My Grandfather used to say "Oh you can't get there from here" and it would make me laugh! He always said it with a twinkle in his eye and a tease in his throat. I hear that statement often as we navigate the adoption of our children from
Haiti.
We fell in love with
Haiti and the Haitian people through supporting our friends in
Idaho. As they struggled to bring their children home for life saving surgeries, simple surgeries for cleft lips and
palettes but without which their precious babies would have died in Haiti, we learned about the culture, the politics and the challenges of adoption. We started a home study application, but before it was all finished
Steve deployed and then we got orders to
Virginia.We could not transfer our home study and didn't have the funds to start over.
With a heart for the orphaned and abandoned we asked God to show us how we
should proceed. When my husband came home and told me he'd signed us up to be
foster parents I have to confess my response was less than enthusiastic. I simply could not see how we would manage to handle the disruption and home school at the same time. However the Lord knew what He was doing! I learnt so much from the staff at the
DSS office and even more from the children whom entered our home. We loved and prayed and parented and mentored. We wept when our first daughter was allowed to stay in our home and become our forever child. We wept with joy for the gain and also for grief of the loss. We are always keenly aware that for a child to enter our home through adoption they must first leave another. We learnt to be compassionate and loving and thankful.
With a few months left before our second daughters adoption finalization we learned we would be moving again..to
South Carolina. we weighed the options and decided that
Steve would go ahead and the family would stay if we needed to. While we were weighing the what's and ifs we got an email from our brother in law. He had recently returned from a trip to
Haiti with a team who went regularly to provide help and hands to a ministry in
Haiti that worked with orphanages and clinics. While there they had been made aware of two children who needed a family. Did we know of anyone interested in
adopting from
Haiti.
My heart leaped when I read the email.. it was crazy to think this could be for us.. but still I couldn't let it go. I sent the email out to several friends who were thinking of adoption but no one responded that they could do it. Then I refreshed my email and saw that my husband had responded.. "Yes, we
are." Well OK.. we still had a home study and background check on file inVA.. we started the process...
We moved to
South Carolina and ran into our first hurdle.. no one would take us and work our adoption for us because we would have to get Presidential Dispensation to adopt from
Haiti....
we began to petition the necessary agencies to get dispensation.. it seemed that the answer was going to be no.. and then an earthquake hit
Haiti. We were frantic, trying to get information of our two children whom we had now fallen in love with and wanted home ASAP! Then we heard we had been given a thumbs up to move forward.. we applied for Humanitarian Parole and were granted it! We
had our home study in hand and needed just one more piece of paper to bring the children home.
Dr Bernard agreed to work with us to bring the children home even though these children were in a different orphanage and one that typically did not facilitate adoptions. (We had to get special
permission from the President of the organization to move forward)...
Steve flew to
Haiti on 4th July 2010. By that time we had heard that a man claiming to be the children's father had visited the orphanage to check they were OK. We were amazed and
relieved! We had been told the parents had died in the flooding two years prior. No news of the father having visited before had surfaced so we could now get his consent to adopt.. it would be easier in the long run and.. who can be sad that a person survived? Not us.
To cut a long story short, the parents had lied about their death to make
sure that their children could get food. Life is desperate for many, many
families in
Haiti, we don't judge them or even fault them for that, what a terrible choice to have
to make! They had been visiting their children secretly and did not want to
give them up for adoption, especially as there would be nothing in it for them.
They chose to leave their children in the orphanage. At the time I thought I
would never be able to take another deep breath again. The air wouldn't suck
into my lungs, the grief of loss hit me hard! I had though at each turn and
each open door that "my will was being done" not realizing that it
ALWAYS "Thy will." Now I can see the blessings of this terrible time,
then I couldn't.. all I could see was the death of the dreams, plans and joys I
had planned for my two children. The death of our relationship.. the death of
hope! Oh me of little faith!
Steve and
Dr Bernard returned to the New Life Link Orphanage at Bethel House.
Dr Bernard
had moved the children from their destroyed orphanage in Port AU Prince to the
beautiful guest house in the hills. By God's grace not a single child had been
lost when their house collapsed! A missions group had been staying at the house
and
Steve had a chance to share the loss of our children with the youth. It was good to see the Lord leading us to accept His will graciously so as to bring glory to Him and to encourage others
to do the same thing in their lives. Our plans are not always God's plans but
God's plans are always perfect for us..even if it hurts!
Dr Bernard gently encouraged
Steve and I to think of transferring our parole to two other children who were ready for adoption.. who needed homes.. in one of hardest decisions ever we agreed.
Steve went to the embassy the next day.. only to be told we could not transfer. The lady he talked to was distressed to hear what had happened to us and even more so to tell us that we would have to start over if we wanted to bring these children home. Two days.. more loss!
After
Steve returned from
Haiti we thought long and hard about moving forward again. We talked to the children and considered the options. At the end of it all we couldn't deny our love of
Haiti and our
call to have a home for children. We emailed
Dr Bernard and asked to be considered for adoption, we asked him to allow the two children
Steve had met while there to be placed with a family if one should come along before we were ready with our dossier. We could not bear the thought of any child waiting for us and missing a chance at a family. We had no idea if we would be able to be approved again, it seemed so hard the first time. We started over...
IN September our dossier was ready to go, had been through all the checks and balances here and was ready for
Haiti. A few weeks later we were blessed with the referral of two beautiful twin boys. Our new sons Wadley and Jesley.
In February 2011
Jacob (my eldest son) and I traveled to meet our children. We spent a blissful week loving and bonding with our children. It was a healing time for me and a gift to us all.
At the beginning of this month.. March.. we heard the terrible news that our little gift Jesley had been called home to
Christ. His death stunned our family and the grief is deep and painful. We were
concerned about our remaining son Wadley. Again the Lord comforted us in ways only He can. A friend was there to take a photo of Jesley the day he died.. not know that it was the last photo we would ever have of our precious boy! Another friend was in place a few days later to take a joyful Wadley photo and let us know he was doing as well as he could be.
Again we had to face the painful choice of choosing to be open to more children and said yes to another placement. A week later Wadley became a big brother to
Pierre Charles Peter, a two and a half month old bundle of rolly
polly joy!
The day Jesley died we heard that we had passed through the social services section of
Haiti's
adoption processes. We are currently waiting to hear that
Pierre has passed through the same process so we can apply for both their visas and bring them home together.
And we are moving.. to
Oklahoma...
We have found a follow up agency and we have traversed the mountains of
agencies and government offices. We have learnt love and loss, have learnt to
allow grief to remain as grief and not become destructive forces of anger and
doubt, we hurt, love and laugh in the same breath, we have learnt to live with
joy and grief side by side.. we are valiantly trying to finish our race knowing
that but for our guide and master
Jesus Christ there
is no way we could possibly "get THERE from HERE!!
