Category: Other Page 119 of 181

Forever Angels Baby Home, at first glance, looks like a really excellent pre-school or day care facility.  Bright murals cover every wall.  Everything is spotlessly neat and organized.  Detailed schedules are laid out on a bulletin board.  Safety gates are on every doorway.  A beautiful fenced-in garden gives the children plenty of space to play.

But of course, there are differences from a day care center.  In the bathroom, there are rows and rows of carefully labeled colored cups and toothbrushes.  Each child has a small crib with his or her name on it, and a mosquito net.  And these children are not “checked-in” every morning by loving parents.  Instead, this place is their whole life.

The children are universally beautiful, healthy (unless they’ve just arrived), and happy.  Big eyes, round tummies, loads of giggles.  Forever Angels truly is the highest quality orphanage I have witnessed.  But it was a bit eerie.  I sat down on the lawn yesterday and was instantly covered with about 6 toddlers.  One pulling my hair, one climbing on my shoulders, and about four more shoving and squishing and pushing their way into the coveted lap position.  Literally instantly.  These children know no strangers.  Anyone who comes through their gate is a potential source of love and attention.  And the most persistent ones tend to get the most.  So they learn to persist.

It was both beautiful and strikingly sad.  As an adoptive mom, it cuts me open.  I was only there for 24 hours, and even that was almost too much.  So many children who needs families, and I am only allowed one.  There was Zawadi, a petite little fairy princess of a five-year-old, extremely bright, completely-bi-lingual, and a total charmer.  She’s old enough now to understand her circumstances, and every time a child gets adopted, she asks the director, “When is a family going to take me?”  There was Baraka, a three-year-old with a mischievious grin.  He figured out my name and all day reminded me of it.  “Amy!  Amy!  Amy!” 

And of course, there was the one we think God has planned for us.  I looked into her eyes and she looked into mine….she seeing only another white stranger, someone who would hold her for a day and then disappear, but she was willing to take what she could get.  I seeing a daughter, a princess, a whole long future of laughter and conversations and celebrations stretched out in front of me.  You have no idea what you are seeing, do you, dear one?  I whispered to her.  You have no idea how your entire life has just profoundly changed. 

I followed her around and stared at her all day; she noticed my attention and flirted back, always checking to see if I was still looking.  I always was.  Today I had a few hours before I left to come home, and she just wanted me to hold her.  She would scream if I put her down.  I’m not sentimental enough to think that somehow she knew I was different from the others; I know that she reacts exactly the same way to anyone else who will give her attention.  She would fight and screech and shove any other child who would try to touch me or get on my lap. 

Dear one, how I long to give you a love that you don’t have to fight for.  Soon, soon, hopefully, prayerfully soon!  I’m coming back for you, I whispered to her.  I know she doesn’t understand.  But soon she will.

The social worker in Mwanza wants to meet me and wants me to meet our little girl.  She won’t move forward until I go. 

So I’m going tomorrow.  Booked a flight today, and I’ll be on my way tomorrow morning.

We didn’t plan for this, because it’s a bit expensive, but I’m not complaining.  I get to meet my little girl tomorrow.  How wonderful is that?

But it will make waiting a lot harder.  We met both Grace and Josiah before we got to take them home, and it was torture.  I was kind of hoping to keep my distance for a while longer.  But now I’m excited.  Who wouldn’t be?

In all my eight years living in Tanzania, I have never once checked the mail.

We use HOPAC’s mailing address:  P.O. Box 70027, Dar es Salaam, Tanzania.  The box is way downtown and is checked by a staff member once a week or so, and all the mail brought to school.

I have written that address on countless applications, letters, and forms.  But I had never actually seen the mailbox. 

Until yesterday.

Last week, after hounding the social worker with my phone calls and texts, she finally told me that she had mailed our approval letter.  I didn’t totally believe her, but was still optimistic.  When we returned from the Morogoro orphanage trip on Wednesday, I rushed to the staff room to check our cubby holes.  Magazines.  No letter. 

Richard is the guy who checks Box 70027 these days.  On Friday, I hounded him.  “Will you pleeeeease check the mail today?”  I begged.  Spring break was starting; we were leaving the country to visit Kenya, and I didn’t want to wait another week and a half to know if our letter had come.  “I’ll try,” he told me.

At 6:00 that evening, we were at school for an event and Richard drove up.  “I didn’t make it,” he told me.  “Traffic was too bad.”  And how could I blame him when he got back so late?

But I was determined.  “Is there any way I could get the mailbox key and check it myself?”  So we went into the office and he helped me hunt for the spare key.  Eureka.

I would have driven down the very next day, but I knew it would take me four hours round trip.  So I decided I could wait one more day, because we were going to the airport for our trip to Kenya, and could stop at the post office on the way.

So we did.  And I found Box 70027 for the first time.  Sifted through the crammed mailbox and found the glorious sight of a slim brown envelope with my name on it.

It was there!  Oh happy day!

We’ve been approved!  It’s there, in writing…finally, after all these months.

However, there was a big surprise.  Throughout this whole past year, our social worker has insisted that we could not choose the child.  We could give specifications, and even choose the orphanage, but we could not choose the child.  We were totally fine with that.  In fact, we preferred it.

So you can imagine our surprise when we found that the letter stated that we were to have a girl, around 2 years old, from Forever Angels Orphanage in Mwanza.  But we are to choose. 

We will make the decision this week, based on pictures and prayer alone.  We’ll then be about a month away from bringing her home.  Praise God with us, and then pray!