Update

Our boys have been home for over 2 weeks and we are one day away from celebrating our first Christmas with them!

When we arrived in Haiti to bring our boys home, they ran to us and jumped in our arms. They eagerly packed their suitcase and happily spent the night with us in our room. Caleb woke early to get dressed and packed so we could head to the airport. He practically ran across the tarmac to our plane. They both took it all in. The excitement, adrenaline and the stimulation of so many new experiences carried them happily through that huge day. We got off that plane in GR and walked into a wall of people who loved us, who prayed for us, who rejoiced with us in that precious moment when our family of 6 came together for the first time.

The last 2 weeks have been quite a ride. So many things are brand new for our boys. The car rides (which they absolutely love!), grocery shopping, new people, cold and snow. So many things are brand new for all of us. It has been good, not easy by any means, but good. If we were all gliding through our first days together with no friction or issue, I'd be worried. Trust is being built and that can be tough. If I have learned anything in our adoption journey, it's that adjustment takes TIME.

I look at these boys and I truly love them. There is a love and relationship that has been built over the last 2 years and for that I am overwhelmed with gratitude. What we have now is a fresh and somewhat complicated extension of that relationship into which we have already invested. It is changing and morphing and God is stretching and growing, and that part can hurt....but therein lies my utter dependence on Him.

Having 4 kids is double the crazy, double the loudness and chaos but TRULY it is double the fun and joy!

HOME!

When I have more time I'll share more about our trip & travel but for now....we are home

Anticipation

Anticipation....this is the title for our church's series for the month of December.

This word could not describe more clearly the feeling we have had for a good part of the last 3 years. One of it's definitions is 'expectation or hope'.

Over three years ago we were living in hope of adopting Jivenson. We lived in anticipation of meeting him and when he was so sick, we lived in expectation of bringing him home via a medical visa so that he could receive much needed medical treatment.

With his passing, hope and expectation were crushed.

But two years ago, hope was renewed. God opened our eyes and hearts to a new story He was writing. The story of adopting one precious son, turned into a journey of adopting two. We never could have guessed this would be the future for our family.

Now it is here, all of the anticipation is transforming into the experience of actually completing the adoption process for our two amazing sons.

And now the real journey of our family of 6 begins....

but God....

Reflecting on our adoption journey, I am reminded how out of our control the whole process has been. Yet much of my time was filled with worry...that act of worry so that i feel in control.
But God was in control and in every step of letting go, He provided.

Who could have predicted that the son we fell in love with and imagined our life with would pass away?
But God provided comfort.

Who could have foreseen that we would pray for a forever family for 2 little boys who lived at the same orphanage where Jivenson had lived, never thinking that family could be ours?
But God started writing a story and slowly invited us into it.

Who could have known that our youngest son would be provided the miracle of a medical visa and pro-bono surgery in NYC? And that he would be coming to Michigan pre and post surgery?

But God used people and opened doors to make a way.

Who could have guessed that so many people would walk this journey with us; those who love Haiti, our boys and those who are also adopting children from Hope House who fully understand the joy and heartbreak that adoption brings?

But God, only God could have orchestrated this outcome.

Successful Visa Appointment!

This morning at 9am was our boys visa appointment and it went very well! The lawyer will be picking up the boys visas next Wednesday, the day we arrive in Haiti and the day before we leave! What a whirlwind that will be :)
10 days until we are with our boys forever!!!

TICKETS!

We have tickets in hand and are flying to Haiti on Wednesday December 4th and coming HOME WITH OUR BOYS on Thursday December 5th! I can hardly believe it!

The Dirty Duel

This morning, as with every race I've ever run, solidified my love of running and racing! It was a tough race for me but I loved every minute of it! I came in 6th in my age group, out of over 70 women so I was pretty happy with that, for my first trail race. Now I have something to shoot for next time!

This is my favorite part, seeing my family at the finish line! As much as the girls can be grumpy about having to get up early in the cold to see mom run a race, which I totally understand, they are always so excited to see me come down the final chute to the finish line.

Team Orphans

This morning I'm running my first trail race. I decided to run to raise money for Team Orphans.
Athletes seek sponsorships for different events to raise money. All the proceeds go to Brittany's Hope. They offer grants for families who are adopting special needs children. This brings these children one step closer to their forever families.

The race is the Dirty Duel at Robinettes. There are 2 race routes you can choose from, a 5k and a 6k. The 5k is shorter but brutal. The 6k is a little longer, about 3.7 miles, but a faster, smoother course. To tell you the truth I'm not sure yet which one I'm going to do and you don't need to decide beforehand. I'll see how inspired I feel when I'm at the start:)

Boys Room

The boys room is all ready...the clothes, shoes, toys, coats....right down to their toothbrushes and toothpaste. Kevin and friends of ours, an architect and interior designer, designed and built the bunk beds. The height will certainly be new to Caleb but we're hoping with time he'll love sleeping up high:)
Now we just need our two boys!:)

***Disclaimer.... There will be a rail bolted onto the top bunk:) It's just been a work in progress.
I guarantee that we will not allow Caleb to be up there without it!

Visa appointment!

Yesterday Wednesday Nov. 13 we received the email informing us that we have exited USCIS and now would move onto the Dept. of State/Visa part of the process. We contacted our agency contact who informed us we would now await a visa appointment. We expected to get one next week but instead we received another email that afternoon stating that we had a visa appt! We were amazed!

Our visa date is set for November 25th, the Monday before Thanksgiving! We are in awe at how things are moving at this stage. Even though we have known that we'd get to this point eventually, you get so used to sitting in one spot for so long that any movement is joy.

USCIS

We are in! We found out today that we were submitted to USCIS on 10/24!

Our timeline breakdown shows that we could be in USCIS for 4 weeks, DOS (dept. of state) for 2 weeks then wait one week for an Exit Letter.

This is very encouraging and it is very likely that our boys will be home in early December...we will celebrate our first Christmas as a family of 6!

Passports!!!

On Thursday 10/3 we got an email from our agency letting us know that the boys have their passports!!!

This is awesome news!

At this point we are looking at an 8 week wait. This time will include our dossiers going through USCIS, Dept. of State/Visa and the Exit Letter. That means that it is possible for us to be traveling to Haiti at the end of November! We are very confident they will be home for Christmas and we are even praying that they would be home with us for Thanksgiving...that might be a stretch but I am asking God for it anyway.

Goodbye MOI!

Last week we got the call from our agency that we have exited MOI! We were only in for 5 weeks, which is very fast! And we are sooooo thankful!

Now we move onto getting the boys passports and having our whole dossier go to USCIS. This is when the US will grant the boys visas so they can come into the country. Once we clear USCIS, have their visas and the "Exit Letter" we can finally travel to Haiti and bring our boys home.

If all moves the way it could/should, we could be bringing our boys home in just 2 months!!

We have been praying for months that the boys would be home before the end of the year. Then we started praying that they'd be home before Christmas. Now we are praying that they will be home before Thanksgiving.

There is so much that can happen...we could get stuck in any of the upcoming steps or face slowdowns. We're going to ask God anyway :)

This is how we feel :)

MOI!!

Because I decided not to write the same idea twice,and maybe because I'm feeling a little bit lazy tonight, I will just make this post the same story we sent to friends and family today regarding some great news we got this morning regarding our adoption.

Below is a portion of an email from our caseworker letting us know that we've entered the next step of our adoption and that our boys entered as Perbergs!

Just to give you an idea, MOI stands for Ministry of the Interior. All of our paperwork will enter MOI where we'll basically be approved to apply for the boys passports, which is the next step.

This timeline is possible but we know full well that it is NOT set in stone and completely subject to change. We have been praying for months that God would allow our boys to come home in 2013, before the end of the year. This timeline would mean that could be possible. Regardless, we are open and available to whatever God's timeline might be. But we will continue to boldly ask this of Him, because He is able!

This week I've been feeling a little discouraged regarding our adoption…washing & folding the boys clothes wishing they were here to wear them, working on painting their bunk beds and seeing other families move ahead in their adoptions. This morning while looking through the Adoption folder on my desktop I came across something labeled "REMEMBER!!!" and this is what it said…

"Although flowers in the fall appear to die they don't. Even though you don't see them they are still alive, readying themselves to show off again in the spring. Sometimes God's promises to you seem to have died. Though you do not see their fulfillment they're still alive ready to manifest. Wait in faith not in doubt."

My dad sent this to me as an encouragement a long time ago, months after Jivenson passed away. Sometimes I find myself almost waiting in doubt, almost expecting the worst, when really all along our Heavenly Father is preparing the Best for us, regardless of the pain and loss that are so easy to see.

I'm amazed at how often I forget that truth and I'm so thankful for these reminders!

“The following children went to MOI last Wednesday August 14, 2013
1) CALEB LOUIS PERBERG # 1711
(redacted)
5) GUERLENS LOUIS PERBERG # 1715”

Here is a particular timeline:
Parquet: 6 ½ weeks
Legalizing after Parquet: 4 weeks
MOI: 4 weeks
Passport: 1 week
USCIS: 4 weeks
DOS/Visa: 3 weeks
Exit letter: 1 week

So here's to waiting in Faith!

Haiti....again

Friday was the last time we will be leaving Hope House without our boys.

This past week we had our I600 filing, went to court and saw the Dean. The filing includes going to the US Embassy, singing a form in front of an officer, answering questions and submitting more paperwork. That same day, along with another adoptive couple, we went to "court". This included making our way through a busy street, stepping into a very dark, people filled room and being led to a small airless room in the back to answer some simple questions in front of the lower court judge. After hearing our answers he said he believed us. We then signed our names in a hand written ledger. We then proceeded to drive to see the Dean. Appointments are not made for this step, you just show up. We waited in another small office, while having our passports copied and stamped. The Dean was in a meeting and was unable to see us. Thankfully, him seeing our passports stamped, showing that we were there, was enough. Done in one day!

We thought we'd need to take the boys with us for these appointments but that has recently changed. We were very thankful because that would have been hard on them, all that sitting, all that sweating.

Connecting with the boys was awesome and natural. Guerlens is a momma's boy and Caleb is all about Daddy. They are some busy boys! We brought them up to our container where we stayed and they loved that! We'd be doing something, playing guitar, coloring or watching a movie and he'd have to go tell the kids and nannies what we were doing. He loved it! The day we left Caleb was sad but it was wonderful to tell him that the next time we come, they'll be coming with us. He brightened up at that and told the kids that he would be going to Michigan and never come back!:)

6-9 months is what we've been told. There are a lot of steps left to go for the Haiti side and then we deal with the US side. What we are waiting for now is the adoption decree....they will legally be our children in Haiti and will be Perbergs! But even after that there's a lot of steps to go.
Adopting from Haiti is complicated and hard to wrap my mind around. It does feel like we finally have some momentum now and was so encouraging to be productive on our trip.

Things are moving and we are thankful.

DISPENSATION & moving forward!

On May 20th we got word that we received Presidential Dispensation, basically the Haitian Presidents signature saying we can move forward to adopt the boys despite having a biological child.
We are so thankful!!! We were signed out of IBESR in a couple days, much faster than expected!

We now are planning to return to Haiti in late June for court and to file some more paperwork! Things are starting to move forward!

I had the opportunity to travel to Haiti and spend 6 days with our boys! A friend, also adopting from Hope House, was going to be traveling alone to file some paperwork there. Kev surprised me by planning for me to travel with her! It was an awesome week!!! It was great connecting with the boys and hard to leave them...but I know we are heading back very soon!

Mother's Day

Another Mother's Day with my precious girls and hubby is here and it's been wonderful....but it's also another Mother's Day without all of my children together. Cherishing the ones in my arms, missing the ones that I pray will be here next Mother's Day.

Christmas

These last few months I've been saying, with some confidence, that the boys could be home in the fall. At this point, and still waiting for dispensation, that isn't realistic anymore. I realize God can do anything and he is capable of moving our paperwork through quickly. However, based on how every other family is moving through the process and based on their pace, it's looking more like very late 2013.

At this point we are praying that the boys will be home by Christmas. I didn't think we could be cutting it so close but now it is looking that way and it is discouraging.

If anyone is reading this and believes in the power of prayer, would you please pray with us that our boys will be home for Christmas?

Still waiting.....

Our paperwork entered IBESR in mid October and we have been waiting for Presidential Dispensation ever since. This signature from the President of Haiti is all we need to move forward with our process. We will then move onto Court, when we will travel again and go through the legal proceedings in Haiti. Then we will wait some more for visas for the boys from the US. Our hope and prayer is that the boys would be home this fall!

Tonight there will be an event to benefit our adoption. It will be held at a local jewelry shop called Dear Pru in the Gaslight Village. Noonday Collection jewelry will be set up there, with proceeds from their sales going toward our adoption. All of their jewelry is Fair Trade, made by women around the world to empower them and give opportunity for sustaining their families. They have some beautiful jewelry, unique and precious. Dear Pru also has wonderful jewelry as well, some of it made locally.
We had the chance to go on a radio show on Wednesday morning and also go on FOX tv this morning to tell our story and promote the event. We are so incredibly grateful for these amazing opportunities!

Remembering Jivenson

Mallery and Frentz brought this over to our home to show us before they took it to Haiti. A group at our church had this made to be placed where Jivenson's ashes were buried in Haiti, next to the orphanage. What a beautiful tribute it is. It was placed there on his birthday, October 26th, when he would have turned 3.

Guerlens is 2!

Yesterday was Guerlens 2nd birthday. I could not help but remember his last birthday, his first birthday that was spent with us.

It was so precious, special and unique. It makes my heart feel a bit heavy but truly I genuinely feel grateful. I'm so grateful for all the firsts we had with him! For an International adoption, we had a very rare and wonderful experience. We've got nothing else but to look forward to all the birthdays when we will be all together.

We were able to Skype yesterday while the boys finished their dinner then got cake and Guerlens opened a present. The girls wanted to make a cake for Guerlens so they ate their cake while the boys ate theirs. It was a virtual birthday party.

Adoption wise we are at a stand still, still waiting for Presidential Dispensation, telling us we can move forward with a court date. There are so many steps left in this process that it feels discouraging sometimes. We still hold out hope and prayers that they could be home by next fall. This is how I'm praying, for fall.