Tag: Adoption Page 21 of 23

Adventures in Court Hearings

On July 10, 2009

So much has happened in the last two weeks that it will take me a few posts to get caught up. But I’ll start with the court hearing, since many of you have asked about that.

To back up a bit, since not all of you get our email updates, we have been trying to finalize Josiah’s adoption for a few months now. It needs to be finalized before we can go on our Home Assignment in October.

Our first hearing was in April while I was in the States with Grace. That hearing went well: the social worker was appointed “guardian” and told to write a report, which is exactly what we wanted to happen.

Second hearing was June 11th. Even though the judge had picked this date, our lawyer called us the night before and told us that our judge was out of the country on vacation.

Third hearing was scheduled for this past Wednesday, July 8th.

Okay. No problem. Except that we had already scheduled a mini-missions trip with some HOPAC kids last week to an orphanage. Oh, and the orphanage was three hours away from Dar.

Thankfully we’ve had a team of college students here helping us with our events the last two weeks. So we decided that we could go ahead with the orphanage trip and simply leave the night before the court hearing, attend the hearing the next morning, and then drive back to the orphanage when it was done.

I should have known things are never that simple. Everything went great at the orphanage, that wasn’t the problem. But we had decided that instead of driving to our house on Tuesday night to spend the night, we would just find a hotel near the court building and stay there for the night, instead of fighting 2 hours of traffic the next morning from our house.

We arrived at the orphanage on Monday afternoon. We left again in the early evening on Tuesday. We hit traffic on our way into Dar and it was nearly 8:00 by the time we got in. By this point, our children (and us) were tired and cranky and very hungry. No drive throughs. How I longed for a Taco Bell.

We decided to get dinner before trying to find a hotel. We stopped at a pizza place that is supposed to be “fast food,” and 45 minutes (and two formal complaints) later, we had our pizza. By this point it was after 9:00.

Then we set off to find a hotel. You know, I’ve heard warnings before about trying to find a hotel late at night. Not a good idea. I should have listened to the warnings. But I knew that there were plenty of hotels in the city near the court house and didn’t think we would have a problem.

Hotel #1: Too expensive.
Hotel #2: Much cheaper but full.
Hotel #3: Also full. (What the heck? What are all these visitors doing in Dar?)
Hotel #4: An adventure in itself, partly involving going up 8 stories in a parking garage and coming back down without finding any parking, and a parking attendant who STILL insisted on charging us parking fees.

By this point it was almost 10:30. Our children, who normally go to bed at 7, were melting down. So we did what any frazzled person does. Went back to Hotel #1 and paid the ridiculous price.

But we all took very hot baths and had a terrific breakfast. That was nice.

Wednesday morning:
8:55 am: Got to the court house.
9:00 am: Courts open. Lawyer was already there.
9:05 am: Social worker showed up.
9:10 am: Our lawyer came over to us and told us that the judge was not there. Again. Even though our lawyer had a case before this exact same judge last Thursday and had asked her, “You’ll be there next Wednesday for my other case, right?” To which the judge replied, “Why wouldn’t I be?” Humph.

Packed up. Changed clothes. Drove the 3 hours back to the orphanage.

Next hearing is scheduled for July 21st.

Good thing our little guy is worth it. 🙂

Contrasts

By Amy Medina

On June 18, 2009

In Other

Some evenings these days, Gil and Grace have been going out to take sunset pictures while I am working on dinner. Grace takes her little pink camera and takes pictures with her Daddy.

Usually they walk a little ways away from our house, to an area that overlooks a large blown-out rock quarry. The blasting is done now, so it just looks like an enormous crater. Squatters have started building mud houses down there.

On this particular day, three little girls came up to the road from the quarry and were fascinated by Grace. These little girls really represent the poorest of the poor. My heart especially breaks for the little one on the right who is holding up her skirt because it won’t stay on. When I first saw these pictures, I spent a long time gazing at them, pondering the contrasts. My little girl…the life she could have lived…the life these little girls are living.

Grace took off her shoes because the other little girls weren’t wearing shoes either.

Overlooking the quarry.

The sunset overlooking them all.

Salon Surrender

By Amy Medina

On April 8, 2009

In Other

In every way this little girl is mine. But the hair is beyond me. Sigh. I’m trying, really I am. I’ve been working and working at getting the braids right. I’m constantly asking my Tanzanian friends about the hair care products they use.

But I wanted her hair to be special for our trip to the States. I also didn’t want to have to worry about it while we are there. So I talked to a HOPAC mom whose little girl always has the cutest hair styles, and asked her where she takes her daughter to get her hair done. So she gave me the directions, and Grace and I went yesterday.

I chose the picture in the book that I liked the most, and the stylist got to work. After about thirty seconds she said, “Has her hair been washed?”

“Ndiyo. Jana usiku.” Last night.

Oh. Thirty more seconds.

She looked over at the stylist next to her. “Siyo safi,” she said. Not clean.

She parted Grace’s hair and showed me. I blushed. I was ashamed. Terrible mother I am. Can’t even get her daughter’s hair clean.

Sigh. Can you wash it for her?

So she did. And then she braided it. And it looks totally adorable. And Grace didn’t make a single peep during the entire two hours. Interesting, considering she screams bloody murder when I do her hair, claiming that I am hurting her. Ha. Caught you in your bluff, child. They were pulling much harder than I do.

And now I’ve determined that we will make regular visits to the salon. I think I thought I had to prove something by being able to style her hair myself. But if Tanzanian moms take their daughters to the salon, then so can I!

And the price? About $12. For washing, blow drying, extensions, and beading–two hours of work. Those of you who live in America and have African hair will appreciate that!

The Elephant in the Room

By Amy Medina

On August 27, 2008

In Other

“Can’t you have ‘your own’ children?”

I heard this today. Gil heard it last week. Others have been brave enough to ask us. But I’m quite confident that pretty much everybody wonders about it and doesn’t think it’s polite to ask.

The truth is, I really don’t mind being asked this question. Now….having it phrased like that isn’t exactly the best way to ask, since it implies that something is wrong with us or that somehow biological children would be more significant in some way.

But I certainly don’t mind talking about it. So. To answer the question on everybody’s mind, here goes:

I don’t know if we will ever have biological children. We haven’t been preventing it for over 4 years now, and when we lived in the States we were tested. There is nothing medically wrong that would prevent us from getting pregnant. I did get pregnant, once, about 3 years ago, and we lost the baby after only 8 weeks. We’ve never tried any method of treatment, mostly because we live in Africa and that’s not an option. But even if we were in the States, I’m not sure how far we would go down that route. Just getting tested was emotionally draining enough. And though the adoption process is long and difficult—as fertility treatments are—at least we have the guarantee of getting a baby at the end—which isn’t a guarantee during treatment.

HOWEVER, adoption has never been a “Plan B” for us. Both of us have been interested in adoption since high school. Both of us talked about it with certainty since before we were married. There was never a question of whether we would want to adopt.

We love adoption with a passion. It’s an incredible, beautiful illustration of God’s pursuit and love for us. Remember, none of us were born into God’s family! All of us were orphans. We were purchased from Satan at an enormous price—despite our own wickedness—and those of us who have accepted His incredible Gift of Grace have been adopted into God’s family. This is why we named our first child Grace.

Adoption is a picture of redemption. Orphans were never a part of God’s original plan. Yet adoption is a way of reversing the effects of the Fall. It is a high privilege. And it is definitely addicting.

Of course, there are “issues.” My children will never be entirely Tanzanian nor entirely American. (Though that would be the case even for biological children that we raised here!) They may struggle with their identity. They may struggle with wanting to know their birth families. But even biological children have “issues”—don’t we all? God never promised that parenting—or life in general–would be easy.

My prayer is that my adopted children grow up loving that they are adopted. That they would see God’s hand in their lives since their birth. That they would relish the uniqueness of their family. That they would have a deep and profound understanding of the gospel because of their adoption. I know this is no guarantee—no matter how “good” we are as parents. That is why it is my prayer.

Do I want to get pregnant? It was pretty important to me a few years ago. And even now, I would love to experience a pregnancy and birth and breast feeding. And if God wills that I never get to experience those things? Thanks to the grace of God, I can live with that. Because the enormous blessings I am experiencing through adoption are greater than I could have ever imagined.

And our next? Maybe from India! 🙂 For some strange reason, the Tanzanian government doesn’t usually allow permission for a third Tanzanian child (but we will try). But we love the idea of a multi-national family anyway.

Joy!

By Amy Medina

On August 22, 2008

In Adoption

HE IS HOME!!!!

What a wonderful day.

Of course, the suspense has been killing me the last couple of days. Yesterday the social worker told me that they hadn’t had electricity for over a day and thus the letter hadn’t been typed.

This morning I called her about 8 times without her ever answering. Finally, I sent her a text message with an impassioned plea to please try to get us the letter today, because Gil was going to start work again on Monday. She sent a text message back, “It’s already been signed.”

Uhhh….were you going to tell me?

So off we went! Picked up the letter, drove across town to the orphanage, and picked up our baby!

The details:

His name is Josiah Christian George Medina.

Josiah: the name Gil and I had picked out for our first son since…probably before we were married

Christian: his orphanage name

George: my grandfather’s name. We added this name just today, because we found out that the very moment we were picking up Josiah from the orphanage, my 84 year old grandfather slipped into eternity. We knew it was coming–he has been in a coma for a month now, but the irony of his death at the exact time Josiah entered our family is something we will always remember. Joy in the midst of sadness.

Josiah’s birthday is November 1, 2007. He is almost 10 months old.

You may remember that there were 5 available baby boys at the orphanage to choose from. Gil and I were both inexplicably drawn to this little guy. God put him on our hearts. We also think it is really special that his orphanage name was Christian, and Grace’s orphanage name was Christa.

He has a very different disposition from Grace, who from day one was everybody’s best friend. Grace has always been very easy-going, friendly, happy, and full of songs and dances. Josiah is very solemn. During two of the three visits we made to him in the last month, he cried without stopping the entire time! So we figured this would be a different kind of adjustment than we had with Grace. But he did pretty well today, considering all the changes in his little life.

He has giant dark eyes that take everything in. All day today, he has been watching us. When one of us leaves the room, he cranes his head to follow where we are going. He is very serious, but also very alert and expressive with those huge eyes of his. We’ve gotten some almost smiles out of him, especially during bath time.

He seems small for his age (but maybe that’s just because I’m comparing him to Grace!) but seems developmentally on target; he is crawling and pulling up and “talking.” (Sigh…unfortunately, no immobile period for me!)

Grace is doing great–a little more emotional than usual, but is very eager to show Josiah everything and teach him everything she knows. Since Josiah he is already 10 months old, it won’t take him very long to become a playmate for her!

I praise God for what He taught me while making us wait these extra weeks. Josiah is all the more precious to us now, and my Sovereign God is all the more trustworthy! I praise Him for how He is creating my family.

I am blessed indeed.