Saturday, April 16, 2016

Week 1

Day 1 in Uganda: Wednesday, Jan. 27, 2016 - We checked into the Lake Victoria View Guest House after we arrived in Entebbe late last night. The grounds are so pretty and we stayed in little huts that were decorated African style. I actually learned about this place when I was in Uganda last summer  with friends and we stayed here on our last two nights. It brought back some great memories, for sure!





Today we drove to the capital city of Kampala, about an hour northeast of Entebbe depending on the traffic.



Ran into an elephant at the mall today.
Don't see that everyday ;-)

We have court next Tuesday and our judge prefers adoptive families visit the Parliament before their hearing to learn about Uganda's kings and how their government system is set up. So that was on our agenda for today. We took a tour of the courthouse then received certificates at the end to prove we stopped by...











Next, we checked into the Apricot Guest House where we stayed for a few nights...





We were tired of traveling and our 13 year-old daughter, Abby, wasn't feeling well so we ordered some delivery pizza from Caffe' Roma, one of our favorite restaurants in Uganda.



Day 2: Thursday, January 28 - We met with our lawyer and reviewed our case. Everything looks great and is in good order. Then we checked out of guest house #2 and made the 2 1/2 hour drive to Jinja where we will stay most of our remaining time.










Our 3rd guest house is the Providence Guest House. It is run by an American family and that has a ministry called Heavenly Hope. When we arrived at the home, we were greeted with lots of smiles  and helping hands with our luggage from the local street kids.







Tomorrow we meet Mercy and celebrate Asher's 5th birthday!

Day 3: Friday, January 29, 2016 - It's after 5am here in UG and I've been up since about 2. Still a bit jet-lagged but also a million thoughts are running through my mind. Our lives are about to be changed forever in just a few short hours. Adoption. Such a messy, hard, and beautiful thing. I keep thinking, "Will Mercy like our family?" "Will she be accepting of love?" "Will she show signs of trauma?" "Can we be enough for her?"

Then I'm reminded of God's love for us and how He adopted us into His family - with all of our baggage and hang ups and sin. And He loves us anyway. Unconditionally. We want to do the same for Mercy - love her unconditionally and give her a forever family and home, without any strings attached. Praying that we are forever changed and that Mercy feels loved. ‪#‎lovebig‬ ‪#‎bringmercyhome‬ ‪#‎loveknowsnoboundaries‬ ‪#‎everyonedeservesalovingfamily‬ ‪#‎letsdothis‬

Update at 9pm - This morning we celebrated Asher's 5th birthday with a yummy french toast breakfast, a few gifts (Paw Patrol, of course!), and homemade cards from another family living at the guest house...




Afterwards, it was time to go meet Mercy! I actually got to meet her last summer while I was in Uganda on a missions trip with friends but it was the rest of our family's first time to meet her. We were hoping for it to be a joyous occasion, but honestly it wasn't. Mercy had been at the babies home since she was about 5 weeks old so it's the only life she's ever known. She was brought out to us by one of the aunties and there were almost instant tears. I'm sure she was so afraid of the crazy mzungu (white/Western) family looking at her with big smiles. Our friend and photographer, Mary Frances, took photos of us meeting Mercy which I will treasure forever! ...










I was able to hold her for a little while but let her go back with her friends as I could tell she was very uncomfortable with us. We didn't want to scare her and we knew pretty quickly we'd have to move slowly and not expect much from her at first.




Our meeting with Asher three years ago was so different and our bond was almost instant. Of course every child is different so we knew we might have to expect a different reaction from Mercy. We stayed for a few hours and the last 30 minutes or so we were able to spend alone time with her in one of the empty rooms. By the time we left, she was calling us by our names - Mommy, Daddy, Kenzie, Abby, and Asher. πŸ’— So tomorrow we'll spend more time at the babies home then maybe Sunday she'll be ready to stay with us.

Before we left for Uganda, Kenzie worked really hard gathering up donations of ballet shoes to bring with her to Uganda. She's hoping to have opportunities here to teach some ballet classes so we are praying for that to happen. And Abby brought her guitar so hopefully she'll also have opportunities to play.


Day 4: Saturday, January 30, 2016 - This morning we went back to the babies home to spend more time with Mercy. However, it didn't take long to realize we were not going to be able to bond effectively while there.


There were too many distractions so the director of the babies home said Mercy could stay with us. So we hopped in the van and our driver took us to our guest house where we could be alone with her...

She fell asleep in my arms and my heart melted!


She's with us! For reals! :-D

When we got to the guest house, Mercy was still pretty scared and unsure of us but we put new clothes on her and gave her food to eat and water to drink - then I think she finally realized we were safe.

Finally a smile! She loved her new clothes!

Mercy was so hungry - she ate 2
big bowls of chicken noodle soup!




We were told Mercy is very moody and we definitely found that to be true. We started seeing a pattern throughout the day where for about 15 minutes she's very happy and talkative. (She actually knew a few English words but also has a Ugandan accent. ❤🌍) Then for about 30 minutes she's totally still and emotionless. Then she cries for about 30 minutes and nothing consoles her. I can tell when this is coming on because she pushes me away and doesn't want me to touch her. Then after she cries, she wants to be held for another 15 minutes then the pattern repeats. So she had two really long crying periods today at the guesthouse then we hit a breakthrough. When the third one should have hit, it didn't - thank you Jesus.

At bedtime, we said our prayers together as a family, then everyone "pretended" to go to bed while I put Mercy down. There were a few tears but not near as many as I expected. I laid down with her for a little bit then she went right to sleep. (Insert prayer request: please pray for good, restful sleep for us all but especially Mercy!)

We did have some fun moments today - playing outside, painting nails, face timing Steve's parents, eating pizza, and the girls made peanut butter cookies. Please continue to pray for our bonding with Mercy. She loves the girls, Asher has been amazing with her, and she's coming around to liking Steve. She's been keeping her eye on him today but even gave him a kiss at the end of the night. She goes back and forth with me - from wanting to be held, to pushing me away. It's only her second day to be with us, though and we already saw huge strides from earlier today. We are hoping to try to go to church in the morning, so we'll see how that goes! Thanks again for your prayers and for following our journey! ❤

Making peanut butter cookies - a little taste of home!

Painting nails - already a girly girl ;-)



Asher's finally a big brother. I think he
could get used to this. He loves her already :-D

Day 5, Sunday, January 31, 2016 - It's about 3:30pm here so hopefully I'm not jinxing myself but Mercy has made a total turnaround since yesterday! First of all, she fell right to sleep last night and slept the WHOLE NIGHT THROUGH and didn't wake up until almost 8! Did not cry the entire night! I got about 2-3 hours of sleep because I kept hearing her move around and thought she was going to wake up crying but she didn't! I think she's the only one that slept well last night lol! And she woke up in the best mood - smiling and talking, repeating words in English trying to learn them. She has actually followed me around today and wanted me to hold her or hold hands. She has been so sweet AND we made it through a church service! I really believe this only happened because of your prayers and I can not thank you enough. Just a couple of pics from today...







Update @9pm: That girl has totally surprised us! She has been so sweet today and was laughing and running around. The last 2 days she wouldn't crack a smile or even hardly move. And last night she told me "No" at bedtime so she had to be set a little straight on that, but tonight she hopped right into bed and went straight to sleep! I know this could be short-lived but we'll take it while we can!

This girl sleeps all over the bed.
Apparently we need bed rails!

Prayer requests for this week...

1. Please continue to pray for sweet bonding time with Mercy and restful sleep for us all.

2. We travel from Jinja to the capital, Kampala, tomorrow (about 2-3 hours depending on traffic). We will be there until Thursday when Steve returns home. Please pray for our safety as we travel and protection while in Kampala.

3. Court is Tuesday! We have a judge who is known for being pro-international adoption so we are very thankful for that! We are supposed to arrive at the court house at 11am but if he chooses to come to court, he probably won't call us back until late in the day/early evening. Then our hearing will probably last for several hours. He is known for heavily questioning the adoptive mother and will ask questions like, "Why do you want to adopt a child from Uganda? Can you not have any children of your own? Do you think you can just fly in here and take a child? Why do you want to do this to your husband? Does he not already work hard enough for your family?", etc. This can go on for hours so I just have to be ready for some grilling. So looking forward to that! 😁 There is a family at our guest house that is adopting and also had the same judge. She said it took 2 months to get their ruling and that is after he promised he'd have it done in a week. He also tends to reprimand any bio family members that are at the hearing for not caring for one of their own. This can be emotionally hard for the adoptive child to watch. So please pray he appears for our hearing, hears our case early in the day, is kind to our family, and gives a quick ruling. Also please pray that Asher and Mercy do well after sitting in a waiting room all day!

4. Steve leaves Thursday. I tear up every time I think of him leaving because we have no idea how long we'll be here. I'll have to take over the things he's usually responsible for like getting shillings from the atm, buying bottled water and air time minutes, paying rent at guest houses, finishing the adoption process at the passport office, IOM medical exam, and the U.S. Embassy, etc. I'm not worried about it but it's a comfort having him here and it will be a bit challenging with 2 little ones - so thankful our girls are here to help, too! And I feel for him, also, being in a quiet house without us. We are asking God for a miracle that we are home by the end of March. Thank you for believing with us!

Day 6, Monday, February 1, 2016 - Today we drove to Kampala and went straight to Herb and Ellen's, the guest house we stayed at while adopting Asher. I have stayed in touch with the cook, Harriet Ssanyu, and I sell some of her beads and tailoring projects to help her pay her kid's school fees. (You can find them at Bless UR Heart Boutique in downtown Owasso, OK or on Facebook under " Harriet's Bead Creations".) She served a great lunch and we got to meet some other adoptive families while there which was really great.


Next, we returned to the Apricot Guesthouse. This will be our home for the next 3 nights. The grounds here are so beautiful! ...









We took a quick nap then ate a delicious dinner at a restaurant called Prunes. We met friends there who are adopting one of Mercy's sweet best buddies from the same babies home. It was so cute watching them hold hands and play together. They seem to have a special bond. πŸ’—



Mercy is so happy and such a different child from 2 days ago. She's laughing, running, playing, and giving hugs and kisses. But we've noticed that Mercy still has periods where she'll zone out for about 30 minutes. It's usually when we're in the car driving. She's very unresponsive and her whole face changes. Her eyes look so sad and sometimes she she'll shed a few tears, quietly. Then she'll snap out of it and is happy again. I wish we knew what she was thinking.  Hopefully time (and God) will heal her wounds.

Watching a movie before bedtime 

We are just so grateful she is part of our family and we pray our judge tomorrow agrees! Thank you for your prayers!

Day 7: February 2, 2016 - Thank you everyone so much for your prayers! It was a long day and we are so glad to be home from court!





Mercy's uncle, bio mom, & grandmother

We arrived at 11 to the court house and met Mercy's bio family. Mercy's grandmother was so sweet and they had a fun time together playing with her baby doll.


Our judge thankfully did show up to court 😁 and called us back at 2pm. He asked me a lot of questions but was kind and amazingly I wasn't really nervous. He mostly questioned Mercy's bio mother and the hearing itself lasted for 4 hours and ended at 6pm. We were so thankful he was satisfied with all he learned and didn't ask us to come back tomorrow. He ended the session by granting us legal guardianship of Mercy!!! He said he will issue the verbal ruling by noon on Friday, February 12th. Unfortunately, we still have to wait for the written ruling which may take until the end of the month because of elections on Thursday, February 18th.

Here's a few funny things that helped lighten up court today...

- When we first arrived and met with the grandmother and other witnesses, we sat outside in the shade of the building. I moved my chair a bit so I was in the sun and they all thought that was so strange. They kept asking me to move my chair in but I said, "Where we live right now it's really cold and the sun felt so good." They just laughed and I'm sure thought I was crazy.

- Abby and I had to sit in front of a window that had blinds that kept hitting us in the head. 😜

- There was a wasp in the court room and Abby and Kenzie were a little freaked out because it kept getting close to them. They were pretty funny to watch dodging the wasp.

- From Steve: Best line of the day came from Asher. Our judge (who is Muslim) questioned us as to why we changed Asher's name from Mohammed and used an analogy about him having a dream seeing Jesus' name in big bold golden letters in the sky. His line of reasoning was if the name is that great would you be ok if someone changed a child's name from Jesus to something else after adoption. This went on about 15 minutes before Asher said, and I quote, "My name is Asher but I changed it to AJ'. " The whole room started laughing and the judge dropped it after that.

- It was warm in the room and Abby fell asleep!

- In the middle of my testimony, Asher came up and asked if he could have a piece of gum. πŸ˜‚

- Asher and Mercy kept having to go to the bathroom and Steve and I couldn't leave the court room so Kenzie and Abby had to take them. They got plenty of exercise walking up and down the stairs.

Thank you again for everyone's prayers! They were definitely felt and are so appreciated! Next steps: wait for verbal and written rulings, obtain Mercy's passport, medical check up, and visa at the U.S. Embassy. Praying we are home by the end of March and that our process is not slowed down because of upcoming elections.

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