Haiti Trip #2

In case you missed it, we, along with several other families, had to go to Haiti on short notice to appear in court, in order for our adoptions to proceed. We were told we would meet with a judge, but if he was in the room, we didn't know it. We all signed blank pages in a notebook...a smidge unnerving! Thankfully, folks were discussing how many times they signed while we all waited and it turns out that both spouses were to sign TWICE per child that you are adopting. Two families, us included, discovered that we had not signed enough times and we went back in. We are so glad that this was discovered while we were still in Haiti. Can you imagine if we hadn't caught that?

Regarding our case, we are not going to share it all on the blog. If you want to know more, please email us privately and we will be happy to discuss it with you, but for the purposes of this open blog, we are simply asking for prayer over our kids and their adoption cases. We were told that they were likely about six months from coming home, but with some recent developments, their homecoming date is unsure.

Here are our photos:

Arriving in Haiti

A school girl, in uniform, walking home

Philippe swimming with Mama - by the last day he was going underwater and was much more gutsy

Three of us - Patricia learned how to swim on our last trip and she did great again, even wanting to take off her water wings...we let her but she had to stay by the edge in the shallow end!

Love it! This is one of our favorite things - watching our kids sleep. Can't wait until they do this at HOME

Our babes...We had a rough start, with lots of attitude and them pretty much flat out ignoring us. Even though we know they understand a lot of English, we asked a translator to sit down with us for a moment, just to make SURE they understood. We asked him to please explain to the kids that we know it is hard to have us come for such a short time and then have to leave. We know it must be confusing. That we want to take them home right now, but we have to wait for the paperwork. That we have only TWO days together and that we can make it a great two days, or it can be miserable. We expect them to look at us and answer us when we speak to them. We want to have fun with them. That we want to have a wonderful visit, but they need to help make that happen.

I guess this worked, because they were totally different after that!

I was asking one of the older girls about how to do Patricia's hair, and then before I knew it, I was actually DOING her hair. Here it is in transition...

Self-portrait by Philippe - eating a gummy worm

Another self-portrait :)

Philippe took some (many!) pictures of his gift from us...

Philippe pushing Patricia out of the bed! Just like last time!

Our dear ones...once again, check out that hair...those twists were done by me! Not too bad for a "blanc" lady! I need to get better, but when I finished, Patricia said, "Thanks Mama!"

Overall we had a great visit with the kids, those representing us and other adoptive parents. We left a bit downtrodden over our adoption process, and a few other things that happened, but the Lord blessed us with safe travels and good health. Last time we ended up in the ER upon returning home!

Please, PLEASE lift up our kids, their orphanage and the staff, and all the kids waiting to go HOME. We need to pray for paperwork to MOVE as it is such a WASTE to have children who are matched with families sit in institutions. Blessings to all the waiting families and thanks to everyone for your thoughts and prayers!