SNL skit or my real life? Sketch 3: Letters from the French, more Tragedy from the Greeks

We've been through the wringer, as they say, in our adventure to obtain legal documentation to enter France, going to every length not to compromise our decision to only represent our marriage with a church certificate.  Ultimately, our story below and in the previous two "sketches" I wrote can be summed up as trying to put a square peg in a round hole, as far as the church certificate versus state license is concerned.  Nico has written an article explaining our inspiration for not obtaining the state marriage licence, such a common, normal document.

This blog post picks up from our separate experiences with the Greeks and the French, intertwining our experiences with each, chronologically.

The Greeks

Nico had a meeting in mid-June with the Greeks, shortly after the discouraging one I had joined him on, to turn in the final paperwork for his passport.  He brought up the topic of our our marriage certificate again, and they looked up the word "Mennonite" in Greek.  To their surprise there is a word for it, "Mennonitis", but they'd never heard of it.  Mr. Gatos said he would do some research to see if the government could accept a Mennonite marriage certificate and would let Nico know.

Because... who wouldn't want to go
to Greece for two months?
Image found in online search.

Nico called a week later to find out what the timeline would be for Mr. Gatos to give us more information, and was told that Mr. Gatos was on vacation in Greece... for the next two months... and no one had taken over his position while he was gone.  The receptionist gave Nico the first available appointment with Mr. Gatos, on September 6th (don't forget, this phone call was made at the end of June).

The French

We left the French embassy, and the most stressful appointment of our lives, the morning of July 12th, 2017.  The official embassy website claims that visa processing "takes around 2 weeks for US citizens", so we felt hopeful to get our visas in the mail soon-ish.  We had planned to go to Richmond for my cousin's wedding the following weekend, and then join my family on a trip out-of-town, so I had written Nico's parents' address on the pre-paid envelope that would return our paperwork.  My mother-in-law, Ana Maria, promised to call us as soon as anything came in the mail.

One week and two days later, on a Friday afternoon toward the end of July, Ana Maria called... our special-flat-rate-priority-mail-express-envelope had arrived at her house!  She opened it up to find our passports and a single sheet of paper.  She read the letter aloud in French, which she happens to speak.  As she read the first sentence, she trailed off... we had been denied!  A box was checked denoting why (translated from French): "You have not provided proof that you have sufficient resources to cover your expenses of any kind during your stay in France."

Right, we only had proof of full health insurance coverage, our own bank statements, a letter of full support from the l'Arche community, and as a formality, Nico's parents wrote us a letter of sponsorship to cover any unforeseen needs, with their proof of income attached.  How many financial resources is one required to have to live in France?  The website doesn't say, and when I wanted to ask for guidance before our appointment, I was blocked on all sides.

We were unable to move forward immediately because all our paperwork was in DC and we were still out-of-town with my family.  A week later, when we arrived back at Nico's childhood home in Northern Virginia, we immediately gathered the paperwork for an appeal.  Another family member gladly jumped in to help us as an additional sponsor and we mailed all the new info to the office in Nantes, France, which is called, "the Commission of Appeals against Decisions to Refuse Visas to enter France", but you know, CRRV for short.  We found the cheapest price of the speediest mailing options, a delivery method which promised to complete in 2 days, by August 3rd.  The timeline for a decision to be made on an appeal is two months if they grant it to you with an "express reply".  But if they deny your appeal, which they call an "implied decision", they don't ever bother to let you know.  So, we started waiting.

The Greeks

At some point in the whole mix, Germán (pronounced haer-MAN), Nico's step-father, shared with us that back in the day in South America, marriage was strictly a religious institution.  When the government wanted to start keeping track of marriages for legal purposes, the people just saw it as a legal "copy", if you will, of their own real, actual marriage certificates.  They continued to marry in the church, and if they needed it at some point, they would get a government record of their marriage.  This perspective was intriguing to me, and I thought I could come around to viewing our own situation as similar.  However, it was still important to me that our legal record would have the same date as our marriage certificate, not a new current date.

Nico felt like he was also willing to make the concession if the state would recognize the legitimacy of our church marriage.  He kept imagining a scenario where a Congolese couple entered the country as refugees.  When they get to the border and are asked if they're married, they say, "Yes!" and hand over any written proof (their marriage certificate in the front page of a bible or handwritten or whatever).  The American officials take it and translate it into their own legal language.  Nico felt that if the government could do that for us, he would be ok to move forward, though the whole thing was certainly a compromise we had to discern in community.

Nico did some research on the phone with the Vital Records office of Virginia, in Richmond.  A helpful man told him that it would be "no problem" to back date a marriage licence, especially in Harrisonburg and Rockingham County with all the Old Order Mennonites nearby.  We had to turn in any documents proving our case to the Harrisonburg city courthouse by the 3rd Wednesday of the month (August 16th) and they hold hearings for legal changes and updates a week later, on the 4th Wednesday (August 23rd).

If we obtained a state marriage licence, the Greeks could draw up their version of it, and it would be smooth sailing for us to get to France.  (And we still had hope for literal smooth sailing if we could catch a boat across the Atlantic in early September!)

The French

Two weeks and five days after we mailed away our visa appeal, we were back in Harrisonburg for our marriage license court appointment.  A letter arrived at our Downstream Project house.  It was an official-looking letter in French.  It could only be one thing: an appeal response!  The letter had arrived on August 22nd, but I didn't find it until the morning of August 23rd, no joke, the actual day of our court appearance for our marriage licence.  This was "hilarious" because if the French accepted our visa appeal, the marriage licence wouldn't be necessary.  Before we left for our hearing, I quickly typed the text of the letter into Google's translator and found the following message, written most politely:

I have the honor to acknowledge receipt of the appeal received on 03/08/2017 and to inform you that it has been registered under the number indicated above with reference. 

I would be grateful if you could send me a copy of your signed appeal before 04/09/2017.

And after a few more logistical notes, they ended with a flourish:

Please accept, Madam, the expression of my highest consideration.

Shoof, I wish the angry man at the French embassy would switch to writing letters from his little window, rather than bludgeoning applicants with spoken words.  Despite the letter having been saturated in high esteem and ultimate respect, I was confused about the text.  Were they really asking for me to send them a copy of something they were so proud to have just received?  Certainly they have copy machines in France.  Come on, throw me a bone!  Make a copy!  Or perhaps, they could lay out the visa appeal process somewhere on the website so I would know to send multiple copies.  Throughout the whole French visa application process, I found myself constantly saying, "If they would just tell me what to do, I would do it," and this was no exception.

The Greeks

The big day had arrived, August 23rd, and Nico and I dropped off our kids with the Farrells and found ourselves walking up the courthouse steps and finding our names on the digital screen next to the appropriate courtroom.  We sat on the hard wooden pews in the courtroom and waited through a list of cases that needed to be put on a schedule for later, then we were first on the list for the hearings.

We approached the bench and Nico respectfully explained our case.  The judge looked down at us from his tall, walled-in seat and sarcastically drug us through the mud, "So, are you saying you just got your friend to marry you in a backyard somewhere?  And you want me to do something about it?"

Here we are getting married by a friend
in a backyard on September 3rd of 2011.

And the truth is, we could certainly frame the situation as he suggested, though never with such animosity.  Ron Copeland, the ordained pastor that married us, is our friend, and the Muddy Bikes Garden listed as our wedding location was Tom and Margot's backyard.  But this was such a startling response to have from someone who had read the information that we turned in at the court, which consisted of a very formal letter from us and another from Ron, both notarized, and a copy of Ron's ordination certificate and of our marriage certificate.  Nico had crafted our letter, heartfelt and succinct, describing why we didn't have a marriage licence, why we were wanting one now, and why we were requesting the original date of six years ago.  It appeared that the judge had made up his mind that he wouldn't help us before we arrived and we had no chance.

The judge had been congenial in all conversations previous to ours, I know because I was watching to see what kind of mood he was in.  He kept repeating to us how he "couldn't rewrite history" as it wasn't his job, and after more verbal criticisms in a disdainful tone, we were dismissed.

But he wasn't asked to rewrite history.  We were married on September 3rd, 2011.  We were pretty shocked at this response since the manager on the phone at Vital Records in Richmond had thought this would be a simple process, and that we wouldn't be the first case they'd seen of this kind.

The French

Back at Nico's parents' house immediately after our court appointment at the end of August, I shared the text of the appeal response letter we had received in Harrisonburg with my mother-in-law, and emailed it to my French friend Emilie and to Elisabeth (pronounced without the "h" at the end) at l'Arche.  They all basically agreed that though it's perplexing, I should just send the CRRV another copy of the same thing I'd already sent.  Elisabeth offered some ideas as to why they had such a baffling request (translated from French):

assumption 1: the service that received the appeal did not forward it to the other service that requests confirmation signed receipt ... assumption 2 they lost the document ... assumption 3 they have the document but want to check the validity by asking you for the copy signed, and at the same time check your motivation

Ah, bureaucracy!  I decided to sneak around on the internet to see if I could find contact information for the CRRV.  After a bit of probing about, I found an email address and a phone number!  I emailed them a short simple message (Ana Maria helped me translate it to French, of course!), asking what exactly they needed and if we were expected to mail them our passports, which we felt pretty uneasy about.  Spoiler warning: They never answered my email.  Then Ana Maria, Nicolas, and I discussed the best time to call the office in France.  We decided to hit them at 10am French time, which calculated to a painful 4am our time.

The next morning, our alarms went off and we gathered, bleary-eyed, in the computer room where we laid out several documents for reference, and pulled up several more on the computer.  We dialed the number and the ring tone began, all of us now feeling fully awake as we waited for a response.  Well, the phone rang, and rang, and rang, andrangandrangandrang.  We let it ring for 10 minutes.  No live human or recorded voice ever answered.  Nico tried again a few more times, at half-hour intervals.  All we ever got was incessant ringing.

So, I did what I could.  I put together several documents, with an extra copy of everything, and mailed it away on August 25, set to arrive no later than the 28th.  To keep our options open, Nico suggested that I make new visa appointments for all three of us, me and the two boys, at the French embassy in case we needed them, since there is no cost to book or cancel appointments.  When I browsed the appointment calendar at the end of August, they had availability on Friday, September 22nd, so I grabbed up three spots, happily planning to cancel them later.

The Greeks

We were feeling pretty discouraged by the beginning of September, almost to the point of cancelling the Greek embassy appointment on the 6th, because, what could they really do for us at this point since we didn't have the state marriage licence?  I decided to put some stock in the appointment and dress the whole family up real nice.  I felt like there was so much red tape in the rules and regulations, but ultimately these organizations were made up of regular, thinking, feeling people.  And we were regular, thinking, feeling people, too.  Certainly when they saw us they would think we were such a nice family they would just accept our marriage certificate, right?  :)  Though it may be naive reasoning, it was at least fun to have the four of us together on an adventure on the metro into town.

We made our way to the tiny waiting room which was more crowded than the previous time I was there.  After waiting six or eight minutes, Mr. Gatos popped his head out from behind the locked door to call us in.  When he saw we had brought sweet, cute children along, he got a concerned look on his face and said, "Oh no, I think you better stay out here," and he only let Nico in.  So much for appealing to the human within the system!

The good news of the appointment was that, while on vacation in Greece, Mr. Gatos had gone to the appropriate Greek government office in person to ask if they could accept a "Mennonitis" marriage certificate!  Yay, we were so thankful!  The bad news of the appointment was that they would not accept it.  However, Mr. Gatos had an idea for Nico.  "All we would have to do" is get married in a Greek Orthodox church.  But what that translates to is: first we'd need to gather several pretty specific and unconventional documents in the US... and then we'd need to go all the way to Greece... and then Nico would need to get "chrismated" (aka, confirmed) in the Greek Orthodox church... and then they would marry us... and then the boys and I would officially be considered dependents of a Greek... and then we could go to France.  At the time, this was our best option, ha!  So we began to gather the documents.

The French

This photo progression shows how it feels to be stuck at the French visa section.*

By the Monday before our Friday visa appointment, there was no hope in sight for the visa appeal, and gathering the documents for the Greeks appeared like it would take too long, though we would at least die trying.  Each document had several time-consuming bureaucratic steps, so it seemed wise to attend our second French visa appointment on Friday, September 22nd.  I mournfully began gathering and perfecting the necessary documents again.  I was thankful I could re-use some documents from the first appointment by amending the date.

Besides going through the work for another appointment, I was super sad to pay the application fee again.  It felt insulting to have to pay those people twice.  However, on Tuesday of the week of our appointment, Nico was offered a drywall and remodeling job from one of his parents' neighbors, and when all was said and done, the job paid for our appointment and a little extra!  This was a gift from God.

A few notable things about the second appointment were, yes, the angry man was working in window number two again.  And, yes, I got called to his window again.  I think he was having a good day because he was not as mean as the first time, though still rather unpleasant.  He typed in my passport number and said he remembered me, and I wasn't sure if that was good or bad.  I started my appointment this time by firmly saying that I wanted to apply for myself and my two sons.  He then asked me for three documents which were neither asked of me in the first appointment, nor had their absence been the reason for the rejection of our original application.  The three documents all had something to do with the father releasing the children to travel, and of course we didn't have them prepared.  There is no information on the website about what to prepare to apply for a minor, whether they're travelling with two parents or one.  The angry man said we could prepare the documents and bring them back if we could get there by noon, reminding us of the same time crunch we were given at the first appointment.  I should point out how nice it is that they allow us to leave and return when we don't have the documents that they don't tell us we need.  How much worse would it be if they didn't have this... helpful flexibility...?  We charged over to Nico's aunt's office, and she saved the day by allowing us to use her computer and printer, and then we rushed back to the French embassy to turn it all in.

When we left the embassy the second time that day, I happened to look through all the leftover documents to see what was taken during our appointment.  Mostly I just had extra copies of everything, then I found a seemingly important form that supposedly needs a stamp from the embassy before entering France, where it is to be turned in at the immigration office nearest to l'Arche.  Ana Maria and I went back and forth over whether this was necessary since it wasn't asked for.  We didn't want to take any chances and we weren't far from the embassy, so we rushed back, again.

The angry man acted like including the forms with our application wasn't a big deal, but said he would add it to my file.  So, either he's right or the website is, but unfortunately they're opposites.  Why hadn't it been taken?  Could they have rejected us for not having it?

The two month cut off to get a response from our appeal ended on October 3rd, so we can assume or "imply" at this point, October 12th, that for some unknown reason, our appeal was not granted.  Additionally, as of this writing, we have not yet heard back from the September 22nd appointment, so we're just sittin' on the edge of our seats...!

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*So... we decided to wear these Old Order straw hats to the embassy.  Please, before you judge us for masquerading as Amish to gain favor by a foreign government, put yourselves in our shoes, as members of a religious minority making decisions that do not compute in a highly scrutinizing civil society.  We found it difficult to explain to government officials that we had a church marriage certificate rather than a state licence, when they didn't already have a box to put us in.  "Mennonite" means about as much to the average French person as "Pastafarianism", a comical parody religion from the 21st century.  This second visa appointment was our last chance to get to France, and after having been treated poorly by judges, ambassadors, secretaries, and telephone operators alike, we made this decision to try to give understanding to our cause.  Though we are Anabaptist, we are not Old Order and will likely never be, but we hoped that straw hats would at least give some frame of reference for our diplomat to see, even if it is a few big steps away from the Anabaptists we really are.  In retrospect, perhaps this was a bit of a stunt; God forgive us if our motives were false!

We didn't wear these hats while inside, but as Abuelita and the kids were waiting, they started playing with them to pass the time and took these wonderfully adorable photos.