First Family Camping Trip

We went on our first family camping trip last weekend. We had a great time with some wonderful friends, and Javen surprised us by being a great little tent sleeper. We foresee many more camping trips in our family's future!

Setting up camp



The first thing Javen did when we put him down was eat a big handfull of dirt. He didn't make that mistake again (some things you just have to learn the hard way).


Then Daddy gave our little camper some real food:)



Yes, we all fit into that little tent - even the pack 'n' play!




What is it about men and fire?


Good morning!!!



A beautiful walk through a cypress swamp



Our wonderful group of friends


On the adoption front, no new updates since the last post - still gathering and going through lots of paperwork and hoping to be able to send our dossier to Rwanda in June.

We Are Adopting From . . . .

Rwanda!!!

Due to the current uncertainty and instability regarding adoption in Uganda, we have decided to change our adoption to Rwanda. It is a fairly new program - from what I have read, there were no more than 5 children adopted in the U.S. from Rwanda between 2000-2007. There were 17 U.S. Rwandan adoptions in 2008 and 16 in 2009.

During my research, I found a blog of a family who just brought home two baby boys from Rwanda early this year. I contacted them, and they responded quickly and were eager to help us by referring us to a ministry called Mugisha Ministries that guides families through the process for a minimal fee compared to what agencies charge. We sent our application to Mugisha a couple of weeks ago. As a part of the application, they require that you have spoken with and received counsel from a pastor regarding adoption, and we just received notice today that they received the form from our pastor (kindly filled out and submitted by one of our pastors from Summit Church in Orlando who has four children adopted from Ethiopia- an amazing and beautiful family!) and that they have accepted our application. Now I just mail them a bit more paperwork and a check tomorrow, and after that is received, they will begin helping us build our dossier (a fancy word for "lots and lots of paperwork") to send to Rwanda.

As far as time frame, it all depends on a lot of things/people/paperwork that are out of our control, but based on what I have heard and read, we will likely be travelling to bring them home within a month or two of December. It is a relatively short trip compared to Uganda, as we would spend about a week in Rwanda and then go straight to the embassy in Nairobi, Kenya, for 7-10 days to obtain their visas before heading home. We are still undecided on whether we will take Javen along, but he did get a very cute passport in the mail last week, so he is ready to go with us if we decide to take him.:)

Changes

Quite a bit has happened and come to our attention in Uganda in the last weeks and days that have caused us to make a change in our adoption plans. There is currently some upheaval going on in the government and courts in Uganda regarding adoption, and there have recently been some new regulations and rulings that have caused a lot of uncertainty on the future of Ugandan adoption and that have made the process quite a bit more difficult to navigate. They will likely (hopefully!) work through all of this and continue to allow adoptions, but as we are quite hesitant to invest thousands of dollars and months of our time into a process that is so unstable and uncertain, we made the decision late last week to adopt from a different country.

While we are a bit disappointed and frustrated, this could not be happening at a better time, as our home study and USCIS (visa) application can both be switched without cost to a new country (and are the first steps to take no matter where you adopt), and we had not yet sent any money to Uganda or offcially retained our lawyer. So we will not be losing any time or money with this change. It does mean that we will be looking at bringing the babies home closer to the end of the year, which is actually a positive thing for us, as we had been hoping they would join our family when Javen is a little bit older and were thrown into a bit of a whirlwind a few weeks ago with the news that a Ugandan adoption might have occured as soon as June (which would no longer be the case with the new issues they are facing).

We do have another African country that we are very interested in adopting from, and we will post more information in a week or two when we have spoken with a couple of agencies and hopefully gathered enough information to make a decision on our next course of action.

Maybe June??!!

We were able to speak with our lawyer late last night (this morning for him) and got a much better idea of what to do and expect for this adoption process. Our next step, while we wait for our home study to be finalized and our USCIS fingerprinting and approval (just got our notice yesterday that our fingerprinting appointment is the morning of the 17th), is to contact some orphanages and choose one from which to adopt.

Once we have chosen our orphanage, we will ask them to give us a referral (choose our children for us), and then our lawyer can start working on our case as soon as our paperwork is completed and in his hands, which we think will be by April. He believes our court date will be 4-6 weeks after our children have been identified and he has our paperwork in hand. Scott has a big licensing exam for work the first weekend in June that he must be in Tampa to take, so we will have to push it back a little bit and are – Lord willing – most likely looking at a mid-June court date, which means we would be in Kampala for 3-5 weeks and - if the judges give favorable rulings - would be able to bring our babies home at the end of that time.

While I keep using the term “adopt,” things work a little differently in Uganda than in other countries, as you must live there and foster a child for a period of three years before the courts will allow you to legally “adopt” the child. They do, however, allow families to obtain legal guardianship and then complete the adoption in their home country if the judge puts in writing on your judgment that he/she understands that you are obtaining legal guardianship with the intent to take the child/children abroad and subsequently adopt them. This is the route we are planning to take.

Things are moving along faster than we had anticipated, and we are thrilled yet a little bit overwhelmed as we realize that June is only four short months away! There were lots of preparations to make before we had Javen, but when you add to the mix loads of paperwork, various appointments, vaccinations, and planning a long international trip (with a baby) with dates you won’t know until the last minute into a country with which you are not at all familiar, it gets a little bit overwhelming!

Current Prayer Requests:
- For wisdom and guidance over the next couple of weeks as we look into orphanages and identify two babies.
-For the safety, protection, and health of these babies between now and the time that we can go to Uganda.
-For the people who are caring for these and all the other little ones in the orphanage.
-For our paperwork process (mainly the USCIS approval) to continue to move smoothly and quickly.
-That certain things on the Ugandan side of this process would fall into place to make our process smooth and quick from that end (you can e-mail me for more details).
-That as we prepare our home and go through all this paperwork and court process, that God would also be preparing our hearts to become a Mommy and Daddy to these little blessings and Javen’s to be a big brother – that it will be a smooth and sweet transition as we become a family of five.
-For our lawyer as he prepares our case and for the judge who will preside over it.

Upcoming phone call

We have a call scheduled with our lawyer in Uganda for 1AM on Monday night (which is Tuesday morning for him) to go over our long list of questions. After that call, we should have a much better idea of our next steps and of what kind of time frame to expect.

A Fun Week

A break from the adoption talk to share our last week in pictures. . .

It got VERY cold.


Scott's family came to visit - Javen got some love from his "Grumpy"


Javen had a playdate with his friend Jake


We took our little brothers and their family to the circus to celebrate Amos' 10th birthday.


Javen with his little buddy Jordan


A birthday kiss for Amos - Javen LOVES his "big brother" Amos!!!

The Process

We are currently in the middle of our home study, which is technically the first step for the adoption. We had our first (of three) in-home visit with our social worker last night, and it went great. We LOVE the sweet lady who is putting our home study together for us. We have just applied to the USCIS (U.S. Citizenship and Immigration Services) to start the process of getting visas for our children, and we now await a date from them for our fingerprinting. We have filled out TONS of paperwork, gathered references, gone through physical exams, and had our home inspected. We have found a great Ugandan lawyer (from what I have read and heard, I think he is one of the best if not THE best family lawyer in Uganda!) who has agreed to take our case, and we have found an orphanage that I am about 90% sure we will go through for our adoption (we will decide for sure after all of our paperwork is completed in a few months).

After we complete our home study, get approval from the USCIS, and have all the necessary paperwork together and in the hands of our lawyer in Uganda, we will contact the orphanage, who will then give us our referral for two baby boys. Our lawyer takes care of things on that end and will put together our case and notify us of our court date (some people only get their court date assigned within a week of when they have to travel!), and we will travel to Uganda for a couple of court dates and some other paperwork that has to be completed there. We are still figuring out whether we will be there for one long trip or two shorter ones a few weeks apart, but from the time we get our referral from the orphanage, it will likely be just a matter of a few months until we bring our babies home!!!

As our path to our adoption has unfolded, it has been a wonderful blessing to find that one after another of the people who will be helping us through this process are also Believers. Diane, the social worker doing our home study, is a Christian. Our lawyer in Uganda is a Christian and has a reputation as a man of integrity, and the orphanage we think we are going to go through is run by a large church in Kampala, Uganda, so our children will be (or perhaps already are!) under the care of people who know and love the Lord. What a blessing!

Please join us in prayer for our adoption journey, for our hearts, for two precious little ones on the other side of the world who are either newborns or who will be entering the world some time in the next few months and who may be spending some part of their sweet little lives hungry and/or abandoned somewhere, and for the birth mom(s) of these children.