Still Here

I lost touch of my blog for a while when I changed some sign-in settings. I was so worried that I'd lost it and so thankful that I was able to recover it.

Near the end of September, our dossier finally arrived back at our agency, after months of circulating through many different hands. Haiti was in the midst of making law changes, changes that are going to be good but they seemingly put our adoption in jeopardy and we were worried. Well I was worried...faith is not my spiritual gift! Haiti was going to stop accepting dossiers under the old laws at some point and implemented a deadline. The way our paperwork was going, we would not make that deadline. Then a miracle! They extended the deadline, they offered grace to the families scrambling and praying that a miracle would take place because that was the only alternative left. Kevin was invited to Haiti for work on a project HFAP was doing. The week he was traveling our dossier arrived at our home so that he could transport it to Haiti himself. After he landed in PAP, they drove to the lawyers office and he laid in on her desk. Relief.


And now, we wait. We still have about $5,000 to raise plus travel. We have done multiple fundraisers this fall. They've been such a gift and people have been so beautiful and generous!
We pray for provision for the rest....knowing that somehow it will come. We know that because we are working hard for it and we've seen too much of God's hand moving in our lives to doubt it.


This holiday season has been emotional for me. One, because a third of our family is in another country and two, because we had one of them in our arms last Christmas. There is no way to not feel that pain....if i didn't feel it I'd be worried.
Again, I see and feel how the inexplicable connection that adoption creates is only possible because, I believe, God writes the story.


These stories do not always have the endings we plan, our family knows that all too well. Honestly, finding the ability to praise Him despite that still proves difficult for me sometimes, even now.
But without Him, I always, always come to the end of myself and that is a very cold and empty place to be.


So we continue to wait and trust and look forward to the next year. We pray 2013 will be the year our boys come home and that next Christmas, there will be 6 of us around the Christmas tree:)
Merry Christmas from our family to yours!

Sponsorship need!

Every child at Hope House has multiple sponsors. It is how HFAP provides 24 hour care for each of the children, in a country where food/supplies can be outrageously expensive. Our boys have had sponsors, in addition to a monthly payment we send that is equal to a typical international adoption's In-Country expenses. They have us pay monthly instead of in one lump sum.

We just found out that 4 families who sponsored the boys needed to drop sponsorship, 2 sponsors for each of our boys. The cost goes to us. HFAP encourages adopting families in this situation to find sponsors through friends and family.

It is difficult to ask anymore of those who already support us so beautifully. However we do feel that we need to put it out there and make the need known.

So here is the need: we need 4 sponsors to pay $30 per month, $120 per month, total.

We have experienced God using people in our lives, and those we don't even know, to provide where we thought it impossible.

We are trusting in His provision and we are doing all we can to just get our boys home so we can provide for them in our own home.

Our dossier is very close to being done on the US side and actually getting to Haiti. We are praying over our dossier and timing! Right now that is all we can do. Could you please join us?

Anonymous

Last week my parents, brother and sister in law came to stay with us. It was the first time my brother and his wife have ever been to MI and it was an amazing week! One of the wonderful things we were able to do was to Skype with Caleb and Guerlens...my family was able to "meet" both of our boys and it was awesome! Caleb waved and smiled at seeing them and said Grandma and Grandpa..it was precious. Ging was his busy little self and gave us some great smiles and showed us his continuous love of eating:) Technology can be a magical thing!

We also received our immigration approval from the USCIS! Woohoo!

On Saturday afternoon, Kev opened the mail first and in it was a money order for $200! There was a short note that said "To bring your boys home!! Love In Jesus" Anonymous. I felt overwhelmed holding such a gift from someone we can never thank. And it's obvious that they don't want verbal thanks from us...so instead, as I'm sure they would hope, we gave thanks to our Father. In my hand was an extension of Him...this note was written by someone who is part of the body of Christ...and it felt like church, not "going" to church but someone was the church. And we are grateful.

Garage Sale and Tears

Our garage sale is next week! AAHHHH! We've gotten a lot of donations and have a lot of stuff for the sale. I'm starting to move everything over to our friends home where the sale is being held. Their house is at a much better location than ours and it's where we held our sale last year. It will be held next Thursday the 30th, Friday the 31st and Saturday the 1st. Today I was busily going through some of the kids clothes, focused on getting organized, when I came across this snowflake sleeper. I immediately burst into tears as I held it up to my face, remembering holding him while he was wearing it. I remembered the smell of his hair, the sight of him sucking his thumb and me kissing his cheek. I missed our boys so terribly in that moment...I miss them everyday, we all do. But this snuck up on me unexpectedly. In the grind of paperwork, applications, getting references, making appointments, redoing documents and getting so frustrated and saddened that this is not the adoption timeline we want, I sometimes miss the moments that allow me to remember what we've experienced already and to dream of what will be. I needed that moment.

Where we are....

We've been getting the "where are you in the process" question quite a bit, so I'd like to answer that here. Our dossier is done and is with our agency. We are still waiting on our Home Study though, this has taken much longer than it should have and is getting frustrating. The reason it has taken this long has been affected by both factors in our control and factors outside of our control. Our part is done and now we just have to wait for it, this is hard and only the beginning of our waiting. Once we have our HS done, then we can send it along to our agency to have it translated, we can apply for US permission for our boys to come to the states, this is called the I600A form, and then we can also apply for interest free loans and grants. Once our dossier is in Haiti I will be able to breath a little better. It will go into what's called IBESR. It's kind of like a Dept. of family and children's services...this has been closed for a while because they want to get the backlogged cases sorted through before they move forward. Our hope and prayer is that our dossier will be translated and sent down to Haiti before they reopen in early August, and will be in the pile and get processed through quickly. This is scary and time is not on our side but we are still trusting in God's perfect timing, no matter how outside our personal timeline that may be. We miss our boys terribly...a hole is felt in this house as long as they are still not here to fill it. Melat has told us that she will do any paperwork we need or help us get money so the boys can come home:) The next time we will be able to travel to Haiti will be for court that we will need to be present for. This won't be until early 2013, or later. We are thankful for pictures, videos and Skype until then. Oh and some great news is that Guerlens is walking! He started 11 days after we left Haiti..I was praying he would take those first steps when we were there but he saved them for later. We Skyped so we could see him walk and of course he had absolutely no interest in walking but wanted to be held instead...true to form.:)

Chip In at right..

If you come to this blog at all, you've probably noticed the Chip-In widget on the right side of the page. Several people have asked about where we are in the process but also how much $ we still need to raise. We thought the Chip-In meter would be the best way to gauge the cost remaining and for people to give if they choose to. It's very easy to use and will automatically track our progress. This figure of $8,000 is based on agency/International fees that are needed as soon as possible.

Son Son

When Jivenson's 2nd birthday came last year, we talked about doing something of remembrance for him, something that would last and would be shared between us. We decided to get tattoos, each of us sharing a "Son" and when put together would be our SonSon. It got put off...then the first anniversary of his death came and we planned to do it that night, but something came up with a friend and we were unable to go. One week later we finally were able to do it. It was a little painful but so short and when we were done it just felt right:) And since the pic seems unclear as to where we got them, they are on our right ankles:)

One Year

Today marks 1 year since Jivenson passed away...June 4th 2011. It seems impossible to believe that one year has actually passed and even more impossible to believe where we are now. We would never have dreamed this up...that after losing one little boy, we would be blessed with two. We've watched the video Kevin made in tribute to Jivenson and we've all cried, the girls included. It's amazing to me how acutely they still feel that loss, especially Wesli. They still refer to him as their little brother. We all still feel it. And right now it's coupled with that loss we're experiencing Post-Haiti. We're just letting ourselves wallow in it, letting ourselves fully feel it all, every emotion...then we'll move on. Move onto more paperwork, waiting and dreaming of our family of 6 finally coming together...one day.

Our boys and Haiti

Oh Haiti...how we love it there and how we loved being with both of our boys!Caleb was so overjoyed to have his brother with him and he liked calling us Momma Jessica and Papa Kevin...then it changed to Mommy and Daddy:) What a kid he is! So full of life, bouncing from one thing to the next, so easy to laugh and what a laugh it is! We were so excited that while we were there, the kids moved into the new orphanage! Moving from a container that was very small to a big building with open spaces and separate girls, boys and baby rooms was amazing to watch and the kids were thrilled! as were the nannies!:) The walls are brightly colored...the girls have pink walls with a princess theme and the boys have blue walls with a Cars theme. It's such a wonderful space and knowing that this is where our boys will be living was such a comfort when we had to leave. That was a hard day and it's been such an adjustment being home. Everyday life is different and we feel such a fervor to bring our boys home as soon as we can! We are praying for the timing to be perfect and that everything that is needed, financially and paperwork wise, will come through. We just love these boys so much! The first day we were there, we just sat in the play area outside with the kids. I was just watching Caleb playing and listening to his voice and I could just see him in our home, in our family and it felt like such a confirmation that these boys are ours! What a gift!

NA NA NA NA, NA NA NA NA, HEY HEY HEY GOODYE!

Sent out our dossier today and I will NOT miss seeing that pile of papers just staring me down every day! Thank God it is gone! Now we will hope and pray that everything is right and that nothing will need to be redone. We are still waiting on our finalized Home Study and our hope is that it will not take more than a couple weeks to have that in hand. I was almost giddy picking up that last letter we needed and taking that whole stack of our life on paper and mailing it out to our agency. My stomach was in knots with anxiety about it all but there is also a sense of relief that we are one step closer to our boys!

1 month until Haiti

In one month today we'll be in Haiti. We fly out May 18th with Mallery and Frentz and we'll finally be with both of our boys. This is incredibly bittersweet...because we know they will not be able to come home for a long time. It could be 12-18 months. Compiling our dossier has not gone as we planned and the timing is not what we expected. This has been the busiest season Kevin has ever experienced in his job, perhaps ever in a job. The travel volume has been much too high and has made it challenging to gather our documents in a timely manner. All frustrating...some of it within our control, some of it not. We are waiting on one final piece right now and our prayer is that that dossier, which has now become my nemesis, will be out of our hands and on to our agency before out trip. It will be translated and then head to Haiti. I cannot wait for that moment when we know it is there. There's a sense of security, however false it may be, in knowing our life on paper is in the hands of the people who will move our case along and get us closer to bringing our 2 precious boys home. The waiting now will be nothing compared to the waiting that is to come. I remember what that was like with Melat...knowing her name, her face, that she was ours but we still had to endure that waiting. I've been reading a book called Dangerous Wonder. It's about faith, childlike faith, and how as adults that pure faith and trust gets replaced by responsibility, business and the noise of this world. The author encourages us to embrace "play", to recapture it and begin to see the world through God's eyes. One thing the author ponders is the idea that God can be a playful God. We are made in His image after all. He talks about God hiding, then popping out unexpectantly in our lives....He hides even in the pain and suffering and shows up in ways we never imagined. It's not that He's not there, we just don't always see Him...not yet anyway. I now imagine God hiding in the "waiting", that time of difficulty we'll experience being separated from our 2 other children, and when the time is right we'll see Him, we'll be reminded how present He really is. Just love this pic of our sweet boy Caleb who turned 4 in February. Can't wait to meet him!

Fundraising! Check out our new link above to support our adoption!!!

We are beginning the process of trying to raise money through fundraising. We've created a storefront through a wonderful organization called Just Love. All you need to do is buy some of their delicious Fair Trade Coffee and a portion of every purchase goes toward our adoption. It pairs two of our great loves: Adoption and Coffee!
Our goal is to raise enough money for our first big payment with the submission of our dossier (all of our international paperwork), which is $2,000 and then to pay for USCIS (Immigration and visa/fingerprint costs) which can be around $1,000.

We would love prayer as we work toward this goal and we'd be honored if you would partner with us on this journey!

Guerlens surgery

Tomorrow Guerlens has surgery.
He and I traveled to NY on Jan. 25th and Kev followed a few days later. Those first few days we spent at my brother and sister in laws in Long Island. My parents were able to drive up from Maryland and we had a great time visiting. It was such a gift that they were able to meet Guerlens! The 3 of us drove into NYC on the 28th where we stayed in a little studio apartment provided for the remainder of Guerlens stay. On Sunday we were able to do some sightseeing and we all got to ride the subway for the first time, which we loved! We saw the World Trade Center site, Battery Park and the Statue of Liberty and we took in Times Square. On Monday we were able to take Guerlens to his first appt. to get blood drawn and get some initial paperwork done. Everyone was amazing and just loved Guerlens! What is so wonderful about the apartment is that it is literally across the street from the hospital! Mallery came a few days later and we were all nice and snug in our studio:)
Last Thursday we came home, without Guerlens. We feel the absence of him and are missing him lots but know that he could not be in better hands.
God has made a way for this child, He has gone before Guerlens in every step of this journey!
Guerlens goes in for surgery around 1pm tomorrow. It should take a few hours. They will be reshaping his skull in surgery so there will be no need for a helmet, thank God! And he could be released in as little as 3 days! He should be ready to come back to MI around Feb. 20th. It's amazing how big of a surgery it seems but how quickly kids are able to recover from something like this and with no more pain than a headache.
Please join us in prayer over Guerlens, over the surgeons Dr. Staffenburg and Dr. Weiner and their team and for Mallery who is there with Guerlens.