Category: diary

To adopt in Haiti one spouse must be 35 years of age, and if you one isn’t 35 years of age, you must have been married for 10 or more years.  You must have no biological children, and you must be 19 years older than the child you are adopting.

Herein lies our problem.

 

• Even though we’ve been married for over ten years, I am 31, Amanda is 29 – strike 1.
• Even though the oldest child we are wanting to adopt is 5, so Amanda is 24 and I am almost 26 years older respectively, we have 3 biological children – strike 2.

 

Our attorney said that with both of these issues going against us, he would highly recommend us waiting until I reach 35 (4 more years) before we begin to adopt from Haiti, as the probability of our adoption taking an ‘indefinite amount of time’ is very high; and the possibility of being denied is very strong.

When looking at our adoption process, we have already spent months of dedicated time in preparing our family and our home and our paperwork for our adoption of our two Haitian children, and have invested unmentionable amounts of money just to get to the point of submitting our paperwork to the Haitian government. 

We have invested time, emotion and love into our someday-to-be-children, felt the heartache of watching these two little children through the video screen of a computer, and wanting nothing more than to hold them in our arms, to give them the love and comforts that their biological parents could not give them.  We’ve shed many, many tears thinking about how long it would be before they were safe at home with us, and how much hurt (especially our older girl) has gone through in loosing both her parents to death, and wanting to be there to comfort that pain and fill that emptiness.

We knew it was going to be tough, and yet, no one has actually quantified how tough it really was going to be for us to walk this road.  The pain of possibility of year after year just waiting, and hoping; the possibility that even after all this we might be rejected.  The fact that our little children will be sitting and waiting without parents to tuck them in at night during this whole time we fight for their future.

So now we’re supposed to walk away?  I’m left numb, and disillusioned and saddened.  Why would God send us here, just to find a dead-end road. 

Surely we will take His hand and allow Him to lead us, and open doors in His time, in His time.  He has brought us here, He will make a way!

As Antoine De Saint-Exupéry states:  You risk much weeping if you allow yourself to be tamed. :~(

Christella was a little more communicative today.  She nodded to us a few times, and she waved to Bella when we were looking the other way.  She still doesn’t say much of anything and seems more interested in what all the other children are doing during our time together, but I have to keep reminding myself that she is 5 years old after all – how much fun can she have with a bunch of old people on the t.v. screen…

Little Jedidiah has grown SO MUCH!  It’s incredible, he looks like a completely different baby.  Amanda had to ask Hal if he was sure he brought us the right baby for the call! 🙂

He kept looking at Hal to get kisses on the head over and over again – it was so adorable.  I am very excited to go and see them again; and at this point, I’m almost not dreading the plane right anymore.  Whatever happens will happen, and if I get to see my babies again, I’ll be a happy man!

I’ll steal some of Amanda’s snapshots from her blog, so I don’t have to take any on my own 🙂

 

 

 

 

If I wasn’t so worried about leaving my children without parents if something happened to me, I think I would be on the next plane to Haiti! 

Skyping with our children in Haiti is getting a little easier.  Settling back into the understanding that it is going to take time, a long time, and there is nothing we can do about it, brings almost a sense of relief in the acceptance.  Please don’t misunderstand, it saddens me beyond words that it’s going to take so long, and I’m still resolved to do anything and everything I can to speed along the process, but, there is a certain pressure and pain in worrying about something you can’t change that is relieved when you finally accept that you can’t change something.

Instead, I realized today, I need to focus on what I can do.  I can work to gain more financial independence so that I can give my five children an even better life.  I can continue to work on being a better father and provider.  I can pray without ceasing for the health and safety of my entire family (even with it being spread across the continent).

But I realized today too that I can’t be so caught up in getting my children home, that I forget to live my life with my children that are already home.

I think I really would be on a plane to Haiti tomorrow, if I didn’t have to worry about what would happen to my children if something happened to me…

Perhaps there is some blessing in how fast time flies… we are finishing up our Dossier within the next week or two – hoping that our lawyer can connect up with our Cresh, so we can get our dossier submitted – and then the long wait starts….

 

Jedidiah and Christella; beautiful and half a world away.  I can’t wait to hold them again!

We made it home yesterday – after waiting 5 hours in the Haiti terminal, getting three hours of sleep in a Miami hotel, and another 2 hour flight and 5 hour drive. We are exhausted, and emotionally drained. To top it off, I think we picked something up on the way home, because we’ve been quite sick since Saturday evening.

I want to talk to our girls so bad; I want them to know that we didn’t abandon them, that we are still alive, that we are coming back for them, but I can’t – yet – and even if I could – how much would they understand?

It’s like these two people stepped out of a television show (Skype), made them happy for a week, showered them with love and affection, attention, and even physical possessions, that I’m sure they’ve had very little of – and then, like a dream, they woke up again one morning, and we were gone.

Do they know we really exist, do they know we really do love them, do they know that we’re coming back for them. Do they?

I was thinking when I got home, the famous words, of my most favorite movie: “The next time I go looking for my heart’s desire, I won’t look any further than my own backyard; if it’s not there, then I never really lost it to begin with.” – but that’s not entirely true – I am SO happy to be home, and the trip to Haiti has made me appreciate so much in my life that has gone unappreciated – I am truly a new person… but… I left part of my heart back in Haiti – so I now can’t really say that my heart’s desire is all in my own backyard… how very heart breaking…

 

Lord, please tell me… when can I be whole again? L

– Christella

– Fabienne

Wow! I’ve never been so overwhelmed so quickly. We went to the orphanage today, and went down into the toddler room – and we were swamped by 20 some odd toddlers, saying “mamma me”, “papa, papa” and covering us, and holding upraised hands with little fingers that were flashing “pick me up, pick me up”.

Every child had to have their turn, being held by “Papa” – and for each child I picked up; I got HUGE grins, and smiles, and then I put them down and moved on to the next child.

I was overwhelmed during that time, and felt almost a little dirty because of all of the runny noses and dirty hands that I had all over me (and I’m a clean freak). But later on, as I was leaving, I was also overwhelmed with sadness, as I saw these faces starting at me from around the back yard to wave goodbye.

 
 

Many of these children are being adopted, but because of the laws of Haiti, they have been waiting SO very long, and very rarely get to actually feel the touch of their parents.

HIS Home for children was amazing; the love they are given, the care they are given, but nothing, and I mean nothing can compare to the gentle brush on a cheek from mamma or papa. I was overwhelmed with sadness as we left, and waved goodbye.

A couple of the children, one especially, who had almost died when he had first come in, and had went

and had a treatment in the states and came back HIV positive from a blood transfusion, this little boy touched my heart.

He was going around to everyone and kissing everyone, and hugging everyone. He even asked me to go around and give out kisses and hugs with him. Every time he saw me he would look up at me and give me a huge grin, because I had helped him up the stairs when we first got there and he was terrified, and then gave him a couple chocolates.

I’ve been fighting back constant tears today, realizing that we are leaving our girls in two days… I hope they understand, that they can begin to understand that if it is God’s will, that we will be back for them, as soon as we can…

Ok, there are so many wonderful and amazing things to say about our children and our experience so far.. but Amanda has been keeping everyone apprised of how things are going (with pictures too). Right now, because I’m exhausted, and I don’t feel very well – I’m just going to say…. I ate goat today!

  

One week left until we hop on a plane and fly over the entire eastern coast of the United States and land inside of Haiti.

I don’t think I’ve ever been more worried and excited all at the same time!

I have three beautiful, wonderful children here at home that I’ve never been without for more than a day. Three children that I haven’t ever spent as much time as I would like with, three children that have so much potential and possibilities and capabilities if they can grow up in a loving and caring home filled with their mother and father.

If something was to happen to us, they’ll live on, I know they will, they’ll adjust, they’ll have to, and they’ll be loved and cared for, I know they will, but it just won’t be the same for them… how would they cope, would they be raised the way we long to raise them, would they have a loving relationship with God their father? Would they blame God, and if they do, who is going to help them understand and accept His will?

And then I have two beautiful, wonderful little girls that are in Haiti. I do not know them very well, except that they are fearfully and wonderfully made in the image of our Father and creator, that they have no home of their own, and no family of their own, and that I have this indescribable desire to love them, and hold them, and give them out of everything great and small that the Lord has given to me. And what if they lose yet another set of parents?

Would they all have the wisdom to say: “Blessed be the name of the Lord: Blessed be his name in a land that is plentiful, where the streams of abundance flow: Blessed be his name when the road’s filled with suffering, when there’s pain in the offering, Blessed be his name… He gives and takes away, but my heart will choose to say, Lord, Blessed be your name!”

While life is always on the edge, and at any moment something could happen to me or Amanda or both (may it never be), I weep for the possibility that my children could lose their parents, and also that our daughters from Haiti wouldn’t ever get to know the love that we have to offer them. The fear that no parent wants to face, and yet, it’s always there…

To leave my children without a father (or mother) would be something I hope they never have to face, but don’t misunderstand, I don’t fear for my own life (well – except that I hope I don’t go painfully ), because I truly believe for me “To live is Christ, but to die is gain…”

Lord protect us, and give us the strength to face anything you send our way!