Christopher Monuma Renalson Hires

September 16th marks a very important day in this process (or it did until last night). Friday, our case worker is coming to present us with our 1st draft of the home study (15 page report on our family). I have my physical (which was going to be the last of the dossier requirement to check off the list) on Friday, too. Tracy and I were hoping to get through the paperwork of the dossier and have it all submitted by the end of September. I just found out via email that our agency didn't code our fingerprints correctly and a report didn't get generated. Ugh! More money and more time, we have to get that document requested pronto. Just when I feel all my ducks are in a row, one goes waddling down to the creek to drown itself. Is that image clear? Our case worker said that this process really does weed out the faint of heart! God certainly is refining my patience and grace in the midst of miscommunication. 

About Christopher - he's the 3 year-old joy who was the little one I described in my previous blog entry. He melts the heart with his big brown eyes (at least that's what a momma thinks). He doesn't smile for the camera but was observed in July as very playful & happy. He loves to be held by older girls (thrills the girls' souls to know he may think they're awesome)! His birthday is the day after Ellie's so she's thrilled to have that connection with her brother (although she was a little worried that birthday parties might be a little tricky. Cute!). The girls are so excited to tell anyone who wants to listen about their brother. Kasia has printed his picture and inserted it into the cover of her 3-ring binder! The girls had their personal interviews from our case worker on Saturday (Sept 10th). They all wanted to talk to her separately but that was proving comical as they all stammered and struggled with answering each of her very easy questions - do you like school? are you excited to have a little brother? how did your parents tell you the family was adopting? THEN, she suggested the 4 of them sit down together. She may have regretted it, but it was sweet to hear the girls gush and talk over each other, all "remembering" new stories they wanted to share with her before she left. 

We are still trying to collect more information on his background (and more pictures of course)! We may have to wait until the December trip comes back to the States. 

Please pray for:

Christopher's health & heart while he is living in Haiti

Our paperwork will continue on the path of forward motion

Our girls' hearts in preparing to have a new family member

Thank you for your prayers and excitement! We definitely don't feel alone in this process. 

And then there were 6!

(Part of this was written and then life got busy and now I am catching everyone up. The timeline of the past 3 weeks are getting squished into 1 update.)

We would like to let everyone know that Christopher Monuma will be #6 to join Team Hires!

This week (August 23rd), we filed our CHILD MATCH PAPERWORK! Although we are not through with our home study & dossier, they do not anticipate any issues with our family and so we were matched really early in the process. We were slightly shell-shocked to be making such a monumental decision 2 shorts months into the process. It does not speed up our process since the incredible wait actually starts after our paperwork is officially filed in Haiti, but now we are able to travel to Haiti with a match. There is a "bonding trip" (as our agency calls them) in December and I so desperately want to go, but the adoption agency felt I may be pushing the process a little too quickly since I have to have some initial paperwork filed with USCIS to travel as an adoptive parent. If it all didn't go exactly as planned, we'd have to pay to move my ticket. I'd like to risk it but I have responsibilities with church (Women to Women's Christmas brunch) during the trip as well so (sigh) I'll wait. Tracy and I know that we will make it for the trip in Feb/March. We don't have to make a court appearance like we originally thought since Christopher's orphanage is outside Port-au-Prince. We will have an embassy meeting but apparently they can be scheduled instead of assigned. This process is certainly "learn as you go". I read and reread the process but some paperwork and terms don't make sense until trial and error get you to a place where it's acceptable.

2 months and counting!