These Kids Are Crazy!

It never ceases to amaze me how happy and joyful these kids are despite of what they have been through. This obviously speaks to the awesome job Rock and all the orphanage staff do! There is always someone mad, upset or crying, but I have three at home and there is often two or three out of three upset and there is 50 kids or so here. I have to say, whoever is taking John Mary Lozard to WATCHOUT! This kid is a firecracker. He makes me laugh everytime I see him. Yesterday Kristen was handing out Blow Pop suckers that we brought down. With one small statement Sabrina gets all these kids to line up, they are very mindful, and they all get there suckers one by one. Well, John Mary Lozard (sp) comes back around in line and Kristen says with a smile, I gave you one already! He gives her a big grin, I look down and he had his sucker wrapped up and hidden in the bottom of his shirt! He is not a big kid, but he is into everything going on. We were playing soccer again yesterday and I went to kick the ball somewhat hard at the wall, unfortunately I kicked it a little too hard and it went up and over the wall and we looked and looked and looked for it and couldnt find it. I climbed up on the wall of a place next to the orphanage to see if it was in there, went to get down and when I did I pulled the top layer of cinder block down with me and fell right on my butt. Kristen had been recording the whole thing from the deck of the orphanage, but she had just stopped before that. Too bad, we could have made some money off of that! Anyway the next person that comes down, let me know and I will send you a soccer ball for the kids. There was a volleyball here, but not quite the same. The Myas are becoming mother hens. Im not sure which one, but one of them was feeding Guerna and Lovely last night at supper and earlier in the day was mopping up the water mess I made when I was getting the mob around me drinks. They are big helpers. Stephanie as we all know is a big helper too. Her and John Peter really take charge of the kids. Manuella and Gerlande are cute as can be and Guerline has grown very much too. Nancy looks 100 times better, her hair has thickened and even though she has that heat rash, she is doing very well. Im sure Kristen remembers more and I will get her to help me post more when we get time. Until then take care and rest easy, all the kids are doing great!

Finally Here

We are in Haiti and it is HOT! We left Monday about noon MDT and got to Fort Lauderdale about 1:00am, to our Hotel at 2:00 am into our room about 2:30am and back up to go to the airport at 5:30 am. Flight was great from Ft. Lauderdale to Port Au Prince until two of our bags didn't show up. The bags that had clothes for the children and my clothes, of course. Rock brought us back to the airport in the afternoon and they had come in so all is well. All of the kids are doing great. I taught Stephanie the half nelson as her and John Peter wrestled. She proceeded to whip him as a result. I don't think he appreciated it :) Midrine and Kervens were fighting over Kristen's lap. Kristen is convinced Midrine is going to be a dentist as she was infacutated with Kristen's mouth! The baby's look great, especially a new one named Sebastian! He is a BIG BOY! Guerna is still very small, but getting around better than she had been earlier, at least from what we were told. I played soccer with John Peter and Aquillage and they are very good! Despite the heat the kids are very playful and happy as usual. They all know how to play you, especially Midrine, as she will go off by herself and cry if you are not paying attention, all the while keeping an eye on you to make sure you notice. Kethia is the sweetest little girl and is very hard to ignore :) There will be plenty of stories and I will try to remember them all. I am getting some video, some of it taken by John Peter and I am sure it is great. P.S. The John Peter I have spoke of is the older one, not the baby, although the little baby is a beautiful little boy! Anyway, lots of pictures and video and I will do my best to get them posted. Also, everyone is doing very well with their English. Till later, take care.

Chad

ONLY TWO MORE DAYS!!!!

Kristen and I leave in two days for Port Au Prince and I am positive I will forget something! Fortunately time has flown by in the past few weeks and the trip has come up on us fast. I'm afraid though, that it will pass by us fast too. I am already dreading having to leave the children there again, it is one of the worst feelings I have ever had. It wouldn't be normal to not have some drama leading up to our trip either. I called our Haiti program director (Jenny) yesterday to ask her a question and she asked me why Kristen hadn't called on her daily call to her yet. Seriously, the program director is a friend of Kristen's, but my wife really does call there every day and asks if she has heard of any news on our adoption. Rest easy everybody, it is not a call to Haiti, our director also lives here in MT, although my wife does call the Orphanage and talks to the teacher once, maybe twice....OK like four times a month! Anyway, I call down to Jenny and she says our dossier is on Mdm Beaudoin's, the IBESR director for those of who may not know, desk. So that is a good thing, right? Except for the fact that she isn't necessarily inclined to sign it right away because we are young (I'm 27 and Kristen is 26). Well the lawyer thinks it will just take some time, but Jenny thinks we should write a letter and tell her why even though we are young, we are good adopting parents and why we are adopting. So I got this letter written and it is getting translated this weekend and we are hoping to take it with us on Monday and to IBESR's office. I am not real optimistic that we can actually talk to Mdm Beaudoin, as it has been proven near impossible to do lately, but you know what....I'm praying and I know God is capable of ANYTHING and I am believing that we are going to take that letter to IBESR and we are going to see Mdm Beaudoin in person and she is going to sign our dossiers 14528 and 14529 (submitted on Jan. 16, 2007, my son Payton's 6th b-day) out! So thats that. Enough of that rambling. I am really excited to go. I left work early today and Kristen and the kids and I went shopping for all the things we need on the trip. I got the scale out and am making sure each bag is as close to the 50 lb. weight limit as it can be. If anyone is reading this and is adopting from Haiti, but hasn't been down there yet, all I can say is " What are you waiting for?!" It is an unbelievable place in more than one way. It will change your life guaranteed. It will make you so thankful for what you have and it will rip your heart out with compassion and sympathy for what those people go through. I will be blogging on the trip as much as I can remember to.
God Bless

Chad

Against All That Seems To Reason

Kristen and I are going to Haiti!!! After talking about it for a month and coming to terms that is going to be a longer wait than we thought, we booked our tickets to Haiti for the last week in July/first week in August. I now find myself in that mode of trying to distract myself from thinking about the trip. I am really excited to get down there again. It has been a long 8 months since our October trip. The worst part of it is having to leave our 3 children at home. I hate being away from them as much as I hate being away from our 2 in Haiti. When we tell those around us that we are going back over they kind of give us that look like, "Weren't you just there?" and, "Isn't that cost alot?" My reply is yes we were just there 8 months ago and yes it costs some money.....but 8 months is a really longgggggggg time to go without seing your children. Regardless of the fact they have not spent a single day in the USA with us or not and regardless of the fact they are adopted, God has given us a love for them just the same as the day we saw our children on that Ultrasound or the day they born. It just amazes me that they are ours even though we can't bring them home yet. As far as the cost of it all, I can live without some other extras if I can see my children, even if it is only for 4 or 5 days. God Bless and lets pray for all the people involved getting our children home!

Green Bay Is No Haiti

This weekend I am going to Green Bay for my friends wedding. I am excited to see him and witness his wedding. However, I know that when I am flying to Green Bay, I will be wishing Kristen was by my side and it was a flight to Miami or to Port Au Prince. We went down in October and it was an amazing time and once you get to see and hug and play with your kids, the adoption becomes reality. Leaving them is heart wrenching and being able to look forward to seeing them again is something I long for. I just wish we could plan a trip right now. Kristen really wants to go down, but it is just such a hard period to take a trip in. We feel like we are close enough to being out of IBESR that it could only be until fall that we can get our kiddos. We don't want to run out of resources to go down when it is time to pick up the kids. It would be great to spend a few extra days down there and see some more things. I long to wake up in Hotel Montana and see the smiling face of my son and watch him devour the bread at the breakfast buffet. I long to hold my baby and look at her beautiful eyes and sweet smile. Green Bay is nice, but it is no Haiti

Rookie

Not sure who all is going to read this, but just to let you know we are rookies. Kristen and I are going crazy today as we wait the seemingly endless wait of getting out of IBESR. We torture ourselves by looking at the IBESR blogspot and see now that a March file has been signed out. It is so frustrating to be one of the passed up ones, we were submitted in January, that has to wonder why we aren't signed out yet. Only God knows this and we know there is a reason for it, we just wish he would reveal that right now!!! :) It is so hard to concentrate on the things that need to be done at home. Anyway, it is just hard to deal with things such as these. We know we aren't in control of God's plan and that is sometimes difficult to understand, especially when it is something we have been wanting so much.