Celebrate with us!

Tomorrow morning at 8am, we will know Joshua one whole week. Just like with any child, I almost can't remember a day without him. This week we have watched him get to know us and change daily. We have also watched him eat and eat and eat!

With the rise in food prices, hunger relief organizations all over the world are finding themselves in a shortage of money and supplies. We know this blog has reached many and our story is read by people we don't even know. We are hoping that if we have inspired you in any way, we can ask you to celebrate Joshua's homecoming with us by donating to an organization that will help hungry children all over the world. Hunger knows no culture or country boundaries. It affects millions of people every day. If we could more evenly distribute the wealth we all enjoy, extreme world poverty could be a thing of the past. Don't know where to donate? World Vision, UNICEF and Feed the Children are some of the oldest and most well known organizations that help children all over the world (even in the US). If you have been touched by the situation in DRC specifically, Heal Africa or our adoption agency, Our Family Adoptions, would be great organizations to help a child. Many people would like to get us a gift and ask what we need. We do not need anything, but so many children do. Celebrate our new son with us by giving to another!

Here are some of our latest pictures...

A few more snapshots...

We promised some people daily photos. Here are some from today...

A whole lot of firsts...

I am not going to write a lot because these pictures speak for themselves. What I will say though is how amazing it is to see so many "firsts" in such a short amount of time. When you raise a child from newborn, the firsts come at you gradually. With a child that is a toddler and lived in a place without running water, there are many firsts in a short amount of time. I will say, I never thought Target could be so awe inspiring. From a ride in the cart (weee!), to automatically opening doors, to an abundance of food I am certain Caleb and Amelia take for granted. We are blessed to be part of the following "firsts" - the first camera experience, first backyard play with Caleb and Amelia, first swing, first Target experience, first trip to the baby pool (and all in 4 days!!!)...

A perfect day...

I don't think things could have gone much better today. Part of the proof is that at 7:30pm tonight all 3 children were sleeping quietly in their rooms!!! (Tim and I are going to sleep in Joshua's room for a while until he gets used to the house.)

We met Joshua this morning at 8am at JFK airport. What a cutie! He smiled at us right away! We have been with him all day and not one tear! He is very calm, inquisitive and smart. On the way home from Indianapolis airport he talked to Caleb and Amelia the whole way. Everything they said he said right back - and well. It was amazing. They came home and all played great and then after a quick first taste of pizza (we will eat better following today) we got cleaned up, brushed teeth and all went to bed! We are waiting for the other shoe to fall. The kids have been calling him Joshua and he answers to it great. Tim and I were planning to call him Josue for a while, but we will see how the transition goes.

We are exhausted and are heading to bed soon ourselves. We can't thank Jilma enough. While we stayed home in the comforts of the US, she traveled to a harsh, unsafe and difficult place to help bring our son home. Even while we sit here tonight, she is still in route to her destination on the west coast. She is a strong woman and will always be a very important person in Josue's life. Without her, he surely would not be here today.

Here are some pictures of our day today. We will have many more to come...

Waiting in New York

Tim and I were able to spend the day together sight seeing around New York and it was great to have some extra time together. We started the day off at a deli in Times Square, walked 5th Avenue, lit a candle for Joshua at Saint Patrick's Cathedral, sat in Central Park and finished off the day in Little Italy. It was a perfect well rounded tourist day in NY.

Throughout this whole process it has been amazing how God has given us those moments to reflect. Yesterday was a moment of pause. As our nerves got higher we found out we weren't going to see Joshua for another entire day. At those moments, you realize the scary things aren't that bad and how much you actually want those things that make you the most nervous.

Another cool thing we reflected on today was now pivotal New York has been to so many people immigrating here from other countries. 100 years ago my great-grandparents arrived into New York much the same way Joshua will tomorrow (well maybe a small difference with the planes vs boat thing). New York is truly a great gateway into our country and we are excited to share a small part of that with so many people before us.

Slight delay

There has been a slight delay in our homecoming plans. Tim and I arrived safely in NY and found out around 5pm tonight that the group missed their connection in Johannesburg. They will take the same flight #203 on South African Airways tomorrow leaving their time at 7:10pm (2:10EST)and arriving Sun morning at 7:05am EST. We changed our flight and will leave Sunday from Newark airport arriving Indy at 5:42pm. We can't wait!!! Off to sight see we go...

Josue has a visa!!!!

What an amazing week! God is truly great! Josue has a visa and is leaving the DRC tomorrow! Just a recap, the group's flight leaves around noon Congo time and heads to Johannesburg, South Africa. They arrive around 5:30pm and turn around to catch a 7pm flight to New York. This is a tight connection, but they have to make it. The kids cannot leave the airport due to visa issues, so they will have to spend the night at the airport if they miss the flight.

Tim and I leave tomorrow at 11:30am heading for Newark airport. We arrive around 2pm EST, just in time to check email to see if they made the connection. We are going to try to relax a bit and spend the night in New York City (the key word here is try). Our goal is to be at JFK bright and early Saturday morning. The group arrives at 7am. We can't wait! We all split up from there and Tim and I will be traveling back to Newark airport to fly home at 4pm. Our flight gets into Indy at 6pm and we are looking forward to meeting Caleb, Amelia and some family at the airport.

Thank you to everyone who has been following our journey and praying for us. Don't stop now, I won't feel good until everyone is on US soil.

Oh, we also found out Josue's name is pronounced Jo-sue-ay. He wears 18 month clothes, drinks from sippy cups, eats grown up food and is a great eater (boy, will he fit in good here!!!).

Don't stop praying...

We received some bad news from Jilma today. There is a problem issuing Josue's visa. The good news is that she contacted the Governor's office in Oregon and they helped move things along. As of right now, it looks like we have the necessary direction needed to tell the Congolese Embassy to issue Josue's visa. We won't know more until tomorrow. It is imperative this gets completed by tomorrow close of business. The group is scheduled to leave the Kinshasa airport Friday at noon. We haven't lost faith and still feel this will work out in the end. Today Tim and I called everyone we knew to help get contacts in line for Congressman, Governors, State Dept, etc. Amazingly, we know way more people than we thought and everyone has been gracious and helpful. It looks like we have 5 really good leads that could help us in a pinch. Keep praying for a good outcome! We are packing our bags tomorrow to leave on Friday. We haven't lost hope!

On a side note, a few people have asked us what we are going to do about his name. Tim and I decided that we are going to call him Josue for a few weeks, but are going to let the kids and anyone else address him as Joshua. After he is used to hearing Joshua for a while, Tim and I will gradually transition to his new name.

Great News!

The embassy accepted all of our paperwork today and they are proceeding towards getting Joshua's visa this week! Things look good that he will leave with the group on Friday!!! There are always things that could happen in the paperwork process, so keep praying. Tim and I will be leaving Friday around 11:30am to fly to NY. We plan to meet everyone Saturday morning at 7am at JFK. We will keep moving along and fly out of Newark to Indianapolis Saturday at 4pm. Jilma said Joshua is beautiful and doing well. It sounds like he is a happy, smiling two year old. What great news!!! More to come...

One step closer

The group has safely arrived in Lubumbashi. Our lawyer spoke to the Embassy on Friday. They still do not have the hard copies of our files and wouldn't give her a definitive answer as to what could be done next week. For this reason, she is traveling with Joshua to the capital tomorrow. The families will stay there for the week to finalize the adoptions and retrieve their children's visas. If for some reason the Embassy doesn't find it in there hearts to proceed, even with a child sitting in front of them, Joshua will have to be escorted back to the orphanage. This isn't a short distance. It is a 4-5 hour flight. from Lubumbahsi to Kinshasa. This is a good image of the distance. Lumbumbashi is in the lower right corner of the country and Kinshasa is on the far west side of the country.


We have a really good feeling and know that our lawyer would not take Joshua to the Embassy if she didn't feel there was a very good chance for this to be completed. We are planning to leave on Friday to meet them in New York. Don't stop praying. Pray for safe travels tomorrow. Pray Joshua feels safe with the group and has comfort during his travel. Pray for Jilma's strength and courage and the compassion of the Embassy. They are 5 hours ahead and I think they will be going to the Embassy in the morning. We should know more by Monday afternoon. I have never had anything so important be more out of my hands and be so volatile for so long. Pray for our patience and calm during this time.

We all have tickets,

but we don't know if we will get to use them. We are so hopeful that things work out this week that we purchased tickets for everyone. Joshua has a ticket to leave DRC on August 22nd and we have tickets to meet him in New York on August 23rd. The perfect situation is that our paperwork arrives by Friday. Worse case, our lawyer (who is traveling to bring home two other children) will do everything she can to work out the details with the Embassy and bring Joshua home.

This should be such an exciting time for us, but instead, it has been filled with deadlines and uncertainty. We are so out of control that all we can do is hope and pray that things work out. We have been so wrapped up in the details that I sometimes forget we may have a new child next week.

We are going to update our blog almost daily during this process. As of today, we need the following prayers and intentions for this week...

Wednesday, please pray for smooth travels for the families and patience in their hearts as they wait to meet their new children.

Friday, please pray specifically for safe travels to the orphanage and good news today. This is the most important day for us. Our lawyer will be contacting the Embassy to see if she can bring Josue to the capital and ultimately home. Please pray for a good decision. Pray the Embassy has compassion for our situation and allows us to bring Josue home with the paperwork they have. Pray our lawyer has the strength, mind fullness and courage to complete this process (she is awesome, we have no doubt!). Lubumbashi is 5 hours ahead, so keep that in mind during your intentions. Lastly, pray Joshua has a good meeting with the families and is receptive to them. They will be his family for the next week and we have no doubt that he will be well cared for.

This has been a complete roller coaster for us. We want to be excited and hopeful, but calm and realistic. We are taking one day at a time and will update our blog on Friday with the latest news. There are a lot of unknowns, but we are planning to travel to New York next Friday to bring Joshua home!!!

More progress

Our adoption decree was sent electronically to our lawyer yesterday and is in the process of being translated. Although this has been complete for a few weeks, we still hadn't seen the documents. They all look good and should be translated before the group leaves next week. This was another important step that has fallen into place. The documents also state Joshua's birth date as Jan 2, 2007. This is still a complete guess and could be incorrect, but regardless, it still makes him a few months younger than we thought. That is exciting to us. He is currently around 19 months old. This really doesn't matter in the big picture, but it would be nice to have him a little younger.

Caleb and Amelia talk about Joshua often. We went for a walk the other day and they talked about him the whole way. Here is a latest picture of the anxious siblings...

Day by day

Unfortunately, we do not know much more about our paperwork since our last post. Tim's ticket expires tomorrow and our adoption specialist feels it is too risky to purchase the ticket at this point. If no miracles happen overnight, we will let the ticket expire.

Hope is not lost however. If our I600A arrives anytime between now and the time the families leave Lubumbashi on August 17th, there is still a possibility they can bring Joshua home. If this ends up happening, Tim and I will leave on August 22nd and travel to New York to meet the families and bring Joshua the rest of the way home. Tim is also ready to leave at a moment's notice to meet the families once they arrive in Kinshasa if the paperwork ends up being finalized between the time the families leave and when they travel to the capital. This is a day by day plan and we hope it will still come together. We are trying to be as optimistic as possible without being unrealistic.

Please pray with us that our paperwork is complete in time for this trip, so either Tim or the escort can bring Joshua home. In addition, please pray that the families have safe and smooth travels and that their children transition well. If you would like to be specific in your intentions, below is the itinerary for the trip. Hopefully Tim and/or Joshua will be present for part of it...
Aug 13 Families leave for Johannesburg
Aug 15 Families travel from Johannesburg to Lubumbashi
Aug 15 - Aug 17 Families meet the children and spend time at the orphanage
Aug 17 Travel to the capital of Kinshasa to finalize paperwork
Aug 22 Leave Kinshasa for Johannesburg and then to NY, arriving in NY Aug 23rd