Turns out, they were just telling him he qualified for pre-arrival services.
But after the more than nine months of radio silence since they had acknowledged receipt of his medical exam, it was a bright beacon of hope to hear anything at all, let alone something branded as "pre-arrival". I quickly began looking for information in online forums and saw a lot of people saying that they received the passport request within about 10 days of receiving this email. Now, I was ecstatic.
Sure enough, on April 26, Steve got a message saying that his application was in the final stage. Just one little catch: along with his passport and a half dozen other documents (which had mostly already been provided), Steve would need to obtain a police clearance for the Democratic Republic of Congo, as he had lived there as a missionary for two years. Oh, and he had just 30 days to do it.
For reference, even in Canada it routinely takes four to six weeks to get a police check done if you cannot visit the office in person.
Immediately, Steve visited the DRC embassy in Cameroon, where you would expect to find some kind of help or direction. But DRC doesn't always play well with others. So, we sent an email to Dakar asking them about any alternative options as we desperately tried to think of other ideas, knowing that Steve's medical would expire in June. See, when the visa is issued, it has the same expiry date as the medical, so PR applicants have to travel to Canada before their medical expires. It is possible to redo, but we weren't super keen on coughing up close to $400 to do it again.
Knowing that Dakar's response wouldn't be quick, we decided to bite the bullet and send Steve to DRC to get the document himself (and thank goodness, because when Dakar's response came it was literally no help at all). This meant a travel visa, a flight, hotel accommodations, meals out and the unexpectedly costly piece of getting the actual document in short order. Plus, there's a fee you have to pay when you leave the country that we didn't know about. This was particularly problematic as Steve had run out of money and the Western Union wasn't open yet. So, Steve was basically kept hostage in the airport until we could coax a man into lending him cash by promising to send a money transfer with double the amount. Thank goodness he still made his flight! All said and done, it amounted to a lot of stress and nearly $2,500 in unexpected expenses.
Upon Steve's arrival back in Cameroon, we then had to shell out another $450 to courier the documents back and forth to the embassy in Senegal (the regional processing office). Finally, we were down to the end. The light at the end of the tunnel was becoming brilliant dawn!
On May 31 — one year to the day after I was approved as a sponsor — I awoke, more than a little annoyed, to the sound of my kitten, who decided 4:30 a.m. was the ideal time to play. Since I couldn't get back to sleep, I was bumming around on my phone and found myself navigating to the immigration tool to check on Steve's application status for oh, say the bajillionth time.
To my great surprise, the seemingly indeterminable "in progress" now read "decision made" but there was no further information. Heart pounding, I flipped to my gmail and hit refresh again and again, but there were no emails. I called Steve, out of breath and unable to believe that it might actually mean what I wanted it so badly to mean. He hadn't received any emails either. Soaring happiness mingled with crushing anxiety.
But 20 minutes later, Steve called back and right away, I could hear the grin he was wearing. I listened as he read the opening line of the email. Finally, finally, finally! He had been approved!
But if you think that was the end of that... well, you're probably new here.
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