Where do I start this story?
I think back to 2014 when Steeve first applied for his U.S. visa. “Everyone” told us he wouldn’t get it … for so many reasons. But, he applied. We prayed. We believed. And as Steeve said when he called me that morning in March, 2014 after this appointment, “We have victory.”
Steeve made his first trip to the United States on August 4, 2014. Since then, he’s traveled here a number of times. In fact, he’s traveled so often that when I recently asked him how many times he’s entered the U.S. he said, “I have no idea.”
The U.S. visa renewal in 2019 was easy, straightforward. But then everything changed in Haiti, and beginning in 2022, we started to wonder if it would even be possible for him to get his visa renewed again. The “usual way” of renewing wasn’t an option anymore.
His U.S. visa would expire in January 2025, so we began thinking ahead.
That’s one of the reasons we took that trip to Israel last year. We wanted to use Steeve’s U.S. visa while he still had it. In fact, we made a number of travel plans with “if you can’t leave Haiti again, at least we have . . .”
Then in October of 2023, I was in Washington, DC, with my daughter-in-law, Hannah, and her mom. One of the things we did was tour the Capitol through the office of Senator Thom Tillis. Sitting in Senator Tillis’ office, I overheard a staffer say something on a call that led me to ask, “Could I explain a situation to you and see if this is something the senator’s office could help us with?” And the response was yes. So I shared Steeve’s situation and how Haiti Awake, a NC-based 501(c)(3), benefits from his ability to travel to the United States.
After that, one e-mail led to another and then a call with the Deputy Director of Constituent Services in December. Steeve was visiting when she called, so we were both able to be on the call and hear her advice which came down to this: Find a US Embassy willing to see you in a country other than Haiti.
As it turns out, that’s easier said than done. There are a limited number of appointments worldwide, as well as a limited number of places Steeve might be able to travel with a Haitian passport. In the end, we had settled on either Kingston, Jamaica or Tel Aviv, Israel.
However, with the Port-au-Prince airport closed for nearly three months, we went from having sufficient time to work on getting the visa renewed to practically no time to do it because the current visa expires on January 7, 2025, and one of the stipulations to renewing a US visa in a country not your own is that the applicant must be seen at an Embassy more than 6 months before that expiration date. When Steeve arrived in the US on June 3, we realized we were racing against the clock because July 7 was the deadline.
Initially, we were unable to secure an appointment in Kingston, but Senator Tillis’ office helped us with that. On June 4, we scheduled an appointment at the US Embassy in Kingston, Jamaica for June 27, at 10:30 am, the earliest date that was available.
However, Jamaica required Steeve to have a Jamaican visa to enter, and we were running out of time to secure that, as well.
In fact, my husband, Rick, hired G3 Visas Global Services to take Steeve’s application for a visa to the Jamaican Embassy in Washington, DC, because we could not secure an appointment on our own for the visa to Jamaica in the needed timeframe. (All of this visa talk is confusing, isn’t it? We were trying to get Steeve’s US visa renewed, but he also needed a visa from the Jamaican government to enter Jamaica.)
After a great deal of back and forth, including multiple phone calls to PICA in Jamaica, Steeve’s visa to Jamaica was secured on June 21.
On June 25 Steeve and I left for Kingston, and the rest of the story is fairly uneventful.
We arrived as scheduled, spent June 26 exploring Jamaica, and though his appointment was scheduled for 10:30 on June 27, Steeve went to the Embassy early, about 8 a.m., expecting to wait in the long line that had already formed outside. However, roughly an hour later he was back at the apartment where we were staying with news of “success!”
We were happy to spend the rest of the day exploring on a rainy day in Kingston and having a celebratory meal.
Though we were told it might take a week or longer to have the actual visa in hand, at his appointment he was given a pickup date of July 1.
However, yesterday, June 28, Steeve received an email stating his US visa was ready for pickup.
This process is finished until the expiration date five years from now. We are so thankful for all of the people who helped along the way and all of you who were praying.
Special thanks to Lauren and Brian at G3Visas for their attention and patience in helping us secure the visa for Jamaica. It was a stressful process with a tight timeline, but they were with us every step of the way.
Special thanks to Miss James in the visa office in Kingston who helped us navigate last-minute specifics required by the Jamaican government.
Special thanks to my husband, Rick, who helped Steeve fill out the DS-160 to apply for the US visa renewal and took care of most of the details surrounding the trip to Jamaica (and listened to me stress-out about this for most of the month of June).
Special thanks to Ms. Osborne in Senator Tillis’ office who cheered us on and was one of our first calls after Steeve received a “yes” at the Embassy in Jamaica.
Special thanks to all of you who reached out day-by-day for updates, reminding us that you were praying and cheering us on.
And as you have heard us say so many times through the years for reasons too numerous to count, “Glwa pou Bondye.”
Now all glory to God, who is able, through his mighty power at work within us, to accomplish infinitely more than we might ask or think. Ephesians 3:20
