Alas, it was not to be.  What did happen was fairly encouraging, though.

 

You may remember that the mean lady at the Consulate in Seattle told me that it would be a minimum of 6 months to process my Application for Rehabilitation.  The nice lady at Douglas Crossing said that she was willing to take the form and it would take “at most one week”.  YEE HAW!!  That was incredibly encouraging.  Whatever else she had to say could not dampen my spirits.  My six month wait had just been erased.

 

She was concerned about my lack of “ties to the U.S.” which essentially means that I don’t have any pressing reason to come back to the U.S. after my work on Alycia’s house is completed.  No permanent residence and no pressing employment and no immediate family responsibilities (children, spouse, etc.).  Plus, and this was a first, she said that I would need to get a Work Permit.

 

That’s right.  I’ll need a Work Permit to come in to Canada and work for free.  Governments.  Oy!  Essentially it is just to prove that I won’t be taking work from some poor, out-of-work Canadian carpenter.  I imagine that since it is volunteer work that it would be hard to find someone else there to do it.  The officer said that it takes about 6 weeks to process that application, but I have looked into it already (as I hope to find work up there eventually) and carpentry is an “occupation under pressure”.  Because of that they have expedited processes in order to get work permits to the international workers faster.

 

So I would have to say that things went very well at Peace Arch.  They could have gone better, but they could have gone considerably worse, too.  Thank you so much to everyone for the constant support and the emails and the phone calls and especially the prayers.  Everything is looking up.