Happy Thanksgiving!

Happy Thanksgiving America!

I feel blessed today to live in the land of the free and the home of the brave (especially since I'm not there now!) and I can't wait to bring my son home and raise him in our great country! Spending Thanksgiving Day in a nation like the Congo is an effective way to restore my thankfulness for all of the freedom , blessing and opportunity we know in the USA.

Anywho, Moses is making good progress and our meeting at the embassy went well... All 60 seconds of it! It's amazing that you can fill out paperwork, wait for two years, fly for two days all to have them ask you THREE QUESTIONS then send you on your way! Joking and frustration aside he was really nice and said he was going to try to wrap this up as quickly as he could. So now they do an investigation of sorts into the area where he was found, make sure its all ok, then issue him a visa and then we have to get our travel docs to leave from the DRC. That's where it's at. It feels slow but I know I am not the only case that is happening. On a side note, ten (10) French couples arrived yesterday as a group and brought all of their newly adopted kids to the guesthouse! Some 15 kids or so. It was pandemonium until they realized that these rooms are a bit tight for four or five ppl each so... They all just moved out to a hotel! 

I know some have mentioned the unrest and military action here in DRC. I can say that it is happening in the eastern part of the country and that I feel quite safe here. We are located in the same area as the embassy's in Kinshasa so they have increased police here. Police or no police, We are under God's protection so I am trusting Him. The Congo is a nation in change and transition, from poverty and dependence on leaders to individual success and freedoms. These transitions come slowly and can be messy. We are as safe at present as we can be in the DRC, but I am not longing to stay any longer than I have to! Besides the whole "safety thing" i could really use a hot shower! Actually i would settle for luke warm! Thanks for your prayers for continued safety and a speedy end to our stay here, I wish each of you a Happy Thanksgiving.

Brent

Ambien... and other vitamins

It has been an interesting 24 hours as I have taken custody of Moses Blessing and had him all by myself.  I picked him up at the clinic where he was receiving his vaccinations for travel and while it may not have been the most joyful of days it was made better by the fact that I took him after he had received the shots and therefore i "rescued" him from those terrible-mean doctors! Daddy points!

He had already had a low grade fever (not uncommon here) so the shots aggravated that and needless to say we had a Looooong night. I did get a few hours of sleep before we had to be up and ready for our embassy appointment first thing.

 Part of my morning routine in most foreign countries is to pop a Zophran under my tongue on the way to breakfast to stop motion sickness. ( a few of you have witnessed what happens when I do not)  Zophran is a kind of sweet, fast dissolving little white pill... I call it a wonder drug! 

So imagine my surprise when the little white pill I popped under my tongue was not dissolving very well and started to taste nasty! Spitting it out i discovered that instead of Zophran I had taken the surprisingly similar looking AMBIEN!!!  While AMBIEN is a wonder drug of its own right, it is definitely not what I needed just before our appointment with the U.S. Consular General for the DRC! I downed an extra Nescafé at breakfast, just in case I had left it under my tongue too long!

So, I suppose a day could always be worse.

It is the rainy season here so it has been pouring on and off since I arrived. So much that yesterday the street outside our compound looked like an extremely muddy version of the Boise River, no joke. As we pulled up to the cross street I thought "oh great, we are gonna have to walk all five blocks to get to the gates of the guest house" I was wrong, because right about then our driver (in an very small Mazda mini van thingy) gunned it and drove us upstream and up to our door! We must have floated part of the way because there is no way that car could do that! I have seen RAFTS that couldnt do that!  

So yes, the weather here has been damp to say the least.... That is until today when the clouds broke and the blue sky opened up so the sun could shine! This was fantastic as I was feeling the need for a little vitamin D.  The sun is great, the only problem is that when the sun comes out here in the DRC, it gets what I now call "Congo-Hot". I been to a few tropical regions in my short life, but this Congo-Hot is truly something!

Yes, is been a very interesting 24hours or so. Moses Blessing is doing pretty well. There are the challenges that come from being handed over to a complete stranger, but he is warming up to me. Today at lunch he ate all of his steak and most of mine. I use the word steak very loosely here. It was kind of tasty and tasted like beef most of the meal, but it had its moments. And as always in situations like these.... It's better not to know. Some meals you would just rather call tasty instead of the proper name for it.

So that's all for now, thanks for all of your prayers for a speedy wrap up on this end. Tomorrow is Thanksgiving and since no one here cares, I thought Moses and I would hit the Chinese Buffet here(I've heard it exists) cause there sure aren't any turkeys running around here and I figure the Chinese Buffet will give me that sickly full feeling just as well as Thanksgiving Dinner can!

Today is the day

This is it! In just an hour or so I will head to the clinic where Moses Blessing is receiving his yellow fever shot :( and bring him with me... Forever!  Woot woot!
Yesterday I met him, snuggled him and spent time at the home where he has stayed and today I take over his custody officially.
I am excited... Nervous... But surprisingly calm. Of course that may be from a lack of caffienation.
I miss Kate and my girls and so wish they were here to see all of this.
I love the Congo and in fact it set in as I drove the streets yesterday, I really love Africa! Each time I come it sinks in a little more! Thankfully this trip I get to bring home Africa with me!
It so humid today, it's the rainy season which basically means that the humidity increases until droplets form in midair and bingo, rain!
My skin loves the humidity, my hair, not so much.
I have been thinking a lot about the last two years and our process to get here and bring him home. There have been mountains around every corner it seems, hurdles that have looked too high to clear. But I sit here today amazed at God's great faithfullness, mercy and love, that has led us, encouraged us, challenged us and allowed us to see a glimpse of God's heart of love through adoption.
Sorry, that sentence had more commas than a jr. High poem!
Anywho... I am trying to upload a picture of the view from my room, hope it comes through.
So, I bring him with me today, we have our embassy appointment tomorrow and then I am waiting for our exit papers. Thanks for praying me home quickly!

Journey of a Lifetime - bringing home my boy

The  journey of a life time has begun and my heart rests in the truth that God is truly in control.

An unbelievable week of preperation culminated in 24 hours of absolute pandimonium!

It's a good thing our life as a family is already pretty wild from day to day or I would start to seriously doubt my own sanity.

So... Boise to Chicago, Chicago to Brussels and then On to Kinshasa DRC... 

Thankfully i like a good adventure because based on how this all went this week, this trip is going to be anything but normal.

Oh yes folks, make sure that your seat belts are buckled and seat backs are in their full upright and locked position cause this is gonna be good!

$1 Adoption

We have been planning to host a fun and festive fundraiser to raise money for our travel to the Congo  to bring home our son, but since we have just recently been given the chance to go in November we are in a little bit more of a hurry!

We are excited for the opportunity to go earlier than expected, but still in need of funds for my (Brent's) flight to and 3 week stay in the DRC.  We have paid for the actual adoption expenses,  so all of the funds raised here will go toward travel.

We have been so blessed by the love and support that our friends and family have shown during this wild and crazy ride and we are asking for one more thing... $1...  thats right, one dollar.  

If each person who reads this simply clicks the Donate button above and gives one dollar and then and passes it on to all of their friends, neighbors and contacts just think of how quickly this could go!

Lets face it, it's $1, you wont even notice that it's gone!  But that dollar puts us that much closer to bring home our beautiful boy.

It's not just about the dollar.  Ideally every $1 gift would be partnered with an earnest prayer for a quick, safe and successful journey to the Congo and home again... and you can be sure that we are praying for each of you.

So that's it.  We are asking you to give $1 and then pass on the link by posting it on your Facebook (come on, you know you've posted stupider things!) Blog it, or send it to your contact list. 

If you would like to leave a message for us, we would love that to, every little bit of encouragement helps!

We pray God's rich blessing on you, thank you from our whole family!

Brent, Kate, Ava, Leora, Ellis, Violet and Congo Baby (Name TBA)

What a difference a year makes...

We haven't updated the blog for over a year, mostly because we have tried to keep things up to date via Facebook.
But we have had some changes and wanted to let everyone know what is going on with our adoption from the DRC.
In April of this year we welcomed little Violet Grace into the world and she has been such a joy for all of us! She is healthy, happy and full of life and spunk, so she fits right in around here!
Two weeks after Violet was born we received news that we had lost our first referral.  It is quite a long story as to how and why and frankly, in the end, we are not sure about every detail, but we know that he is with a loving family elsewhere. This was difficult news for all of us. 
We took time and prayed and felt led to continue with our plans with the Congo and with our agency and we continued to pray for just the right little boy for our family.
This summer we accepted a new referral of a little boy that we know is a gift from God!
Or paper work was done ( had been done for a long time!) and we were just waiting for his to be completed in the DRC.  We were  told that the wait for travel would still likely be in the early spring of 2013.  So imagine our surprise when we received an email last Sunday night stating that we could travel as early as November if we filed our I-600 form in the DRC rather than in the States!  We prayed about it and decided that I (Brent) will travel to bring home our son in November! WOW!
We had planned to do several fundraisers this winter, now that we don't have the time, we need to do get on the stick with some fundraising for the travel expenses ASAP!
We will keep you posted on all of the details and I will post pictures of our little dude today sometime!  Thank you all so much for your love and support through this loooonnnngggg process! It means so much to have friends and family like you.

Some new family photos we just had done!