A dream come true
The story of how we imigrated to USA.
Hi, my name is Cristina, I am a wife, stay-at-home mom, and entrepreneur, and, we live on a beautiful 6-acre farm in California.
But, this wasn’t always like this. Let me start at the beginning.
I was born in Straseni, Moldova in 1991 to Galina and Ion Iurco, 2 strong and religious people.
Being the firstborn of 4, I was forced to grow up quickly and help out with chores and my siblings.
We were poor and lived in a 2 bedroom house. Our home was small and chaotic, always with fights and yelling. My parents did not get along greatly.
One of our biggest dreams was to come to America. However, it looked as if our dream would never become true.
blog 1
our childhood home
My parents and I
Therefore, my mom left to go to work in Italy when I was 10, which, helped me to grow up even more. All of the sudden I was the one going grocery shopping and braiding my own hair.
That time was greatly confusing for me, my aunt was living with us for several years and my dad was there too, but, even with my dad and my aunt there, I felt completely alone and sad that my mom left of course.
My mom would come to visit us every year for about one month.
My aunt, my sister’s mom moved to the USA with her husband and family. As soon as she could, she started the paperwork for us to be able to come as well.
The paperwork was long and ardous, and, after 2 years of waiting, we went to an interview in Chisinau, the verdict was Denied.
We were all devastated, my mom had to go back to Italy and we went back to our lives as if nothing happened.
My aunt applied for a review again and upon our second interview, we received the good news: Approved to move to the USA permanently.
We were so exstatic, but, also, saddened because we would leave behind everything we have worked on so far. My parents built a new beautiful home, but, the dream to come to the USA still prevailed.
After many months of waiting, packing and planning, we were ready. We left in the middle of the night, nobody got any sleep that night.
We left everything behind, the beautiful house, yard, friends, community for a dream and an unknown world.
But, we were so excited and happy, to finally move to USA, the land of the milk and honey.
It was our first time flying by plane, it was fun, exciting and scary at the same time.
I was naseous for most of the flights.
We landed in Sacramento, California on August 21st, 2006.
It was a special and beautiful evening, I remember vividly the beautiful concrete roads and flashing car lights in the night sky.
We drove to my aunts 2 bedroom apartment. All 11 of us lived in a small 2 bedroom apartment for 2 weeks until we received funds from Wellfare and found a duplex down the street from my aunt’s house.
Moving to United Stated was a crazy experience for us all, we did not speak almost any English.
The culture shock was real. We were all scared, but, there was no room to focus on being afraid, we had to start school right away, and my parents had to learn English and to find work as soon as possible.
The next few weeks were filled with many appointments to the healthcare department for vaccinations and exams, wellsfare office, and school to fill out all of the necesary documents to become integrated in our new lives.
It has been 18 years since we moved to this beautiful and amazing country that we all love and appreciate.
United States has been my home, California specifically. We are so grateful to God for giving us this amazing and wonderful opportunity to live here in the beautiful land of great opportunities.
Even though, we had to start from absolutelty zero, we had no land, home or family for a long time.
Today, I can see God’s plan all along, with it’s triumphs and valeys. We were meant to come to the United States and I am so happy to live here.
Thank You God for Everything.
