3 years and 7 months have passed yet the dream lives on

We got a text this weekend, as we have many times before. Another broken bone. People have seen me grow distant over the years, I don’t usually answer calls, and some days I lose my phone for hours and then get struck with panic and go find it. Other days I can’t let it out of my hand and keep checking it just to be sure. Some of my distance has been from the stress of adoption, working two and three jobs, or the stress of adjusting to a marriage where our morals and goals are the same, but we do everything in a completely opposite way. But there is a deep power in this phone, the ability to communicate news, the types of news that can really make or break the day in an instant.

It doesn’t matter if you are eating turkey at thanksgiving dinner, unwrapping a Christmas present, in deep sleep at 3am, on a ten minute break at work… when the phone dings I hold my breath, say a prayer, and quickly read to see if everything is okay.

This weekend we got a text that yet again, a bone has broken. For those of you who haven’t followed our journey, or who have gotten lost along the way (we don’t blame you), i am working on a summary of the past 3 years for you and will post it very soon.

Basic update, up until this recent break he still has a short leg and a long leg but both are somewhat straight and have metal rods in them. He can’t walk normally but gets around anyway.

This child, he is an invincible child. A ferocious, delicate, courageous, fragile, hero of a child.

This weekend we went to a combined birthday of two of my oldest friends. We updated them, as we have done everyone, for 3 years and 7 months now. We are tired of the updates, and everyone else probably is too, we want action, progress, success! (But thanks for always asking and caring it means the world to us!) We hate to be the people who always say but dont do! But we remain hopeful, and we continue to trek on down this bumpy and strenuous path. We told our friends this weekend that this upcoming week was important for two reasons.

1) our son and his temporary guardian, our friend George in Uganda, will have their second visa appointment, and we will find out if they have been approved this time, last time was a tragic dissapointment, we were denied.

2) we will have our second homestudy meeting. Next is the home visit and in 2ish weeks we should be approved to adopt.

As you can see we are working two routes here:

1st avenue: get him here on a medical visa for treatment by a specialist who had agreed to treat him, and then continue to work on guardianship and adoption steps while he is here undergoing treatment.

Or, 2nd avenue: if we can’t get him here on a medical visa then we will continue plowing through adoption steps until we can bring him here.

We did not get the visas. Ive been on a bit of a Uganda time schedule ever since i left my job in December to raise our child who we thought we would be bringing home in time for the holidays. SUNDAY night I stayed up til the early morning here to find out the results of the XRAYS on my son who had been crying out in pain after jumping off a table chasing a chicken. The results: his bone has broken again and this time the METAL ROD WITHIN THE BONE HAS ALSO BENT.

Tuesday morning I was sleepless and up again, waiting to hear about the visas. Denied again. Our son was sitting in the appointment with a bent and broken leg and we were denied. Again.

Every time I let myself think the hard part of this chapter is coming to an end and that we are about to embark on the next phase of the adventure, I find my son broken and rejected again, tossed aside, crumpled. And then here I am again, across the world clinging to my phone, tears streaming steadily, singing at the top of my lungs that there is power in the name of Jesus Christ, and begging him for all of the miracles that we need.

It really hurts. AND we are the ones who have never broken any bones. But God started this whole thing and he’s gonna finish it. That is also how I feel about the state of the world at the moment.

So now in a few days, I will be waiting at the crack of dawn with bloodshot eyes, to hear updates about his surgery. Then a few days after that I will be showing our home and meeting with our social worker for our final home visit. A few days after that I will be waiting to hear if we got the visas for our third attempt. And a few days after that I will be waiting to hear if our homestudy has been finalized and approved.

We had our plane tickets refunded when the day came and went and we had no visas. We have waited over 3 and a half years to see the children’s home we have built (www.gmchildrensministry.org we are currently striving to finish our school) and we have waited over 3 and a half years to see our son in real life, not just pictures, video, and skype. Jake has several weeks of vacation time that will expire if not used soon. I really can’t see us visiting him and leaving him AGAIN after all that we have been through together. The last time we had to leave we all ended up sobbing in a crumpled heap in an alley behind a building.

And so Avenue 3: we do everything adoption steps wise we can here, we use the money we have from starbucks adoption reimbursement, that we got refunded from the airline and buy our tickets, we use Jakes vacation time and spend it at our children’s home with our son. Jake goes back home and back to work, I live in Uganda until my son can come here through adoption, guardianship, or medical visa, whichever comes first.

Please pray for us. And thank you for supporting us in all your various ways along this long strenuous journey. And most importantly please pray for our beloved son, chocolate drop. Our hero, our son, our world. ♡

Oh wait-here is a little tidbit for you, the common treatment for ringworm type scalp infections and disease in Uganda is…

Brake fluid

I tried to be concerned but then I remembered that africans are brilliant. With a quick Google search I realized that there are a lot of similar ingredients in our shampoos and hair products here anyway. Don’t worry mama has all the natural remedies lined up and waiting for him when he gets here. So there you have it. : ) ♡