There's also a man staying here from South Dakota that has a balloon ministry. It was neat to talk with him and learn of what he'll be doing in Uganda and he made some neat creations for the kids.
Mercy's hair was in big need of help so our driver and friend, Harriet, took out her old braids and gave her some little dreads. Oh my word. Too much cuteness.
We are pretty sure Mercy is going to be a girly girl. She looooves wearing her hair bands, carrying a purse, pretending like she's putting on makeup when I am, loves wearing dresses and getting her nails painted, etc.
This afternoon, we ate lunch at our favorite Mexican restaurant in Uganda (yes, I said Mexican restaurant), The Little Donkey...
After that, we got Mercy's passport and visa pics taken. Poor girl. The photographer took her out of my arms and sat her in a chair so of course that made Mercy cry. So her photo for her passport does not look real happy. 😂 We also went to the grocery store to stock up on bottled water and snacks. It was Mercy's first time in a shopping cart - she thought it was a pretty fun ride...
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| Funny how they sell coats in Uganda on the street like this. Uganda is on the equator in Africa, by the way. ;-) |
Day 9: February 4, 2016 - Today started out with a meeting at the Embassy. The big girls stayed at the guest house because we "thought" it would be a quick in and out meeting. But on the way there, our van broke down. We were going to be late if we didn't come up with a way to get there quick so we had to catch a boda (motorcycle) to the Embassy. I'm sure we were quite a site. Asher, Mercy, and I were on one and Steve and our important files were on another. We got there just in time but the man at the front desk wouldn't let us in for our 9:00 appointment. We waited and waited. Asher and Mercy had to go to the bathroom so they finally let me go back with them but Steve had to wait out front. I made sure to take them to the bathroom where the adoptions unit was and spoke to the man at the front desk there. He took down our name and we were finally seen. Gotta love our U.S. Embassy 😉 So that was a little more excitement to start off our day than we expected.
Today was really really hard. We knew it would be hard but it was much harder than we expected. Steve is boarding his plane right now to go back home and we've been dreading this day for months. It's been hard to say "see you later" on our previous 2 week trips to Uganda. And now we don't know how long this time apart will be.
People that are against international adoption have no idea how big a family's love must be to adopt a child. They have no idea all the paperwork we have to do, the home visits, the hours of having documents copied and notarized, the ups and downs we experience through the entire process - and that's not even the "hard" part. That comes with the 2 days of travel, the living out of suitcases and moving from guest house to guest house, the long hours in court with grilling questions from the judge, the waiting and waiting and waiting, the getting yelled at at the passport office, subjecting our adoptive child to invasive medical exams, the emotional side of bonding and dealing with trauma, the many appointments at the Embassy, being sick and trying to figure out the right treatments.
And saying "see you later" to loved ones. I'm not complaining. Yes, we signed up for this. Yes, we knew it would be hard. Yes, Mercy is worth it. We just appreciate your prayers for strength to get us through the hard. 😢 Please pray for safe travel for Steve, that he makes all his connecting flights, that he feels our love at home, and that we will be reunited again very soon.
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| On the way to Jinja - missing Steve already :-( |
Day 10: February 5, 2016 - Steve suggested we do something fun today to cheer us up so we decided to go swimming at the Nile Village Hotel & Spa. Mercy looked so cute in her little swim suit and she and Asher had the best time swimming...
So please pray for little Mercy - for continued bonding, for her to continue trying to accept our love, and for her to learn a healthy way of expressing her feelings. 💗 Here's a few pics from our day - Mercy and Asher sweeping our balcony...
Mercy and Asher coloring...
Wrestling (I'm thinking she may beat up Asher if he doesn't toughen up ;-) )...
Abby making Ree Drummond's 3 Ingredient Nutella brownies (and we just found out it's National Nutella Day! 😜)...
Our dinner at our guest house tonight was chicken quesadillas and guacamole (yum!)...
and a pic of me and the bigs to prove we are still alive...
Day 11: February 6, 2016 - Abby and I decided to venture outside our guesthouse with the littles and take a walk this morning. (Kenzie wasn't feeling well so she stayed at the guesthouse to rest.) We "thought" we'd only be gone about 30 minutes but ended up being gone for 2 hours because I may or may not be directionally challenged and got lost! BUT we found out 2 great finds on our journey! ...
1. Just a couple of blocks away is a guesthouse run by a 75 year old Italian lady. She serves GELATO everyday and you can make a reservation to eat there for dinner. I hear her Italian food is amazing. Who knew you could find that in Uganda, Africa?!
2. There is a dairy also close by that serves ice cream that is safe to eat! (You have to be real careful about eating dairy here because it's typically not pasteurized.) Apparently it's a full blown dairy with cows and everything. We will definitely have to check that out, too! It's the little things that get us by in the waiting! 😉
Also along our walk we saw a monkey. It was so close to us. Thankfully Mercy didn't freak out the way she does around dogs. 😳...
This afternoon I finally fit a workout in and will have to get back to that on a regular basis. Thanks to my AwEsOmE friend, Nicole, she gave me some great workouts and exercise bands to use...
It was quite funny working out in our room because Abby was sleeping, Kenzie was eating potato chips, Asher was wrapped up in my yoga mat, and Mercy was watching me like I was a crazy person. I have great family support! 😜
Found out that Mercy loves to play with play dough (thank you Aunt Stacy for the accessories!)...
and she loves Mexican food (our guest house served beef enchiladas tonight)...
She ate more than any of us. I don't know how she fits all that food in her little body but she has a great appetite!
And she also loves to sing, dance, and play Abby's guitar...
We got to talk with Steve today so that really lifted our spirits. 💗 Tomorrow is church and lunch out since our guest house doesn't serve food on Sunday's. Monday we are going to try to get into a routine and do as much school as possible - we have quite a bit to catch up on! Thanks again for everyone's prayers and encouraging words! Have a great weekend!
Day 12: February 7, 2016 - So this doesn't happen every day (unless you live in UG). Asher woke up crying about 1 this morning and said there was a lizard on his blanket. I thought he was just dreaming but Kenzie said she saw one on the wall close to where his bed was so it very well could have been there. Of course he didn't want to sleep in his bed after that so he slept with me. I love that boy but I have an unwritten rule (that of course I broke last night) that he does not sleep with me because there will be no sleep for me if he does. He has to lay right next to me even though we have a big King-sized bed. He has to touch me with a leg and a hand has to be on my neck. He's back in his bed tonight so hopefully I'll catch up on some rest 💤💤💤
This morning we visited Acacia Community Church. It was a pretty large open-aired church and its members were about half Ugandan, half Muzungus (white westerners)...
We enjoyed the singing and they sang several familiar songs from Dave Crowder and Hillsong. I accidentally forgot Asher and Mercy's bag of coloring books and toys but they actually did great.
After church we ate at a place called Flavours. The girls and I had soup and the littles had hamburgers. Fortunately we ate outside which gave Mercy and Asher plenty of room to run around and play because it took about 1 1/2 hours for our food to be served...
Apparently Mercy wasn't interested because she fell asleep in my arms (which I ate up!)...
It was so interesting hearing his story. He's 20 years old and the last few years he said he had been going down the wrong path. He found himself in jail (for a crime he didn't commit) and was there for 3 months. He said, "I used to think jail was only for bad criminals but I learned many are there for crimes they didn't commit. The guards treated us so badly and made us work hard in the hot sun. The food was very bad and we were always hungry. You loose all hope when you go to jail. But I found God there so it was a good thing." He "found God" through a man named Bob who runs our guest house and has a prison ministry. So now he works here at our guest house and is also helping with the prison ministry, too. He said he wants the prisoners to know there is Hope that can be found in God.
He also shared some interesting thoughts about the school system in Uganda and many African countries. School is not free here. You have to pay fees and public school is not good due to bad teachers, poor curriculum, and too many kids in a classroom. He said many times kids have to walk for many hours to school and have to avoid wild animals along the way. When they finally arrive, they may get there a few hours late because of the distance and have already missed several hours of instruction. They have to sit in the back of a room of 200 students so they can't hear what the teacher says or understand the lessons. They stay until 5 then travel home where they may have to "dig" their crops and do other chores. Then they try to do their homework but it's night time and they have to share the one candle they have with mother who is doing the dishes. Such a hard life and so difficult to get a good education. And private school in Uganda often times costs as much as it does in the States. So unattainable when you only make $2 a day. 😕
When Mercy woke up she looked so sad and confused - like she didn't know who we were or where we were at. This led to a full out cry for over an hour. She wanted me to hold her the entire time which I am glad to do but it's been so hard on my back. Nothing would console her so she cried and cried and I prayed and sang. She finally snapped out of it as if nothing had happened then she was her happy self again. We feel so bad for her when she does this - definitely some emotional trauma going on. I'm praying it is short-lived but I know she has a lot of issues to work through.
Day 13: February 8, 2016 - Hiring a driver to take us places is getting expensive so we decided to take a boda into town...
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| Yes, that's our daughter picking her nose. Loooovely! |
I wouldn't do this with the kids in Kampala because there's too much traffic but Jinja is much slower paced and the main part of town is only 5-10 minutes away. 😉
We ate breakfast at one of my favorite cafes, Source Cafe, with our friends, Vanessa and Mike Thomas from back home!
Who knew we'd be here at the same time?! They are here with Kibo Group International. If you don't follow them on facebook, you really should. They are doing great things in Uganda and have a few fun fundraisers coming up in the Tulsa area including a 5k and Fun Run the morning of April 9th and a dinner benefit that evening.
After our visit, we did a little shopping at the craft booths and picked up a few dresses for Mercy, a toy wooden car for Asher, and some African pants for the girls...
When we got back to the guest house, we were greeted with smoothies made with bananas, pineapples, mangos, and passion fruit! They were so good. Our diet here has been a lot of starch so it was nice to have some fruit!
After that, the girls hit their school books...
and I tried to keep the littles outside as much as possible...
Mercy has zero attention span so it's been really challenging trying to keep her busy and out of our stuff (like our lotion, make-up, soap, toilet paper, snacks, etc.)
The guesthouse has an amazing lady that cleans everyone's laundry. Her name is Christine and she does such a great job. This was our laundry today - I had to apologize because we had so much! We get pretty dirty here with all the red dirt!
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| Folding our laundry |
The highlight of our day was getting to FaceTime with Steve before he went to work this morning. We miss him so much! 😔 Praying we are together again SOON!
Day 14: February 9, 2016 - Today marks 2 weeks in Uganda and we discovered a treasure in Jinja! GELATO! It is served at another guest house just a few blocks from us (which could be dangerous! 😉). It's called Balidha Guesthouse and is run by a 75-year old Italian lady. She said she taught school up until December and now runs the guest house. And she was a spunky one, too! She was full of advice for me on how to discipline my children and teaching Asher proper manners 😂. The gelato was so good! Kenzie and I had banana and the littles had mango. She also serves authentic Italian food for lunch and dinner, with a reservation so we will definitely be going back. Still makes me giggle that we experienced that in Uganda, Africa. 😉
Prayer requests for this week:
1. Our judge said he'd give us his verbal ruling for guardianship this Friday by noon. Please pray he keeps his word. We are also asking God for the written ruling at the same time (this rarely happens but does on occasion). With elections coming up February 18, there is a good chance we won't get it until the end of the month.
2. We are working on obtaining Mercy's passport. Please pray that it is a swift and painless process. I have heard the passport office is out of books and they don't expect to receive any until March 3rd. It baffles me how that happens. 😳
3. Thank you to everyone who prayed early this morning (our time) for Abby. She is feeling much better and we appreciate your prayers for our good health.
Here are a few more pics from our day. Playing in the dirt...
The littles are getting verrrrry brave around the guest house dogs. Usually Mercy lets out a blood curdling scream and holds on to me so tight. This was a big step for her!
