Random Updates

Vacation:
After a long day of flying Saturday, we made it home safely.  I'm attempting to get back into the swing of things here, but not having much luck so far.  If you've never been to Myrtle Beach, I highly recommend you go.  We had such a great time and there is SO much to do there, we didn't even do 1/4 of what we could have done.  On another random note, the Chicago (O'Hare) Airport is now my new favorite airport.  Click here to see why I love this airport.  I've never seen these automatic toilets that change out the seat covers.  Lets just say I'm easily impressed, especially with things that meet my OCD needs.

Park:
I am very excited to announce that the construction of our park will start this week, Thursday to be exact and should be done by next Monday at the latest.  YAY!  Just in time for warmer weather (wishful thinking, I know).  Below is a picture of the excavation that was done last week while I was gone.

Adoption:
And for the final update that you've all been waiting for, a lot has been happening in Rwanda recently.  The last couple weeks there have been referrals like crazy, most people with numbers below us have received their referral (our dossier is #42).  We have also heard of many people with much higher dossier numbers receiving approvals.  6 families from our agency arrived home with their new children (11 of them) last week.  8 more families from our agency will be traveling at the end of this month/early May to bring home their children (10 of them).  This movement is so exciting to see, God has definitely been moving some great mountains in the last month.

As for us, we found out last week that in March they tried matching (referring) us but weren't able to do so because their are currently few children under the age of 3 available (we are requesting a boy & girl 0-18 months).  This makes sense since there have been so many referrals for children under the age of 3 and they currently only allow adoptions from 1 orphanage in Kigali.  I also think this is a good thing because all these children will no longer be orphans!!!  What does this mean for us, 1st WE'VE BEEN APPROVED!!!  We never actually received our approval because they had the wrong email address and the email we received was actually sent to another friend adopting and she saw our name on it.  Definitely a God thing!!!  So we now continue to wait for our referral, we knew we could possibly wait longer just because so many people are requesting children under the age of 3, or at least this is what we have heard from other people.  We are trusting God's timing with our family and when we will bring our babies homes.

I also found out last week that we aren't allowed to travel with an expired homestudy, not sure how I overlooked this bit of information, but now I'm frantically trying to get our homestudy updated in case we do get our referral soon.  Another God thing as far as I'm concerned because if we had received our referral last month like the ministry planned, we wouldn't be able to travel.

Finally, travel has changed a bit in Rwanda and now families need to be present to sign The Act of Adoption which is needed for court.  This means instead of traveling for 2 weeks, we will be gone for 3-4 weeks trying to get the necessary paperwork to bring our children home.  The advantage of this is that we will get to spend more time getting to know our children's birth country.  It also means that since we will see our children before passing court, they can come home on an IR3 visa which makes them automatic US citizens once we get home (this also means we can apply for the tax credit next year without re-finalizing 1st).  The one down fall about being gone this long is leaving our other children home.  We've never been away from them for more than a long weekend, so this will be difficult for all of us, but I also know they will be in great hands with my parents.