Ahoj / Hello
This is the story of our relationship
We would then stay up talking to each other before heading to bed, and started to get to know each other. On March 16th we shared our first kiss. As each day passed we started to love each other a little more and soon realized that we would be spending the rest of our time in NZ by each other’s side. At least as much time as we would both have together in New Zealand. While still in Hastings, at the urging of our good friend Chris, Sille, Stáňa and I went on a 150 km canoe trip down the Whanganui river. Starting the journey on April 7th it took us 6 days of paddling to reach the destination. It turned out to be an unforgettable experience for all of us, one that pushed our limits and broadened our horizons through adventure and cultural exchange. Through sharing this experience together amongst the backdrop of all the natural beauty, our friendships were strengthened as well as the Love that Stáňa and I now shared. After this trip we had to bid our dear friend Sille farewell and Chris shortly after.
After leaving our lovely home and family in Hastings on May 6th, we enjoyed an awesome month touring around the North Island, discovering some new hidden treasures not mentioned in the tour books. As we traveled in the OFF season it felt like we had the whole island to ourselves. We had so many beautiful places completely to ourselves such as beaches with beautiful ocean sunsets and sunrises, coastal scenes such as Cathedral Cove, the largest hot pool in the southern hemisphere, remote black sand hot water beaches, Tepaki Stream and it’s massive sand dunes, and even Cape Reinga, not to mention many camp grounds where we seemed to be the only people there. Then the day came all too quickly which we both feared to even think of, the end of Stáňa’s stay in NZ at the end of May. A day that left us both realizing how hard it was going to be, to be apart for so long. When we separated we each took a part of the other with us and since that day we don’t feel complete unless we are at each others side.
After I arrived home to Nova Scotia in the middle of July from my lonely wanderings around the South Island of NZ, Stáňa came to visit for 3 weeks. I was incredibly happy to see her again, and was glad that I was able to introduce her to my family and friends who all thought she was terrific. We had an awesome time touring around the maritime provinces of Nova Scotia, New Brunswick and Prince Edward Island. But Alas we hard to part yet once more with a teary eyed airport departure! Yet it was made a bit easier this time knowing with out any doubt in our hearts that we would again be together.
Since I was lucky enough to get such a good job in Toronto, Stáňa has generously offered to move to Canada so that I can keep this job. Some more really great news as well. Since realizing how very much in love we are with each other we are now planning on getting married next summer! :>) Stáňa will hopefully be moving to Toronto in June. I am going to visit her and meet her family this January 13th – 21st. We are both very excited about this decision and can hardly wait to see each other again.
Since we had to start over we decided we would try to start over from with in Canada. We had all the plans figured out that if Stáňa came to visit we could get married in Canada and then we would apply for permission for her to stay in Canada while the new application was being processed. We set our wedding date for April 20th with Stáňa arriving in Canada the end of March. It WAS a good plan, but then the Canadian embassy in the Czech republic refused Stáňa a visitor visa to allow her to come to Canada. That news crushed us both…. 🙁 We could not imagine having to spend so long apart again waiting for a new application to be processed. I then contacted the MP for my area to see if there were any other options, but were told the best thing we could do was to reapply from scratch, and that there was nothing they could do to help.
So as quickly as I could gather up all the needed documentation, I sent in a new Immigration sponsorship application on January 23rd. In the mean time since we were so looking forward to getting married we decided to go ahead with our marriage plans, but in the Czech republic instead of here in Canada. So at the same time I was putting the new immigration application together I was also gathering all the needed paper work and visitor visa I needed in order to get married there. Luckily my visitor visa was not refused and now everything is in place for our marriage in less then two weeks now. 🙂 As for the immigration application of which the first one took us 7 months to get a refusal, this one took 35 days to get my sponsorship approved. I heard that good news on Feb. 28th. 🙂
So you ask….does that mean Stáňa can fly back with me? Nooooo 🙁 My half of the Sponsorship application is the easy part, we still have Stáňa’s to wait through. We will send it in as soon as possible after the marriage, so that we can send our marriage certificate in with it, in hopes that it might speed things up just a bit. It would still be a miracle if she would be allowed to come before next Christmas, but I’m certainly crossing all my fingers and toes. 🙂
So to leave things on a good note…. In less than 2 weeks on April 20th 2002 we will become husband & wife. 🙂 See our Announcement. I fly to the Czech republic on Friday April 12th and return on April 28th. Too short, but we will be sure to make the most of it!
Stáňa got to show me a little more of the Czech republic, and we did a fair bit of hiking with our longest hike being about 16 km in the Czech wilderness near the border of Poland. We had good weather and a great time, while trying not to think about the fact we had to leave each other again. But in the end we had to face our fifth airport departure, and are now back to talking to each other over the internet each weekend. Needless to say we deeply miss each other, and are getting tired of having to talk to each other over the internet, but we are certainly glad that we have that option available to us at least.
Stáňa has now sent in her part of the immigration application after first getting our marriage certificate translated to English, and after getting her new passport and ID card which reflect her name change. Now we wait again. 🙁 The only thing we know is that we each love one another very much, and greatly look forward to starting our future life together as husband and wife. Until that time comes we can only be patient and pray that it will not take very long.
This refers to your application for permanent residence in Canada.
We have now received both the sponsorship application submitted by your family member in Canada and your application for permanent residence.
The recent transfer of responsibilities from the Embassy in Belgrade had greatly increased the number of applications at this office. The time required to process family class applications at this office is currently six to eight months. Applications are processed in accordance with administrative processing priorities and the date of their receipt at this office. We are attempting to reduce this to the global service standard of six months for processing Family Class applications and require your assistance to do so.
We would ask you that you do not request a status report on your file until at least six months have elapsed from the date of this letter. This office will not respond to representations or inquieries about your case received during the next six months. Any information which you provide us such as documents or address changes will be put on your file but no acknowledgment will be sent. This will enable us to concentrate on working on our files and reducing processing times.Thank you for your patience and cooperation.
June 24, 2002
Dear Sir/Madam,
My name is Mark Stewart, a current resident and citizen by birth of Canada. I am writing this as an invitation letter in support of my wife’s request for a visitor visa, as she is not yet a permanent resident of Canada. My wife Stáňa is a Czech citizen currently residing in the Czech republic, whom I would of course be more than happy to support during her visit with me. We are awaiting the processing of her immigration application under the sponsored family class category. As stated in the letter she received from the Vienna immigration office dated, June 3rd, 2002 this process will take at least 6-8 months. We have included a copy of this letter with this application.
We are newly married as of April 20th but unfortunately, other than numerous visits during our vacation periods, have been separated from each other in our relationship for the past 2 years. With the marriage this year in the Czech republic, I have used up my vacation time, yet Stáňa has 5 weeks vacation remaining for this year and we would be grateful if she would be allowed to use it to visit me here in Canada.
We understand the reluctance to grant visitor visas to people trying to immigrate and we realize that Stáňa will have to return to the Czech republic to finish the immigration process. It is approximately one and a half years since Stáňa and I had decided to start our married live together here in Canada. We have been very successful in maintaining our long distance relationship and know that we can wait as many months as necessary to be finally united permanently, but it is very hard on us emotionally. We have also read about the new immigration law which stresses family reunification and makes it easier for married couples to apply with in Canada, but we have no interest in starting the whole process over from the beginning and are just asking for a few weeks to visit with each other. We are happy with the progress of our current immigration application realizing that it is the quickest way to Stáňa’s permanent landing in Canada and would never want to do anything to jeopardize or delay that process.
As well Stáňa has only visited my home province of N.S. and has never seen Toronto where we will be living and I have been living for the past year and a half.
We ask that you grant Stáňa a visitor visa as we understand the limitations of it and the fact that Stáňa will need to return back to the Czech republic to finish the immigration process.My sincere thanks for your consideration in this matter,
She sent in the visitor visa application on July 1st, and received the refusal on July 8th. But at least some one read my letter and felt bad for our situation. There was a hand written note on the refusal letter stating that they had called the immigration office in Vienna on our behalf and that Stáňa should expect to hear from the immigration office “Very soon.”
On July 15th Stáňa received a letter from Vienna with instructions on getting her medical exam done. She traveled to Prague on the 18th and had her medical done, with no problems being found. So now it is back in the hands of the immigration department. But we are thankful that this progress has been made since we did not expect to hear from them for several more months yet. From everything we have ever read, the medical exam normally comes near the end of the process, so we are hopeful that we may hear back in the next month or two. Though we try not to get our hopes up too high!!
After having waited over 7 months for the first application to be refused this second application took 4 months, and 0 days!
The wait is OVER! 🙂
On Friday the 13th of September 2002, Stáňa received her immigration visa. I will be flying to the Czech republic on Sept. 27th, and on Oct. 6th we will both be flying back to Canada together. We have our flight tickets bought and are now just counting down the days. We can’t wait… Other great news is that Zuzka, the bridesmaid for Stáňa is getting married the day before we leave for Canada, so we be able to go to her and Libor’s wedding as well.
Our life together has been going very well. The first week of Oct. 2002 we had a good visit together in the Czech republic with all the family and friends we have there before Stáňa and I flew back to Canada on the 6th Oct. On the 5th of Oct., we got to enjoy Zuzka & Libor’s beautiful wedding. The trip to Canada went well and other than Stáňa getting caught trying to take a pocket knife on board (unbeknownst to her), and me getting a glass of red wine dumped in my lap during a bit of inflight turbulence, it was an uneventful but long trip due to a lengthy layover in Amsterdam. Upon arriving in Canada Stáňa breezed through the immigration, through she felt it was a bit cruel of them to take her photo after getting of the plane having been traveling for nearly 24 hours.
As a first matter of business we started looking for a new home. After a short search we had found an apartment which we both liked immediately, upon seeing it. It is now our new home, which we very much enjoy sharing and building together. It was a bit of an uncertain time as the company I work for was purchased the 1st of Nov., and I was unsure about my job security. This has not been an issue, and Stáňa started the process of getting registered to work here in Ontario as a nurse. She has now enrolled in three refresher nursing courses at Mohawk College in Hamilton, with the courses being held at the MacMaster University campus. She has heard back from the Ontario College of Nursing concerning what course material she is lacking in and needs to make up, which turned out to be very little. However Stáňa would like to complete other refresher courses as well to prepare for the nursing registration exam she needs to take in English. She will be traveling the 80km to Hamilton twice a week starting Jan. 14th to take these courses, and expects to likely be taking courses for between 6 months to a year.
I did not have too much time off over the holidays but we certainly enjoyed our time together. We actually spent our first Christmas together away from our home as we house / cat sat for my cousin here in Toronto, while he was visiting Nova Scotia for the holidays. We had a great time together and tried our best to blend in both Czech and Canadian traditions to our Christmas holiday.