Short Rains Season

We received our U.S. background clearances in the mail this week.  I ordered two sets - one from the actual FBI, which will already have the apostille (msp?) stamp on it and one from a private company that we paid to have expedited here.  I am not sure which one will be accepted by the government, so that's why we went ahead and ordered both.  The FBI said it could take up to 8 weeks to receive theirs in the mail.

Now I am in the process of working on my dossier, which means sending each of my individual documents to the Secretaries of State in which they originated.  I am so happy to have a way to mail things here!  And to have a DPO address!  It takes only a week and a half to receive mail here as opposed to 3+ weeks with the diplomatic mail system we had in Taiwan.  That cuts the time in half!  So even though we have a lot of documents to mail back and forth from overseas it will definitely be a little easier with this system set in place.

It is turning fall in the States, but it is the "short rains" season here.  It rains a little bit every day and pretty much every night.  But it is very warm when the sun is out, so we spend a lot of time at the pool during the day when it is not raining.  We are decorating for Halloween.  Apparently Halloween is a big deal here on the compound, just like our neighborhood in Taiwan.  The kids are so excited and can't wait!

There is a lot of stuff going on here in Kenya.  The military here has gone into Somalia to push back AlShabaab, who keeps coming over the border and kidnapping people from Kenya.  The kidnappings are maddening, so although I hate war, I am happy that Kenya is standing up and defending themselves.
In fact, yesterday a helicopter flew over many times with this banner attached:  "Defending Kenya".

It was a good morale booster.  Go Kenya!

Today is a Kenyan holiday, Mashujaa Day.  Happy Heroes Day!

Journeys

I have been on a lot of journeys throughout my life.

Forgiveness journeys. Spiritual journeys.  Single-mom journey.  Pregnancy journeys.  

And all of them refined my personality to make me more like Jesus.

My current journey - this adoption journey - is teaching me lessons about patience and control that I would probably rather not learn, because it is painful.  Very painful.

God gave me a Word two weeks ago:  Make the most of your time while you have it.

In that time I have really grasped the concept of what it means to be joyful, even in the seemingly mundane things like washing dishes.  Like, real joy.  Happiness.  Peace.  Even when I would rather scream because things won't hurry up and go the way I planned.  Like when I can't figure out this adoption process as quickly as I would like.  Or I can't control how a 3rd party is handling my case.  Like the adoption paperwork - waiting for it to process.  Or thinking of our baby sitting in an institution waiting to be picked up and rocked.  It almost kills to think about it.  So I pray  - - however odd this may sound - - that Jesus's angels would surround our baby.  That they would manifest into a physical form, and would hold our child and rock him to sleep.  That they would smile at him and sing to him and warm him with their arms.  Angels have taken physical form in the Bible.  Why couldn't they do it today and comfort our lonely child?  

God gave me a vision for this baby a while ago.  A vision that will change my entire family, not just me.  We are not going to be the same anymore.  Thank you, Jesus.  You are the ultimate healer.  You are alive today just as much as when you walked this earth 2000 years ago.  I praise you for that!  So change me, Jesus.  Make me more like You.

Home Study Draft

We have all our documents together except for our FBI clearances and child abuse checks.  We are still waiting for those to arrive in the mail.  I sent off for those a couple of weeks ago and I had the hardest time finding a place here in Nairobi that issued US money orders.  In fact, I went to 7 different banks and post offices, including downtown.  Nothing.  No one issues international money orders here.  After much frustration, my US-based adoption agency told me to mail them the documents and they would get the money orders and mail my documents.  Oh thank goodness.  How do other people do stuff like this if they don't have folks Stateside to help them?

So now we wait for our appointment to review the home study draft.  

Boy I just really really thought we would have Baby by Christmas, but it's October and we haven't even finalized the Home Study yet.  

Patience.  Patience.  Patience.  (I'll write more about that tomorrow.)