He's Officially Ours!

We went to hear the judge's ruling today and he is ours!  His given names were Muhire Innocent and when we get back to Canada we will name him Ezra Muhire Innocent Robinson.

We are now a family of 4... wow!

Thank you so much for all your prayers.  God is so good!

This is us in the taxi on the way to court.

We went to go and get some important papers signed but once again there has been a mass exodus of the people we need to sign, so yet another step has to wait until Monday.  We still haven't heard from the Canadian Immigration in Nairobi and I am choosing not to worry.  This silence could really hold us up, but as I said to Shawn today, if this is God's will and they want to stand in the way  of His will, then I will gladly let Him fight the battle.  Please be in prayer for these potential hold ups.  Our return tickets are for June 7th... we desperately don't want to have to extend our time here (we have our son at home waiting for us and I miss him so much).

I was hoping that now we would be allowed to post pictures of our handsome son, but our agency said that it would be best to continue to wait. 

We finally found a place that served milk with coffee.  So at 6pm last night (after an hour of walking), Shawn was able to have his first "non-gross" cup of coffee.  FYI the normal stuff we seem to have access to is coffee creamer that is more like powdered parmesian cheese--in looks and smell.. and flavour.

He was sooo excited.  And, since they left the little coffe pot, he had about 3 1/2 of those cups of coffee. 

Thank you SO much for your love, support and prayers.  We can definitely feel covered in your prayers!

Court Tomorrow

Tomorrow is the day of our second court hearing.  This is basically where the judge gives his ruling. 
We, of course, are hoping for a positive ruling!  If it is positive, then we will be allowed to take our son for the day, but he will still need to sleep at the orphanage.  We don't get to keep him 'for good' until we get the travel letter from NCC (formally MIGEPROF).  We were hoping to do this after the court case, but when we walked there this afternoon to talk to them about getting the letter ready, the office was empty and apparently they were all gone for training and wouldn't be back until Monday... this isn't the first time we've experienced this sudden office exodus.  The positive part about going to the NCC building was that, even though nobody was there to help us, we got some great pictures of the view from the 3rd.. or 4th floor (I have no idea what floor we were on, there were just so  many stairs!)

On our walk today we went somewhere we've never been.  It was a long (uphill, of course) walk.  I love going for long walks all the time--today we were out from 10am until 1pm... and yes, my feet are tired!

Then we got to visit our boy again.  Today, we finally got a tour of the orphanage.  Normally we just get to spend time up in the parking area and there's a room we can hang out it.  It was so exciting to see where our son has spent so much of his life.  I'll have to try to upload the pictures later because I just spent about 10 minutes trying to upload them and lost patience.  Oh well, after tomorrow, hopefully I'll be able to post pictures with our boy IN them!!

Thanks so much for all your prayers!



Pizza!!!

So, I love pizza.  We've been fed very well (and affordably) at our guest house but occasionally we venture out for walks and food.  We walked back to the African Bagel Company for lunch (it took us a little over an hour to walk there). 

While we were looking at our options, we saw they had pizza!  So we took a gamble and ordered a "small" pizza.  It wasn't small.

It was SOOO good! 

You can't tell by Shawn's sleepy face, but he enjoyed it.

Now, seeing as I'm usually the one taking pictures, there aren't very many 'normal' pictures of me... and this one isn't the exception.

On our way to the bagel/pizza place, we stopped at a market.  Let's just say that I don't think many white people visit this market because Shawn really stuck out in that crowd (I on the other hand, with my significant sun tan was able to stealthily navigate through the market as one of the natives).  They really had no problem staring at us.  We didn't buy anything but I think I would like to head back again and purchase some of the beautiful material they were selling next time we're out walking again.  It's hard to buy stuff here when you don't know what it's worth... they have normal price and then there's "muzungu" (white person) price... and they have no problem referring to you as muzungu.

On the way home, we were temporarily kidnapped by some passing children... all in all, it was a great morning.

This after noon, as usual, we got to visit our boy.  We love spending the time with him.  He's so comfortable just sitting on Shawn's shoulders or just being held by me.  We know that at almost 3 1/2 years old, he doesn't need to be carried everywhere, but it's so good for him and us to have that close contact--a really good way of teaching him that we're not just any adults/volunteers, that we're his parents. 

This is the view going down the hill to our guest house.  Every view here is beautiful... I just love the hills here (not when I'm walking up them, but you know what I mean).

Monday, Monday

We went to our first court hearing today and it went well... at least I think it did.  Whenever our lawyer is advocating for us, whomever he's speaking to always looks very unimpressed and I think "this is not good... they're going to deny our request".  However it all ends up working out.  I have a sneaking suspicion that God is using this to keep me praying, because, believe me, when those unimpressed looks come, I start praying!

Us before we left for court.



The judge was very good to us and gave us our second court date for this Thursday at 2pm Rwandan time.  This is where he gives us his decision.  The only two questions the judge had for our lawyer was
1. Do we have enough money to care for the child
2. How long have we been married.

This is our wonderful lawyer, Antoine in his court outfit.

 

Once the court hearing is done on Thursday, we have to try to:
- get his travel papers
- get his medical done by a special doctor (immigration will only accept the medical from this one doctor)
- get his passport
- do all the immigration stuff with Nairobi to obtain our son's visa (a quick side note about that... we have been dealing with immigration in Nairobi for 2 years now and have even just recently submitted money and papers within the past 3 weeks.  When trying to obtain a specific form we need for the medical, they had no idea who we were--excellent!  Another chance to pray!

We had a wonderful time with our son this afternoon.  We didn't even bring out any toys today, we just walked around, took pictures and had fun together.  I find he does so much better just being with us rather than when we try to entertain him with colouring and toys.  I just love him so much!  Once the court case is done, we will finally be allowed to post pictures of him.  Until then, some random pictures of our day...

For all the farmers back home, there is a right way and a wrong way to carry your chickens into town.  This, my friends, is definitely the right way.

I wish I could carry stuff on my head with such ease. 

 

 

Consider it all joy, my brethren, when you encounter various trials, knowing that the testing of your faith produces endurance.

~  James 1:2 ~

Church African Style

So we went to a church about a 3 minute walk from our guest house.  It was small but they were very welcoming.  We actually recognized one song--a very upbeat version of "How Great Thou Art".  They spoke and sang in Kinyarwanda, but a few times the speaker translated for us and then a woman came and sat with us and translated for us.  They were very kind and friendly to us.

After lunch we went to a clothing/sewing sale where some women were trained to sew stuff in order to sell it to make money.  There was a fasion designer who came from the U.S. last year who spent about 4 months training them so the items they made were very nice and very well made.

Then, off to the orphanage to visit our little guy.  Today's theme was fun with bubbles, and fun we had!  I wish we could show pictures! 
We have our first court date tomorrow and then we'll be praying for our second court date to be on Tuesday.  The judge has a month to set the second court date, but we're hoping and praying for much sooner! 

Some random pictures:



 The sign on the front gates of the orphanage

The area where cars park in the orphanage and where we get to play with our boy.

This was our visitor at our guest house... he watched us from the ceiling.

It was a busy day but a good day. God really is so good to us!

Africa Bagal Company

Today our lawyer, Antoine, took us to a place called Africa Bagal Company.  We walked for about 35 minutes to get there (all up hill I might add).  It is an organization that helps women learn skills so that they can earn money and survive.  They sell some creative things and also donuts, cookies and delicious bagals.  Every Saturday all 'white' people get together to eat and just hang out in the garden there.  It's beautiful and yummy.  We got to spend time with some of the area missionaries and pray with them. 

Then, as always, this afternoon we got a chance to visit our boy.  Up until now he has favoured Shawn, but I guess today was my day.  I got lots of hugs and he took an interest in my hair. 

This is the road we drive down to get to the orphanage.

The Blue gates of the orphanage

Tomorrow we're going to investigate the area churches.  I don't like having to hire a taxi every time we want to go somewhere so I would like to walk around and find a local church.  Who knows where we'll end up, but I'm looking forward to some good old African worship!!

My God Can Move Mountains!

Wow, we went to visit the president of the court today to request an earlier court date (our date that had been given was June 11th). Our lawyer was hoping he would speak English so that we could speak to him and plead our case, however we didn’t even need to say a word. Our new court date is this coming Monday!!! To God be the Glory! Thank you so much for your prayers. It is so exciting to see a hurdle and then watch God remove it. So, Monday is our court appearance and then after that, the judge has up to a month to set our second and final court date. We are hopeful and are praying that he will set that next court date for Tuesday. Praise God for what He has already done. Please pray that things would continue move along quickly.

 

This was us about a week ago in the Brussels airport on very little sleep.  Seems so long ago!