What a whirlwind week we had leading up to our wedding, not knowing if Michel would make it in time or if he would continue to test positive for Covid and be unable to board a plane. Exactly one week before the wedding, he received a negative test and arrived in America only FIVE days before the wedding! Yikes...then started the craziest week trying to get our marriage license, shopping for the groom's shoes, the bride's wedding ring, finalizing all the plans, and just grasping the reality that after 21 months of dating, we were finally together FOREVER. A few details got lost in the shuffle and caused some good laughs, but our wedding was PERFECT! I (Elizabeth) felt so peaceful and happy as I walked down the grand staircase to meet Michel at the bottom. All my favorite people in one room to celebrate the most beautiful day of our lives...it was almost too much to take in! Thank you to everyone who helped to start off our marriage with such love and excitement! Check out our photos page for some wedding pictures!

Quick update: The day before Michel boarded his plane, he was tested positive with Covid-19. He will soon finish his 10 isolation and is hoping to fly in the week of the wedding. We ask for prayers that this goes smoothly, and feel hopeful that we can keep our wedding date as planned. Thank you to all who have walked with us on this crazy journey!

After 21 months, we are finally going to meet on American soil. Every step of our journey has been both amazing and challenging. To finally hold the visa in our hands and see the stamp of approval for Michel to come to my country has been both overwhelming and beyond satisfying. I'm so grateful for every bit of our journey. I wouldn't have it any other way, because every part has given us the chance to grow together and closer to our beloved Jesus. We asked Him to lead us and guide our lives, and now we will finally be together...FOREVER. We are less than three weeks away from our wedding, and feeling all the pressures of this beautiful day, but have such joy and peace knowing that our wait is over. Michel's flight arrives on Friday, February 5th. Only seconds until the wait is OVER.

Our visa made it to the NVC on November 9th. Two weeks later, they mailed it to our embassy in Abu Dhabi. On December 8th it arrived and we have now scheduled the interview date for January 6th. This means that Michel will be able to come to the U.S. mid to late January! Wedding day HERE WE COME!!!

After 222 days, we have received our first approval on our visa!!! The Homeland Security visa office receives all fiancé visa applications, and they have approved ours! Now our visa is on its way to the State Department National Visa Center where they will assign it a tracking number and send it to our American Embassy in Abu Dhabi, United Arab Emirates. Once the embassy receives it they will schedule an interview with Michel. As soon as we have that interview date, we will be able to schedule our wedding! We hope to hear from the embassy in the next month or two. Your prayers are appreciated!

It was May 20th, 2019. I, Elizabeth, had been online dating for barely 2 months. On May 3rd, I had noticed that I had a like on my profile from a guy named Michel Hawash. I really liked his pictures and what he said about himself, but because he was located in Dubai, I only returned the “like” on his profile. Now more than two weeks later I realized that he had been liking and commenting on all my pictures, and he had texted me that morning on the app saying, “Please text me back!” with a crying face emoji. I debated on if I should even respond, seeing as he was from Dubai, but felt a peace to answer. We started texting and we haven’t stopped! The first thing that attracted me to him was how spiritual his profile was. I was looking for someone who valued the same things as me, and my relationship with Jesus was very important for me. I didn’t want to get married to just anyone. I was looking for someone who would value his relationship with Jesus even more than he would value me. Within the first day of us texting, he asked to pray together, and that was my second clue that this could be the one for me. On May 28th, I agreed to date him. After 7 months of video chatting almost daily, and countless hours of texting, we met in person in Dubai on Dec. 28th, 2019. Our meeting was the happiest day of my life. It felt like I had found HOME. We spent two weeks together and have no doubt that Jesus brought us together. When, I returned from Dubai, we started the process to apply for the fiancé visa. We planned to meet in Egypt to spend a month with his family there. On July 22nd, we flew into Cairo and spent a month with his family some in his mother's home in Mahala, some in a beach house on the Mediterranean Sea, and some in Michel's apartment in Alexandria. We took our official engagement pictures, celebrated our engagement with his family on a yacht, and enjoyed the gift of just being together. We are so grateful to Jesus for the miracle of our relationship!