![\"101_0191\"](\"https:\/\/darthjedi.logiodice.com\/blog\/content\/binary\/WindowsLiveWriter\/Adaytoremember_1154D\/101_0191.jpg\" "\\"101_0191\\"")
<\/a> <\/p>\nHere is a road sign for the road the Cr\u00e8che is on.<\/p>\n
<\/p>\n We spent the afternoon at the orphanage; and it was so amazing to see our children again!<\/p>\n Our daughter is getting so big; she is finally starting to look like a 5 year old (perhaps even a bit older) \u2013 our son has fallen in love with me; at one point, after playing and roughing around, and squirming and fidgeting, he just turned around and gave me this gigantic hug, and he just kept hugging me.<\/p>\n He has become so attached that when his biological mother Nathalie was holding him; he kept reaching for me; it was bitter sweet\u2026 <\/p>\n And it took Christella ALOT less time to warm up to us as well\u2026<\/p>\n <\/p>\n <\/p>\n but I\u2019m getting ahead of myself\u2026<\/p>\n <\/p>\n Last night we arrived from the Orphanage around 5:30 I crashed hard \u2013 I couldn\u2019t stay awake; I couldn\u2019t get up; I could barely even move\u2026 I have no idea what was wrong with me\u2026 but apparently I really needed sleep.<\/p>\n Around 5:30 this morning our son woke us up \u2013 he wanted his second bottle of the morning \u2013 his cry started very docile and weak; but rose to a wail that was both loud and soft at the same time; he settled down for awhile, except; he was soon standing in his pack-n-play, he really wanted attention \u2013 he is so used to having 15 other babies to play with\u2026 did I mention he is both crawling and standing now\u2026 (Oh and eating everything he can get his hands on \u2013 I had to save this poor plant).<\/p>\n <\/p>\n<\/p>\n <\/p>\n What we didn\u2019t know was that morning at 5:30; his mother showed up at the Cr\u00e8che just as she had promised she would; and she just sat there and waited until 1:00 o\u2019clock when we were finally able to get back to the house\u2026 but again, I\u2019m getting ahead of myself.<\/p>\n We were supposed to be to the Embassy at 11:00 and were supposed to be picked up at 10:30; however, when I called Chris to ask how her hectic morning was going \u2013 she was in a big rush and said she\u2019d have to get back to me; a child had taken ill and was unresponsive (the child turned out to be ok in the end; just had a very high temperature) \u2013 but that made the already hectic morning even more hectic.<\/p>\n So we arrive at the Embassy around 20 minutes late (no pictures; you can\u2019t bring anything in with you but papers basically) \u2013 and the Embassy went amazingly smoothly. We were able to file our i600 (this was the third attempt) \u2013 we were able to file both the i600 and our Adjudicate Orphan First advance processing. This AOF paperwork will allow the Embassy to research the children\u2019s eligibility for immigration long before the final court decree in Parquet \u2013 it will keep us from having to worry about adopting our children who then can\u2019t legally im to the U.S. and will help speed up the process as well, because that research can be done while we\u2019re doing a lot of the other court work; there are some potential pitfalls for this approach too \u2013 but I won\u2019t go into them here\u2026 as I think we\u2019re going to be all set.<\/p>\n So, that took us until almost 12:30; we had our Interview with the Embassy, paid our additional fees, signed papers, and we were back out the door. <\/p>\n When we got to the Orphanage, we met Mamma David (Nathalie) and Christella\u2019s Uncle Bernier (we talked a lot during the day; but it was always SO noisy) at the Orphanage.<\/p>\n <\/p>\n Our lawyer did an amazing job in setting up an interview with the judge in just one afternoon; he had all the papers ready and waiting for us to sign them. The ride was amazingly eye opening \u2013 like always, but I couldn\u2019t take pictures, because I was busy holding on for dear life\u2026 I\u2019ll try and get some pictures from the back of the box truck tomorrow\u2026<\/p>\n After talking with the Judge we found there was a slight problem; the Judge was fairly new to his post; and he wasn\u2019t sure if he could allow us to sign the papers \u2013 because we are under 35 and thus can\u2019t legally adopt in Haiti \u2013 we know we need a presidential waiver to adopt; but he was thinking perhaps that he couldn\u2019t allow us to sign with the parents until after the presidential waiver. Our lawyer pulled out his law book and showed the judge that we could get a waiver after the signing, because we were more than 20 years older than our children we are adopting, and were married for over 10 years. The judge graciously agreed to allow us to sign today; and he was going to research and have our lawyer provide evidences to confirm our ability to adopt tomorrow.<\/p>\n However, after we were all done; and we thought we were complete, and we were just waiting to sign documents; our friend Junior realized that they had recently changed addresses at the Cr\u00e8che, and the new address put the Cr\u00e8che in a new district not overseen by this judge.<\/p>\n While we were waiting, a policeman that towered over me, holding what looked to be a sawed off pump action shotgun and escorting a prisoner came and stood in my face and yelled \u201cAn Fom\u201d \u2013 I had no idea what he said; so I said \u201cSa k\u2019 Pase\u201d (What\u2019s up) \u2013 and he said \u201cAn fom\u201d and I said \u201cMyen Pa Konnprann\u201d (I don\u2019t understand you) so he responded \u201cKomo ye\u201d (How are you), and I responded (Bon anpil). He then proceeded to ask me my name, my wife\u2019s name and Chris\u2019 name. He then told me to have a good day and walked out the door. Junior came in from outside laughing, because the guards were outside laughing about it \u2013 I guess the Policeman was trying to intimidate me, and was just messing with me. I guess I\u2019m too dumb to be intimidated.<\/p>\n So after it was confirmed that we were at the wrong judge, our lawyer once again went into overdrive and instantly got in touch with the new judge we were supposed to see \u2013 and got us an immediate audience \u2013 I was amazed!<\/p>\n So, we got back in the box truck and went for another drive. When we got to the new court house; we met the judge; the first thing he said to me in Kreyole was \u201cIf you weren\u2019t with him (my lawyer) \u2013 there is no way I would let you into my court house wearing shorts\u201d\u2026 I felt really bad, because I knew that in Haiti it is very important how you dress, however, I had told our Lawyer that I had no long pants, because I couldn\u2019t survive the heat in them \u2013 and he said it was ok for me to dress in pants\u2026 My lawyer told me after the judge was kidding \u2013 but the judge never let on that he was\u2026.<\/p>\n Anyway, this new judge accepted our request; and we got the family council done, the Adoption Decree done, and the PVA done, all in a single swoop! <\/p>\n Below are pictures of Amanda and I accepting the parental rights of David and Christella, whom their guardians had just previously relinquished to us; this is kind of akin to standing before a judge and saying \u201cI do\u201d during a wedding; it was amazing, and hard all at the same time\u2026 <\/p>\n When asked if there was anything Nathalie would like to know about us, she replied, that she knew all she needed to know \u2013 that we loved David, and we would provide a good home for him. She also said that she would pray for us. She asked one thing of us, and that is if David could come to Haiti and visit her when he turns 18 \u2013 we have already begun preparing for the day, and we have already told each other that we would support our children wanting to learn and know their roots \u2013 so this was an easy answer; but it was a sad question to answer too.<\/p>\n (Although it\u2019s gross \u2013 you can see that I was SOAKED in sweat!)<\/p>\n It was also sobering, as always \u2013 to get a glimpse into the life of this country. Christella\u2019s uncle told me a lot about her family, and his. He is a builder by trade, but he is no longer working; he has 7 children to care for, and can\u2019t afford to send them to school. As we were running around from place to place today; Amanda bought some water for us out of a bag from a bucket from on top of a street vendor\u2019s head \u2013 while reluctant to drink; i was exhausted and dehydrated, and hadn\u2019t eaten anything but a few crackers since 7 o\u2019clock this morning. But then I realized that Christella\u2019s uncle and David\u2019s mom probably hadn\u2019t eaten hardly anything that day either; but at the end of the day I was going to climb back into the bed at the hotel, have a full meal, air condition, and all the water I could drink. <\/p>\n There was so much I want to do to help them; but, there isn\u2019t much I can do for many different reasons \u2013 more than I can go into here\u2026 at least for now\u2026 I don\u2019t know about the future\u2026<\/p>\n So now; there is still a big long list of things that our lawyer needs to accomplish before we can even get into the IBESR (Haitian Social Services) \u2013 but we are amazed (and Chris the Cr\u00e8che director also seemed amazed) at how much we were able to get accomplished today.<\/p>\n At this point; I owe gratitude to our lawyer, Cliff, the orphanage director and assistant director Chris and Junior, and the H.I.S. Home staff; Gary, Richmond, Jude, Marlene, and Hal \u2013 and so many other people that I don\u2019t even know by name that made today go as well as it did.<\/p>\n And of course, without question, God. I was sitting and praying for most of the time in the judge\u2019s office today. Once again, He has shown Himself to be strong when rescuing us from some of the most impossible situations. <\/p>\n It is now storming horribly outside right now, the internet keeps going up and down; the MagicJack is working on and off; i have dust caked to my body, covered in sweat, I smell – I can\u2019t smell from the burning left in my lungs from the days air intake, my body aches, I have a headache\u2026 I\u2019m suffering some of the left over effects of dehydration, and the left over effects that I have when my blood sugar gets low after I go so long without eating but in the end; I would have to say, that this is a day that I never want to forget\u2026 <\/p>\n Today, I witnessed the birth of Christella Logiodice, and Jediah Logiodice II; and like the other three births before them; it brought me to humble appreciation and love for the God that is.<\/p>\n <\/p>\n We arrived in Port-Au-Prince on Monday afternoon; almost completely without incident. There were no mobs of people, we were able to get right through immigration and right through customs all by ourselves; and we only had to wait about 30 minutes for our ride; and it was a great sight to see our friends come … Continue reading “As two born, not of flesh, but of heart and soul\u2026 a day to remember\u2026”<\/span><\/a><\/p>\n","protected":false},"author":1,"featured_media":0,"comment_status":"open","ping_status":"open","sticky":false,"template":"","format":"standard","meta":{"_jetpack_memberships_contains_paid_content":false,"footnotes":""},"categories":[14],"tags":[],"class_list":["post-110","post","type-post","status-publish","format-standard","hentry","category-main"],"jetpack_featured_media_url":"","jetpack_sharing_enabled":true,"amp_enabled":true,"_links":{"self":[{"href":"https:\/\/darthjedi.logiodice.com\/index.php?rest_route=\/wp\/v2\/posts\/110","targetHints":{"allow":["GET"]}}],"collection":[{"href":"https:\/\/darthjedi.logiodice.com\/index.php?rest_route=\/wp\/v2\/posts"}],"about":[{"href":"https:\/\/darthjedi.logiodice.com\/index.php?rest_route=\/wp\/v2\/types\/post"}],"author":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/darthjedi.logiodice.com\/index.php?rest_route=\/wp\/v2\/users\/1"}],"replies":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/darthjedi.logiodice.com\/index.php?rest_route=%2Fwp%2Fv2%2Fcomments&post=110"}],"version-history":[{"count":0,"href":"https:\/\/darthjedi.logiodice.com\/index.php?rest_route=\/wp\/v2\/posts\/110\/revisions"}],"wp:attachment":[{"href":"https:\/\/darthjedi.logiodice.com\/index.php?rest_route=%2Fwp%2Fv2%2Fmedia&parent=110"}],"wp:term":[{"taxonomy":"category","embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/darthjedi.logiodice.com\/index.php?rest_route=%2Fwp%2Fv2%2Fcategories&post=110"},{"taxonomy":"post_tag","embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/darthjedi.logiodice.com\/index.php?rest_route=%2Fwp%2Fv2%2Ftags&post=110"}],"curies":[{"name":"wp","href":"https:\/\/api.w.org\/{rel}","templated":true}]}}<\/a> <\/p>\n<\/a> <\/p>\n<\/a> <\/p>\n<\/a> <\/p>\n<\/a> <\/p>\n<\/a> <\/p>\n<\/a> <\/p>\n<\/a><\/p>\n<\/a> <\/p>\n<\/a> <\/p>\n<\/a> <\/p>\n<\/p>\n<\/p>\n<\/p>\n<\/a><\/p>\n<\/a><\/p>\n","protected":false},"excerpt":{"rendered":"