Rwanda's Presidential Election

Rwanda's Presidential Election is coming up on August 9. Posted below is a link to an article that shared an interesting perspective on the election. My prayer is for the safety of the country during this time.
http://www.reuters.com/article/idUSTRE6741LR20100805

Progress

I finally feel like I am in control of the paper chase. Yes, God is in control over everything, but until a day ago I felt like I was going about the process blindly and with little progress being made. Over the weekend, with the kids away at their grandparents house, I was able to quietly and intently go over all the paperwork and truly understand what is left to do. To my surprise, I am almost through with the paper chase. Can I get an Amen! This truly has been a grueling paper pregnancy and to my happiness, I have just been given an epidural. Another Amen please. The homestudy document will be finalized by the end of the week and submitted with the I-600. We will then wait for our issued fingerprint appointment and our USCIS (paper approval by the USA to adopt internationally and needed to bring our new son into the USA.) All of our paperwork for the dossier has been collected or on its way to us in the mail and most everything has been notorized. Once we get the USCIS in the mail we will be able to take all of our notorized paperwork to the Secretary of the State in Tallahassee to be authenticated. Once this is done we will have our medical redone and our dossier will be complete and ready for AWAA to review. Once AWAA receives our dossier, our paper chase will be done. They send it to the Rwandan Embassy in the USA, then to Rwanda (I think 1 month), we will wait approximately 9 months for a referral and a couple weeks later traveling to Rwanda to get our son. I know this might sound like a lot, but it really isn't. Most of this is waiting. The current trend to get the USCIS from the I-600 is 2 mths. Assuming God's timing is following the trend, we will be traveling to get our son (1-2.5 years old) in July/ August 2011.

2nd homestudy

I am sitting here this morning recounting the interview I had with the social worker and am not too happy. The very first thing she asks me to do is describe Brian. No problem. He's nice, generous, always putting others first, hard working, and the list goes on. Then she asks me to describe myself. I don't know why, maybe it was because it was after 8pm and my brain had already shut down for the night, but I couldn't think of anything. I often think about how great Brian is, but I guess I never have given much thought to who I am. After about 10 seconds of twirling my fingers I came up with it. "I guess I'm introverted." Wow. Brilliant Anna. Of course now I think of all the things I should have said...Christian, trustworthy, dependable, nice, down to earth, responsible, etc. I guess the important thing is that when it counts, I'm introverted. Oh brother. After this, I was asked to describe my childhood and my family. Finally, I was asked what my greatest source of frustration is. I giggled. "Do I have to answer this?" yes. "Well, I guess that would be my children." She laughed. So that concludes home study 2 and 3 and #4 will be on Monday. This should be our last one. Here's to hoping I am able to redeem myself a little. The good news - I have not been told I need therapy. Todays goal will be ordering certified copies of birth certificates and marriage certificate.

1st homestudy

We survived! We had our 1st homestudy today and it went really well. Our social worker was really nice. We were asked about our motivation to adopt, how we came to choose Rwanda, why international, discussed risks with adoption and how we would handle them, developmental delays, attachment disorders, what our expectations are, how much our children understand about the process and what their thoughts are, etc. The one question that surprised me the most was what our thoughts are on our son's birth parents and if we'd be willing to let him track them down one day. While both Brian and I would be happy for our son to one day explore where he came from and search for his birth parents, I feel sad that he most likely will have no success. It is illegal in Rwanda to place your child up for adoption, so there will most likely be no information on them. I too would have liked to meet the mom and give her a hug. What a huge gift she is giving to us and I could only imagine how hard that would have been to walk away from her child. It is also likely that she may not be living. The other thing that I found interesting about that question was that I had previously given thought to our son's birth mother, but had never given any thought to his father. hmmm. I wonder if this is a mom to mom thing. I would definitely welcome any information on his birth father, but am much more focused on his birth mom. oh well. All in all the process took about 2 hrs and ended with a tour of the house. As ridiculous as this sounds, I was more nervous about the cleanliness of the house than I was about the interrogations. I've got to admit, I was a little bummed when she didn't look in the pantry or laundry room that I scrubbed from top to bottom. Oh well, I am glad to have a clean house, at least for the time being.

Happy Mother's Day!

What a great weekend this was. Between my birthday and mother's day, I feel completely pampered. Today started with J and her Sunday school class singing a mother's day song and Our God is an Awesome God for the congregation. They were so cute. I was refreshed by the sermon about being a godly mother and not necessarily the kind of mother defined as "good" by the world. Even though I daily strive to be a godly mother, I feel convicted to make some tweaks to my attitude and patience level with my children. After church we met my mother-in-law, great mother-in-law and brother-in-law for a mother's day brunch at a local museum. We had a great time. Lastly, I made copies of the paperwork we are sending the social worker needed to begin our home studies. I have felt a bit discouraged lately by the lack of progress in the adoption and how much time things seem to be taking. With everything taking longer now than when we 1st started, I have been feeling more distant from our waiting child. As I was putting the documents in the envelope it got me to thinking about this child who I long for. I came across this great article on another blog. It describes this ladies trip to the Home of Hope orphanage in Kigali, Rwanda where our son will come from. My heart just aches for these children and I hope that more people will feel led to explore the idea of adoption. While we wait and wait and wait, I rest assured that the good Lord has control over all.

http://lifeofathousandhills.blogspot.com/2010/04/annuncia.html

lots of paper work

We are finally seeing the end to our first stack of paperwork. When we first started the adoption process, it was taking about 11mths from start to finish. Now it is taking close to 2yrs. While I am at peace with God's timing, I have been stressed that it is taking me so long to get through the paperwork needed to start the home study. Yesterday Brian finished his autobiography, we sent our background checks out to DCF and FDLE, visited our police dept. to get a criminal clearance from them, completed our blood work and drug screening, and got our financial statement done. It was nice to add this to all of the other paperwork we had done. The only thing pending now is J's, Brian's and my physical exam and a stack of papers that need to get notarized. All this should be done by the middle of next week and sent off to our social worker for review. When they receive our documents, we will start our homestudy process.

St. Anthony's Triathlon

Ok, so I know this has nothing to do with the adoption, but I just can't help myself. I am so proud of my husband and how dedicated he is to his race training. It really paid off for him. He finished 50th out of 218 in his division and qualified for the olympic distance national championship race in Tuscalusa, Alabama. Woo Hoo! His time was 2:31:33, which was a 1:33 slower than he was hoping, but the winds were something like 20mph and he had a stomach virus.