior to sending it I had whined to my direct supervisor about that problem and she was willing to write something up for me if the HR department fell through. Worst case, I was going to write and sign my own letter and have it notarized and hope for the best. Good luck.

I don't have any insight on your issue with the petition, but I swear I saw a post earlier in the K1 forum that someone was having the same issue. You might want to search there. It was just today or yesterday.

WOW this is different, so I got the hard copy of the NOA2 yesterday, and the case has been forwarded directly to the Manila Embassy. Skipping the National visa center, has this happened to anyone else?? I called the embassy and they do not have record of the petition, I called the national visa center and they said because it states that it is going to the embassy they will not get a record of the petition. How will I track it? It doesn’t appear to be following the time line for the K-1 visa…

Also has anyone ever had to deal with an employer who does not fill out letters of employment and instead uses the theworknumber.com for verification of employment? I ask this because my current employer is in this boat. This adds another non linear expectation to this process. I spoke with the embassy (yay 18$ phone call) and the lady mentioned that I may write a letter and submit it with my I-134 and explain the situation. All my current employer will state is that I am an employee with them; I can give pay stubs which they can deduce my income from that potentially.

I am sweating bullets now, am I in a world of hurt, should I be panicking? Anyone have any insight?

Its appreciated

Thank you

Joshua

Cool im going to check it out - i just got off the phone with Lorane at the manila embassy and she swears up and down it will go to the NVC. she even referred me to come to this site to read up on how the visa process works

well we ended the conversation with a alternative to the letter from employer and agreed to touch face again next thursday or friday. im going to call the uscis tomorrow and see if they can tell me where my i-129f has gone to, and the NVC. but all things said it is still early for nvc to have recieved it. so maybe by mid next week someone might know whats going on.

WOW this is different, so I got the hard copy of the NOA2 yesterday, and the case has been forwarded directly to the Manila Embassy. Skipping the National visa center, has this happened to anyone else?? I called the embassy and they do not have record of the petition, I called the national visa center and they said because it states that it is going to the embassy they will not get a record of the petition. How will I track it? It doesn’t appear to be following the time line for the K-1 visa…

Also has anyone ever had to deal with an employer who does not fill out letters of employment and instead uses the theworknumber.com for verification of employment? I ask this because my current employer is in this boat. This adds another non linear expectation to this process. I spoke with the embassy (yay 18$ phone call) and the lady mentioned that I may write a letter and submit it with my I-134 and explain the situation. All my current employer will state is that I am an employee with them; I can give pay stubs which they can deduce my income from that potentially.

I am sweating bullets now, am I in a world of hurt, should I be panicking? Anyone have any insight?

Its appreciated

Thank you

Joshua

I got another question, since i lost my job the cash flow is getting tight - orginally i planned on going to the embassy interview with Angela. But now if i went its to the point were it would cut into the money i have set aside to get married and go on a honey moon. My question is it necessary that i attend the consulate interview. Im under the impression that it is not required but i want to make sure sooner as opposed to later were if indeed i need to be there i can make arrangements.

Good luck everyone, its a imperfect system as we all know. I hope everyone is approved soon, i know i am a january filer, but i been with you guys since the first few pages. im scaired of the choice for using DHL, i wished they used Fedex or at least ups but DHL is the low budget, unreliable carrier. cheaper but definitely not better than the other two.

Congratulations Joshua. I grew up around the corner from you, in New O.

I'm wishing I had a reason to call VSC to update something on my petition... maybe a phone number or address. Something so that they have to find it. Perhaps the box holding my paperwork was misplaced on the shelf or SOMETHING. What to do, what to do...

Well jus cause im in this god forsaken nightmare of a traffic snarl called baton rouge doesn't mean i didn't grow up in N.O., well sorta i grew up in metarie - least i wasn't kenna trash lols

as hard as it is to say - jus be patient... awh wth am i sayin i would blow there phone up

there going to get it done, jus give em time and thank you for the support, thank you all - its apperciated.

Just got a confirmation email that Bogota has received our Packet 3 response package. Next step: Interview appointment!!

congradulatons -- wooohooo -seems good news is going around today - go go VSC

yes it does, its feels good. i can't wait till i get to see my baby here at our house. wow!

thank yall for the support and CONGRADULATIONS!!

Im still in shock, that there were no RFE's i followed the directions on the i-129f, added in a couple extra things just to be safe. At the time i had not heard of VJ or its guides. Thankfully it worked out - WOOOOOHOOOOO!!!

wow im so excited, i cannot belive it has finally happend. the last few days i have been sweating it out on subjects like did i include everything that i needed to, did i cross all the t's and dot all the i's. i was looking forward to a rfe jus cause it would mean that they at least looked at it. i didn't think i would go straight to approved. wow im still shaking - i got the update from uscis site before i got the email - i jus hit refresh at the right time i guess. i can see the light at the end of the tunnel now, i already called angela and she knows, but shes stuck at work. something tells me shes going to make it home quicker than she ever has tonight

thank you guys for being there, i hope you all share in my excitement with yalls own approvals today as well, if need be in the next comming days. Its great, i hope soon everyone gets to expereince it.