Final posting

The girls have been home for 3 weeks now, which is still a week shy of our time out in Uganda, but it is going by fast.
The girls showed quickly that they were not going to respond well to home-schooling, so we opted to enroll them in a public charter school to get them separated from each other and encourage them to start speaking more English. Scot and I realized a pattern that they would refuse to speak up to others in English, but would chatter away with one another in Lugandan all day. We figured that separating them during the day and getting them together with English-speaking kids would help foster and speed up the learning curve for them.  So far it has yielded positive results.

We are settling into our routines now. The girls have school Monday-Friday, we go swimming on Friday nights sometimes, or have a family movie night, Saturdays we play, and Sundays are for church and community group.
Between the extra loads of laundry, more house cleaning than I anticipated, and continuing to bond and learn about our new children, Scot and I find ourselves with full days.
With that being said, I believe that it is time to bid our blog a fond farewell.
We thank those of you that have read it and responded, prayed for our family, and blessed us with support.

We do sincerely hope that this blog, and our message, has touched your heart. We feel very strongly about our faith in the Lord, and believe that adoption is just one of many ways to serve Him and display His love and faithfulness to us as His adopted ones.  Our final request to those who may be willing, is that you would pray that God touches our daughters' hearts. We hope that they would one day realize that what we have done is NOTHING compared to what He already accomplished on the cross. This week being Easter is a perfect time to remember how truly needy we are, and how He has satisfied that need with the sacrifice of his son Jesus.

God bless you all, and again, thank you!

Trip photos

Here are some pics...

 A little Silly Putty went a long way to entertain the kids at the passport office.

 Jack Fruit!!! Very sticky, hence the gloves. The fruit are the round parts you see with large seeds in the middle. I can best describe it as a slightly more rubbery version of a lychee.

 Say hello to my little friend.  This big guy roamed the property around where we were staying. There was always a cattle dog and a herdsman near by.

 That's Lake Victoria in the background. We hicked about a mile up from our guesthouse to get this view.

 Aisha learning her alphabet and how to read.

 Flavia got creative with the dominos.

 Hair finally getting long enough to play with.

 Kampala madness.

 Flavia taking pics of herself.

The orphanage. I was laughed at and lovingly reprimanded by the house mother for my shorts because they were above the knee. Later that day Aisha asked if she could wear shorts when she got to America too.

 The orphanage house mother, Mama Teddy. Let me tell you, this woman is a SAINT. She genuinely loves these children. Her heart is so big, and her patience equally so. We could tell that our girls really care about her.

 Gecko. Thankfully, not in my bed.

 Instead, in my husband's hand. Said they feel like sandpaper.

 "It's the metric system. They don't know what a quarter pounder is..."

 This was a school out on recess while we were waiting for our interview at the embassy. They were fascinated by our whiteness.

 Flavia singing in church. Aisha hating that she was brought onto the stage as well.

Aisha's father's house.

 Aisha's father. He is a very tall man, which explained why our 8 year old is wearing adult size 5 shoes.

 Flavia and her aunt. She lived with her for a while before coming to the orphanage.

 I couldn't help myself. This is Flavia's youngest half-brother. He too will be available for adoption soon.

 Rashid and Aisha's father approaching Flavia's old house. You can just make out Flavia's father in the doorway.

 Wait a second... is that...?

Why yes- it IS two men and a goat on a motorcycle! The goat was alive, and he was not happy.

 The outside of the orphanage. They are adding a second tier up top for more kids and more comfortable accomodations for the house mothers.

 Here are some of the kids still waiting for forever families. They are incredibly affectionate. When you show up, three or four will try to scramble into your arms, on your lap, cling to your legs, and show you how smart they are by counting to ten or singing you a song. They loved that we played games with them. These are just the youngest. There were about 8 older kids (ages 6-14) at school when we took this picture.

 This is Danny. I wanted to smuggle him home, but he has a family waiting for him in Tenessee. He was absolutely precious, and smiled and cuddled at you all day.

 Rashid and Joy. The caretakers of the orphanage, and our mentors and guides while we were away.

 More little angels...

 First plane ride!

 Poor thing. We had to be up at 2 am to get on the plane.

If you feel like you want to help these precious children out, the director of the orphanage is a man in Panama City Beach Florida. His name is Robert "Bob" Hayes. He has a website:
www.ugandamission.net/hayes  or you can email him at Bob@ugandamission.net
He is the US director of the Africa Christian Training Institute and runs the financial books for the orphanage.  We had the pleasure of meeting and breaking bread with him for a few days. He's a lovely southern gentleman with a HUGE heart for Africa. He goes there 4 times a year, and he is a former Presbyterian preacher by trade until the Lord called him to work with the orphanage.

I'll have a few more pictures and videos of the girls now that we are home coming soon.

Homecoming

I have pondered for 2 days about what I want to say in this posting, and the right words will not come.
The love that my family has been shown upon our return has been overwhelming.
Friends and family have reached out in support, giving us help, food, and gifts and clothes for the girls.
No dictionary contains the vocabulary that I require to show my gratitude to you all.
The girls repeatedly say thank you every time they walk into their room or look in their closet.
They thank God for you because you have so richly blessed them.
We hope to be able to visit as many of you as possible to say thank you, but if we are not able to see you all, please know that we are so moved and we appreciate what you have generously provided for our family.

I thought it would be fun to share some of the more light-hearted and funny moments that we have had. Anyone with children knows that they do and say the funniest things, and I think with our girls being from a different country and culture, we get a little bonus:
1) No-pants dance.  When we got Flavia's passport, but not Aisha's due to a spelling error, Aisha became very sad. We had to explain repeatedly that she will have a passport, and she will be coming home. After talking her through it all in the car ride home, she understood and then became excited. When we got home, we started our usual routine of brushing teeth and putting on PJs. As I was helping Flavia brush her hair in the bathroom, Scot comes around the corner trying not to laugh aloud and says, "Honey quick, you gotta see this."  I peek around the corner and there is Aisha (with her back to us), pants around her ankles doing a little cha-cha shuffle, singing about her passport.  When she finally turned around and saw all 3 of us staring at her, she about died of embarrassment.

2) McDonalds.  Yes, okay, I admit it. I took the kids to McDonalds. C'mon, it's like an American childhood rite of passage.  We started at the park with the Shiver's, but it got cold and windy, and the kids (and moms) were getting hungry.  The girls walked in, saw the PlayPlace, and lit up. They loved it. Flavia really took to little Max and liked helping him climb up.  She couldn't believe that playing there, and at the park previously, was free of charge because you have to pay to play at a park where they lived. Then they got their first happy meal. As if the fried, super-processed, hydrogenated goodness that is the Happy Meal wasn't awesome enough, it comes in a colorful box, and wait, there's a toy?! They sang a song about being an American and happy to live in America on the car ride home. When Scot got home from running some errands, they showed him their toy and told him they liked hamburgers.

3) Who doesn't like bacon?  We went out to eat the last night we were in Uganda. We had been telling the girls about pizza, and the restaurant we went to had it, so they wanted to try it. I asked what they wanted on it, and Aisha said, "Meat." Flavia said, "PORK!!"  I was surprised that Aisha wanted meat, as she usually eats very little, and not surprised that Flavia yelled pork, because she could easily win the 72oz steak challenge in Texas.  One of the pizzas had Canadian bacon, so there you go, two birds with one stone...I thought.  The pizza came, and Aisha stared at it. She is reluctant to try new foods anyway, so I encouraged her to try a bite. She turned the pizza around to eat the crust first, and I showed her how we start at the point, and the crust is like a handle to hold while we eat. She took a bite, and then looked like she would gag. Rashid laughed and spoke to her in Lugandan and she responded, and then he informed us that since she came from a Muslim family, she was taught not to eat pork because it is dirty. Hearing this, Flavia then turned and spoke rapidly to Aisha. Rashid laughed again, and explained that Flavia said, "Well, you have given your life to Christ now, so eat the pork!"

Here are a few more photos of the trip, with more to come now that I found the cord to the camera.