As I am writing this post, I’m still very excited and with so much joy and gratitude to our LORD with the approval of our Permanent Resident Visa this afternoon. This is an unexpected blessings and is very timely due to some disappointment with  my final job interview yesterday with a French company. I’ve been into two final interviews with two different company in just a month but it seems something much better beyond my understanding is being prepared for me and my family.

The LORD have spoken to me last night through my wife. True enough, HE provides a much better surprise with the approval of our Australian permanent resident applications. It’s been our family prayers that we should be able to get the right directions for our plans and that we may have made the right decisions. You might be on the same situations trying to discerned what really the LORD wants in your life and sometimes the LORD is using someone to guide you along the process. When I am still starting with my PTE Academic preparations, a community sister told me that when you passed the English test, it means that the LORD is allowing you to proceed with the applications. True enough our prayers to just give me the enough points to qualify for the EOI applications were granted.  It’s an exciting journey and the results have given me and my family some hopes and directions where we will spent our life as a family together.  It reminds me again among my favorite verses in the Bible written by St. Paul in Romans 8:28 which narrates that God causes all things to work together for good to those who love Him and to those who are called according to His purpose. 

Just after coming back from lunch today, I noticed an email from Australian Immigration which mentioned that my Expression of Interest (EOI) has been removed mentioning the possible reasons which includes that visa have been granted, refused, withdrawn, cancelled, etc. I really felt nervous and immediately check on my immigration account and were surprise to see the Visa Grant Letter. The letter mentioned about the details of the Visa Status, approval date, entry date, etc. Below is some excerpts about the letter.  I have immediately informed my wife about the good results and she was literally happy and we both Thank and Glorify the Lord upon learning that our visa were already approved today.

      Notification of grant of a Skilled – Independent (subclass 189) visa

The process is quite smooth when I have started to review for my PTE Academic English test in February. Overall, since we stop pursuing this after the failed first attempt on my English Exams last July 2015, I never considered applying again not until the month of February this year when I cannot see any progress with my company’s plan for the relocation to Abu Dhabi. After passing the PTE Academic examinations in March, I immediately lodge the Expression of Interest (EOI) and we are invited to apply for the visa after 11 days . Thereafter, I have lodge the visa applications 4 days after receiving the Invitation To Apply (ITA) without the complete documents. The documents which I have not included consist of the Singapore Police Clearance , NBI Clearance and the Medicals for the four of us. Additional documents which I have added on my applications includes the Form 80 for me and my family, Travel History documents for me and my family, IRAS Tax assessments, Recent Bonus Letter, Promotion Letter and some other relevant documents. I will try to write another post with regards to this documents in the future.

Due to my excitement when the Invitation to Apply (ITA) Letter were released at exactly 12 midnight on March 23,  I have started working on the online form included in the letter and completed filling up every details at 2am. My wife happily shared this news with her sisters back in Philippines and I heard her shouting “we can go now to Australia”.  Well, with my excitement as well, I have completed filling out the online forms on the same day but have waited for several days before I officially submitted.  I have reviewed atleast 3 or 4 times the online forms to ensure that I did not miss out anything or filled wrongly. Actually once we received the invitations to apply for the visa, applicants are given 90 days to comply with all the requirements. Initially, I was hesitant to apply immediately as my wife have asked me to study carefully the applications process. She is concerned about her health as well as she needs some time to be ready for the medical examinations. True enough there were some issues related to her abrupt changes on blood pressures which leads her for another test but it was also been cleared thereafter.

On March 27, I have finally decided to submit and pay for the visa fee but did not upload any documents yet. In the evening, I have uploaded all my existing documents which have been Certified by the Singapore Notary Public Attorney. The rest of the documents were processed after applying for the visa that includes the NBI Clearance, Singapore Police Clearance, Medical. I have also visited IRAS to get the latest Tax Assessment and it was also been uploaded.

As this is the day that the LORD have made to finalized the process of the visa applications. When I have started this journey, I have doubts whether we will be able to make on this applications and  what will be our future in Australia.  Everything is a timing and I do believe that the LORD have plan this to happens. The LORD is faithful enough in answering all  our doubts. The assurance of former colleagues and community members who are already residing in Australia is a manifestations of God’s grace for this applications. The support of my wife for this plans have brought strength and motivations especially the time when I get frustrated because of unforeseen issues on the requirements gathering and several failed attempts on the English test Mock exams and even my first English test. It’s quite normal to get disappointed at some point and learned from it. After we have submitted all the requirements, we just let the LORD work on it. There was one instance that on teh medical declarations form, I forgot to declare one medical conditions and this make me worry after my medical test. I even tempted to call the Doctor to tell him about this but on that very moment my prayers were to allow the LORD to work on it. And to my surprise, this medical conditions was not even showed up on the medical results. My realizations during that moment is that even when you’re on the edge of almost completing the process of the applications, there might be some doubt still but learning to let go of this doubt and let the LORD work on will bring surprises and miracles.

You might be on the same journey just what we been through but trust that something good has been prepared for you. It’s just a matter on how you will ACT on it and how ready you are to handle it. I knew it’s only the start of a new journey but eventually with the grace of the LORD and our faith,  everything will be done according to HIS purposed.  I Praise the LORD for the wonderful blessings for me and my family this month! All Glories back to HIM!