Kawika & Michelle

Male

Katy

Texas

K-1 Visa

Texas Service Center

Houston TX

Philippines

My fiancé & I been together since June of 2020. We met online in a Facebook group and have been together ever since. I was divorced in 2019 (separated since August of 2018). I spent the end of 2018 & a good part of 2019 going through the healing process. I searched for my new partner first through singles groups at my local churches before moving on to the online dating world. After spending a bit of time on there, I soon realized that the type of woman that I was interested in wasn't likely to be found in my country. As luck would have it, I stumbled upon a Filipina on OKCupid. We talked for a bit but I never got the feeling that she was genuinely interested in me so that relationship never went anywhere. The good thing that came out of it was that it opened my eyes to the Philippines as an option for my future bride. I spent a good part of the beginning of 2020 watching YouTube videos to learn about the women there & all of the bloggers that were just starting out back then. Since a large majority of the people I met online via the dating sites ended up being fake accounts, I decided to see if Facebook held any better luck.

As I noted, I met my fiancé in June of 2020. We started chatting there & eventually had a video call by the end of the week. This was the first video call I had with a potential date and it amounted to just a lot of smiling as we both didn't really know what to say to one another...but we were both at least relieved that we had found a real person and the actual person who we thought we were talking to online. We continued talking to one another every day despite my decision to keep my options open and continue to consider other Filipinas that I had reached out to. I did let her know what I was doing as I didn't want to hide anything from her. Luckily for me, she stayed committed to me & at some point during my search I finally came to realize that everything I always wanted was already sitting right in front of me and I didn't need to keep looking to see if there was anyone better out there.

When our journey first began we thought about bringing her here on a US Tourist VISA (which we later found out is nearly impossible given our situation) followed by me going to meet her in the Philippines (which COVID prevented from happening) to finally us trying to find a country where the both of us could finally meet in person. After some research we settled on Costa Rica & then began the long and drawn out process of acquiring all of the paperwork & authorizations to allow the both of us to meet there. As many from the Philippines know, your country is notorious for their immigration officers offloading a lot of citizens who are trying to leave the country…especially when they are meeting their foreign partners for the first time. After jumping through a lot of hoops & providing tons of documentation for her CFO counselor, we finally got her blessing for us to meet. After getting all of our documentation together, we planned to meet in July of 2021 in Costa Rica. As luck would have it, when it was time for my fiancé to take the COVID test she ended up testing positive for the virus. She was immediately sent into quarantine & our travel plans ended up having to be canceled. As a divorced dad with primary custody of three school aged children, my window for travel was restricted to just times when my kids would be visiting with their mom. It just didn’t seem like we would have the chance to meet after all. To make things worse, as part of the suggestions we were given to increase her chances to be able to leave the country on her own to meet me in Costa Rica, I sent her $2000 (100,000 pesos) to have in her account as proof for her to be able to support herself & return home in case our meeting went badly. She had withdrawn this money & brought it with her on the trip so that she could give it back to me when we finally met in Costa Rica. While she was in quarantine and went to take a shower, one of the guards apparently went into her room & stole all of the money & some of her other belongings.

Despite the issues we encountered, we were still determined to try to meet one another. So I got as much of the previous trip refunded as I could and rebooked another trip for us in August of 2021. The stars continued to align for us as she was able to make it past the immigration officers despite their interrogations. Due to the rebooking, I had to get creative when it comes to getting her from the Philippines to Costa Rica. This included a lengthy lay over (20+ hours if I remember correctly) in the Netherlands. For some reason, this threw up a flag with the authorities in either Qatar or the Netherlands as she was questioned for a little while about her travel itinerary. Luckily they allowed her to continue her journey & we eventually finally were able to meet one another on August 6th, 2021. By the end of the trip we were engaged & have continued our journey since then.

Once the country finally opened its borders, I've been blessed enough to have visited my fiancé in the Philippines on 4 additional trips over the past two years. This includes our last trip in March of 2023 which included my three children who came along so that they could meet my fiancé & her family.

It hasn’t been a journey without its share of challenges or ups & downs but we have both remained committed to one another through it all and are now a few weeks away from her interview at the Manila embassy (May 4th). If everything falls into place, we hope to have her travel to the US (Texas) the following Friday (May 12th)…if not…shortly thereafter. We are making plans for our wedding in Hawai’i so that my parents & the rest of my family can take part in it…