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Sunday, March 27, 2011

Bringing Mr Khan Home Emergency Fundraiser

Why are we hosting an Emergency Fundraiser for Bringing Mr Khan Home: http://www.gofundme.com/HelpBringMrKhanHome

Here are details. We are trying to raise money to help FLY him home in the coming weeks, and avoid losing my house.  Both conditions are emergency and due to unexpected changes in the immigration process.  We are not looking for charity, we are looking to identify resources to help us bring him home, and then we intend to either pay back, or donate to charity, but certainly to bless the lives of others that helped us when we needed it..

Mr Rasel Khan is my husband.  He was my best friend for 5 years, but fell critically ill in 2009, and was in a coma for 2 months, that doctors said he would never survive.  Rasel has an extreme sensitivity to cell phone and computer emissions, and he worked in Service Management (similar to my job at Sun Microsystems), a job done primarily on computer and telephone.  




March 14, 2011.  Our Immigration Interview at Dhaka Originally


The news of our immigration setback was so devastating we cancelled all celebration of our anniversary where we planned a romantic evening at the hotel we were celebrating in at marriage to try to plan how we would live, and to prepare for a bit longer YET apart.. Cell phone stopped working due to excess overage trying to call US Government to identify workarounds  and change air travel. Rent was late and NOW dependent upon refund and upgrade charges required to rework travel for me.  
March 8, 2011I arrive in Dhaka Bangladesh the day before my birthday March 9.. It would be the first time my husband and I saw each other in a year and it was so sweet to see him again.  March 14 we planned on going to the immigration interview, and then checking into the hotel we celebrated our marriage in one year prior.. We arrived at 7 a.m. for our interview we waited until 1 in the afternoon for our interview.. It was approved, but NOT as Congresswoman Suttons office expected.  They said Rasel would be able to travel in 24 hours , we learned that afternoon that we would still have to wait 2 weeks to 2 months more for him to come home.. I had scheduled our flight together for 2 days later to give us time.. We are raising funds now, because the unexpected demands, and airline policy to be 2-3 billing cycles before they refund travel.. suddenly many things were scheduled for disaster.. I could not transfer his travel, so I had to eat the half the ticket and wait for a refund for months,  gone were 2 months of rent.. coming soon eviction from my home if I couldnt raise the funds, PLUS the challenge of buying a new ticket again!  

Processing Immigration would cost thousands of dollars, a years personal labor,  working almost full time sending and resending documents and trying to understand when the interview would be scheduled.. In the end it was scheduled for exactly ONE YEAR after our anniversary..  Because of his illness, for that past year we survived a difficult time, and him with much pain , talking only 3 minutes a day, with an occasional skype conference when the pain got too much.. I was having immigration night terrors, and he tried to come online when I was hurting too much. I had filed for medical/humanitarian exemption first with the embassy, and US CIS, it was denied on the basis of not understanding enough about his illness, it wasnt as straight forward as cancer. My CIS case was done, then it was off to the National Visa Center.. Congresswoman Sutton's office advised this was fairly fast, but after a few weeks discovered it wasnt and then I filed for expedite with congress, same result as before, only this time I am not to note that the decision is final, if he is suffering but we dont understand it, and nothing new is happening, you dont get a new hearing.

March 2010.   Cleveland > Chicago>Japan>Thailand> Singapore > Dhaka.. Days I spent sleeping on airport benches to get to Bangledesh to meet Rasel, I arrived on the night of my birthday, March 9, 2010. We celebrated my birthday the next day.. we visited with family, married on March 14, 2010 the day I was to fly home.. I missed my flight, and we got to spend one extra night together!!


February 17, 2010. "OK I have permission, when are you coming?" said Rasel. Oh goodness I did not expect this.. Rasel I still dont have the money and my house probably wont sell until the summer.. "Oh I love you so much... Please come as soon as possible, summer seems too long. can you come by March?" he asks.. I still dont have the money, but THAT DAY preparing my taxes, the way was given me... I was going through file folders and found I had 110,000 UNUSED frequent flier miles from United. I checked United and yes I can use them, but only for the flights that they say are available, and Dhaka flights were HIGHLY limited! We checked flight options for February, March, April, May, June, July, August, September of the coming months.. ONLY ONE FLIGHT WAS AVAILABLE, ariving on the night of my birthday!.
February 15, 2010. Rasel contacted me for the first time in months. "Honey your status in Facebook says your single. I hate it! Lets fix that! Would you marry me? " Rasel there are some fundamental problems with that, first you dont have permission to marry.. I dont have money to return there until my house sells.. you get permission and then we will talk about it!


November 2009.  My first trip to Bangladesh intended to meet him for his birthday to tell him that whether he lived or died, I loved him!  He was my best friend at the time.. We talked daily over our friendship of 5 years until early 2009 when he fell sick.. He came out of a coma in October 2009, I did not have much money, I had been laid off my job, and was living alone, in the midst of a massive divorce, but I traveled to Bangladesh quickly coordinating with his brother,  because we did not know if he would live or die, but regardless, I needed to tell him he was so important in my life and whether he lived or died, he was loved..  I spent 10 days in Bangladesh hoping to deliver this message, it was the ONLY reason I went, and yet, he had fallen ill again hospitalized in his village 4 hours from me... as it was the trial of the century Bangladesh Mutiny Trials of the century, (and there were terror alerts and in fact, snipers on the roof of the building right even with my hotel room) when I was there, it was very unsafe for me to travel to him, so I did not get to see him.  He was allowed to talk on the phone only 3 minutes a day every week or so, and in December I was able to talk to him 2 times, but I cried through most of the call, hating to miss any conversation but unable to control the emotion. 


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