The Scotts

Good News Abounds! Not only was Joah’s passport issued 2 weeks ago yesterday, but our entire part 2 package arrived in Nairobi for visa processing 2 weeks ago this holiday Monday. And the great significance of that is that we were told it would be 2 weeks, and the last family we tracked was exactly 1 week ahead of us, and they got their visa EXACTLY 2 weeks after their papers arrived in Nairobi.

So yeah, we are ALMOST there!

I can’t tell you how excited we are! We are really tempted to book flights this weekend. It will really help everything to feel real, because after all this time, and all the false starts at virtually every stage, believe it or not, it still just doesn’t feel real. Crazy, I know. But once we have tickets in hand and are counting down the actual sleeps, it will all seem so much more real!

But alas, those false starts have me a little gun shy, and so I don’t really want to book flights until we find out that the visas are at least very definitively in process, if not complete. We figured we’d read that this morning when we woke up, but no luck. BUT, Monday is not a holiday in Kenya, so we’re thinking that we’ll wake up to good news Monday morning, which is less than 72 hours away. And in the meantime, we’ve got a couple things to keep us busy... Imagine!

So, ready or not, here we almost come!

ps. Oh, and I want to share much more info about the passport issuing in DRC, but that's a story for another time.  But if I forget, please remind me, because it's worth knowing

When we were in line to adopt children from Ethiopia I was SOOO thankful that there were so many parents out there who had shared about their journey. Every single blog was a great resource, giving us some idea what to expect as we waded through the muddy waters of international adoption, and more specifically, what to expect next, or at some point along the way with our Ethiopian adoption.

But then once we realized that we might never become parents if we continued to wait on Ethiopia, we seized an opportunity to jump into our Democratic Republic of the Congo adoption of Joah & Tabor. But this was different.

For starters, no Canadian family (that anybody knew of anyhow), had yet to complete an adoption from the DRC, and further to that, very few American parents who’d brought home Congolese children were bloggers, only 2 or 3 that I could find.

This meant that we had NO idea what things would look like, what to expect along the way, what we could prepare for as far as paperwork and lag times goes. Nothing. And when you are in the agony of adoption, having SOME clue what to expect is an ENORMOUS help in managing the roller coaster of emtions - which by the way, in case you have friends who are adopting, is mostly an underground, deep in the pits kind of roller coaster (aka, support is more appreciated than you could possibly know).

And so I decided that I was going to blog every step so that future parents would have some idea what to look forward to, what some of the milestone moments are, and what comes next.

The problem is, our agency is not open about what’s happening behind the scenes, at least, not until a particular step is completed.

A parent who’s a little further behind us in the program asked the other day what happens when you pass court. And I’m excited to say that WE KNOW. Yahoo!!! It’s SO incredibly nice to be able to help those behind us, to offer info, encouragement, and some insights.

The Process, As We Know It:

We got our referral for Joah & Tabor on June 8th, 2011 after a tragedy with the parents here in BC who were to be adopting them, and our hearts will always go out to them in whatever they are going through.

It was a Wednesday night when we got the call, and we needed time to pray and make every effort to understand God’s will for these 2 precious boys and ourselves. We spent the weekend thinking about it and communicated to our local agency & to our US facilitator that we were accepting the referral.

The formal referral sheet that we got on both boys had been written 7 months prior, so although we knew their birth dates right off the hop, we hadn’t done the math to realize that the ages on their referral sheets were off by the better part of a year. This is something to keep your eyes open for. It didn’t matter for us, but still good to note if you’re looking at your referral paperwork. I don’t think paperwork is a strongpoint for most of Africa, DRC included.

Next step was to submit our dossier, which we were lucky enough to be able to pull together in a few days thanks to our “in-process” dossier update for Ethiopia. Plus, the dossier for the DRCongo is much more manageable and reasonable than for Ethiopia. Yay!!!

After we submitted our dossier, given our soon to be sons’ particular situation with a previous referral, our agencies thought that we would be through court within a few weeks. And if not a few weeks, files were clearing court within a month or two anyhow.

Finally, after THE MOST AGONIZING 7 months of our lives, we found out on January 6th that we’d cleared court. Our agency informed us that they were having the court documents translated, and we would get the translated docs soon. And they were right, within 2 or 3 days they were in our hands. It was our job to go over the paperwork to look for errors.

Thankfully, any of the errors in our paperwork were just typos, nothing that required going back to court. These documents included:

* Court Judgement

* Death Certificate for their deceased parent

* Parental Authorization - one of the most precious pieces of paper I’ve ever laid my eyes on!

* Birth Certificates

It was when we got these documents that we saw that we had passed court on October 24th, and that the court documents had been certified on November 2nd. This was a huge disappointment to us, as the previous couple months had been nothing short of sheer hell, having understood that we would likely clear court in the summer time and have the boys home a few months later, around Christmas or early New Year...

That said, the DRC had an election at the end of November, giving its countrymen just their 2nd ever chance to vote, so it was a pretty big deal.

We’d been told all along that the Certificate of Non Appeal (or CONA) is issued within 30 days of passing court. In the several months we’d been following along, several people found out on the same day that they’d passed court a couple weeks/month prior, and that they also had their CONA. But, imagine this, ours still didn’t come through until January 31st. And this was the day that we OFFICIALLY became Joah & Tabor’s parents. I think my parents could hear our screams of joy from our house to theirs, an hour and a half drive away...

The only things we were still waiting for as of January 31st were: The Certificate of Indigence The boys’ passports - normally issued in just a few days Our LONO (Letter of No Objection) from the BC Ministry of Children’s & Family Development And here we are, 14 weeks later, and we just found out yesterday that Tabor’s passport was issued/picked up, but that Joah’s wouldn’t be ready until today or Monday. And so we sit with baited breath, praying that neither passport has errors so that we can FINALLY put a wrap to this 4 year “journey” (I’d like to call these 4 years something other than a “journey”, but I know that God will give us back those years, and that He will redeem them).

So, here’s what I know for sure at this point. As we learn more we will try to post it.

Along the way, don’t forget to keep all the court documents, and orphanage intake forms and pictures that the orphanage staff or other parents have taken for their life books. I’m so looking forward to being able to build the boys’ lifebooks for them once we’re home and settled.

And please pray with us that Joah’s passport was picked up today and that we will be able to leave next weekend to pick them up.

Praying that God will speak to all the friends of those of us who adopt to show them His heart for adoption, for caring for the fatherless and widows in their affliction. For being His hands and feet to the world.

Friends, I'm quite melancholy to say that our sons' passports have STILL not been issued.  This has been an excrutiating 13 weeks, being seperated from our precious sons, so please continue to pray for us, and especially for them!

Friends were at the orphanage last week picking up their son and got to visit with our sons a little bit, who told us through the video camera 3 times that they love us.  Joah seems to be having a hard time with this long wait also as he wasn't even able to smile while visiting with our friends.  We can't imagine how hard it is for all our children to see other mommies and daddies come and pick up children to take home, but still, there are no parents for them.  And ours wouldn't be the only children to feel this way, I'm sure.

We were told this morning to FINALLY expect good news later this week or next week, so please be praying for us that this actually does come to pass.

We'll keep you posted as we hear.

Prayerfully, 

Donna

What great news for our friends Yussi & Colleen who are this week’s chosen family for Give1Save. In fact, they are the very first Canadian family!! They did a great video about their adoption and how much they are looking forward to bringing their daughters home.

For the next week, their video will be up on www.give1save1.com, and you can make donations to help them with the adoption and travel expenses.

We are all hoping to travel together, which would be GREAT because they have the very same heart for missions, for orphans and for widows that we do, and it would be such a great experience to do together, especially since our children already know each other and have lived together for so long.

Many blessings to you our new friends, I hope you get LOTS & LOTSA donations this week!!!

Oh, and Colleen is just about to publish a book called “Carry Me To Kinshasa”. I hope you’ll order one, it will be a great book for any adoptive family, especially those from Africa, and more specifically, from the DRC. Way to go Colleen!!!