January update on Vindy

From the adoption director:

Vindy’s is in the youngest care group. All boys age 2-3 ½ yrs old. He is one of the troublemakers in the room because he is so full of life and loves to tease and wrestle. His caregivers’ names are: Nadine, Darline, and Estelle. These ladies really do well with his age group and love to snuggle and give physical affection to all the small ones, Vindy takes to this sometimes and when he has had enough he pushes away to do his own thing. There are 11 other boys in his care group whom Windy gets along with very well, being the outgoing social little guy that he is. He has a few great buddies, but can get along with anyone and will play with and talk to any of the other kids that want to spend time with him. Windy’s teacher is: Mademoiselle Kiki.

Vindy’s Daily Routine:

6:15am – Wake Up

6:45am – Bath Time

7:15am – Getting Dressed

7:30am - Breakfast

8am – Pre-School with Mademoislle Kiki

9:00am – Free Play time

9:45am – Snack Time

12 noon – Lunch Time

1pm – Naptime

3pm – Wake up

3:30pm – Snack Time

3:45pm – Free Play Time

5:30pm – Supper Time

6:45pm – Baths and PJs

7:30pm - In bed for the night

Does this look like a picture of a troublemaker?

Windy has added  .4 inches to his frame and gained a pound.  Mr. Social--this is not surprising considering he is the baby.  It's going to be a nonstop chatty Cathy fest at our house between him and Sam.  Not to mention the WWF wrestling matches.  Oh but how I love boys!!

January update on Julner

From the adoption director:

The care groups at the Toddler House are all set up in the same way so Julner also has three primary caregivers that rotate shifts so that there are always two nannies to care for him and the others in his care group. Their names are: Marie, Rosemarie, and Nadege. There are 11 other boys in his care group, with Julner being the oldest. He does well being the oldest in his group and given more responsibility to help out with things and direct the younger boys than when he is in a group with all older boys. He has a few great buddies, and really loves his nanny Nadege in particular. Julner’s teachers are: Joyce, and Mademoiselle Elange.

Julner’s Daily Routine:

6:15am – Wake Up

6:45am – Bath Time

7:15am – Getting Dressed

7:30am - Breakfast

8am – Free Play Time

9:00am – Early First Grade French/Creole with Mademoiselle Elange

9:45am – Recess from school and snack

12 noon – School is finished and lunch time

1pm – English Class with Joyce

3pm – Class out, work on homework

3:30pm – Snack Time

3:45pm – Free Play Time

5:30pm – Supper Time

6:45pm – Baths and PJs

7:30pm - In bed for the night

I lost my first tooth

It's great to see him really  smile.  It is starting to look like he is getting more confident and experiencing some real joy.  In the last month he has grown .8 inches and gained 1.5 lbs.  He is getting closer to our youngest Sam's height and weight.  Sam is 48 inches tall and 46 lbs. to give you an idea.  Sam will turn 6 in 2 months.  I just noticed to that Julner has a scar over his left eyebrow.  I'm sure it tells a story.  We can all agree though that Julner is strikingly handsome!

January update on Julena

From adoption director:

Julena shares a room with 10 other girls’ age 2-6 yrs. She has made close friends with many of those girls, and looks out for them, as well as bosses the littler ones around. She has three caregivers that rotate shifts so that there are always two nannies to care for her and the others in their care group. Their names are: Sé Clarna, Sé Ketlie, & Nadia. They have been employed at GLA for several years and are wonderful women who have a deep passion for working with these children. Julena refers to them by “Mommy (nannies first name)”. The two ladies on shift also sleep in the same room with her so if she wakes in the middle of the night or needs reassurance they are right there with her. They assist her and the other girls with bathing, dressing, brushing their teeth, making their beds, homework, potty training, learning manners, etc. They are responsible for all of their daily needs. Julena has bonded well with them. Julena also has teachers whom she looks up to for adult example and attention. Joyce Trainer, who moved to GLA from Canada in 2004 oversees the educational programs here and personally teaches the English classes. Mademoiselle Kiki is a certified Haitian teacher who teaches Julena Kindergarten levels in French and Creole as well.

Julena’s Daily Routine:

6:15am – Wake Up

6:45am – Bath Time

7:15am – Getting Dressed

7:30am - Breakfast

8am – English Class with Joyce

9:00am – Free Play Time

9:30am – Snack Time

11am - Early First Grade French/Creole with Mademoiselle Michaelle

12:30 noon –Break from School for Lunch

1pm – Class with Mademoiselle Elange

2pm – Schools out, Nap time

3:30pm – Snack Time

3:45pm – Free Play Time

5:30pm – Supper Time

6:45pm – Baths and PJs

7:30pm - In bed for the night

Julena--full of joy

Julena has grown this month by .5 inch and gained 2lbs.  This girl is Miss Personality!!  Getting new pictures makes it very difficult to wait.  I just want to meet them, hold them, and spend time with them.  Looks like we will have another fashionista at the house, who loves flip flops.  

Got our January Update!

From the Adoption director at GLA:

This months update theme is Celebration! We have so very much to be thankful for and to celebrate here at God’s Littlest Angels. We celebrate each new life that is brought here and the chance they will have to grow up in a loving family or gain health and return to their biological family. We celebrated the birth of our Savior at the end of December and then a new year filled with exciting possibilities and new dreams. In addition to each holiday celebration we celebrate each child’s new developmental milestone and achievement. Each child here in our care has something to celebrate daily. 

From Jill: Look at these new together pictures.  I now have 2 toothless wonders. 

That Smile!

Julner

I fell in love with this little boy the moment I saw him.  His smile lights up any picture!  He made me wonder how can he smile so much that his eyes twinkle, living in such hard conditions?  Did he know that today his life would change forever?  Today would be the last day he would see his mom. And if he had some knowledge of that why was he still smiling at this white woman(maybe the first white woman he's ever seen) that is taking his picture?  

   When I first read the blog about these children, I heard a small quite voice tell me that these were my/our children.  I was a little in shock because adopting more than one 1 child was never in our thinking.  It was a safe thing to expand the family by 1 more.  We could easily do that, but 3 would be an out of the comfort zone challenge.  We didn't think about having more sons, just another daughter.  Yet the idea of having 4 sons and 2 daughters was appealing., and we would be an even numbered household so everyone would have a riding partner at Kings Island!  I guess God knows I enjoy and even thrive with challenge.  Tell me I can't do it and I'll  prove you wrong.  I've been that way since birth-- a quality God knew would come in handy in my lifetime here. 

   It made me sad that the orphanage director thought that it would be hard to find and adoptive family for  these children and so she didn't take the oldest.  Does the older sister wonder why she didn't get to stay?  I often wonder if she is still alive.  Is she being abused physically or sexually?  Does she have food? Where does she sleep?  Does she miss her brothers and little sister?

 After reading the blog, I was full of questions---like OK God if these are our children you've got to make a way for this to happen cause right now we don't even qualify because we have too many kids.  It still makes no sense to me how having biological children already makes it harder for you to adopt from another country. I also saw on the blog that other people commented that they were interested in them.  I thought that for sure another family would be matched with them before God worked a miracle.  But our timing is not God's and we He moves it often happens when we least expect it.  I really didn't expect HIM to move mountains in 5 days from the date I saw them.  May 12, 2011 to May 17, 2011.

How did this happen?

 I know you all have many questions and I will attempt to address them as quickly as possible.  How did we come to take such a big leap of faith to adopt?  Adoption has been on my heart since I was a teenager .My great grandmother actually lived in an orphanage in West Virginia before she was adopted.   Before Wade and I married we discussed how I believed it was God's will for me to adopt.  I gave him the "out" over 15 years ago.  I never imagined it would take all those years or we would be adopting more than 1 child.
     When Sam turned 1, we started talking about adoption seriously.  We started collecting the necessary documentation, but we were detoured on our journey to care for my grandmother who had dementia.  In June 2009,  I found out I was pregnant, but then I miscarried.  We prayed and felt God leading us more toward adoption.   The question we most wrestled with was what country?  We originally thought it would be Guatemala.  We both knew some Spanish, we both loved Mexican style food, and we thought Wade looked a little Mexican with his dark features. Unfortunately, Guatemala's government shut down adoptions.  We then turned to China, but due to some medicines I took for my PPD we were declined.
  January 12, 2010--heartbreaking, devestating earthquake hits Haiti and all of us sit and cry in front of the computer and T.V. over the amount of loss.  The children without families wondering the streets.Who would take care of them?  We learned so much about the poorest country in the Western Hemisphere that  we immediately  felt called to adopt from Haiti.  This was it!!  But the laws of Haiti would not permit a family with more than 2 biological children to adopt.  The government also halted adoptions.  Even though we could not adopt from Haiti, we started following the God's Littlest Angels blog because we saw them on the news trying to get 81 children home to the United States.  We were hooked and started donating to their orphanage.
      The earthquake really shook us into action adoption wise.  When you see so much loss of life, it propels you to start doing things that maybe you have procrastinated doing. We also had a sense that if something in Haitian law changed, we wanted to be ready.  So in February 2010 we started our home study.  We knew it would take a little longer and we would need more documentation since Grandma was living with us.  The fingerprints for a then 91 year old woman were next to impossible to get even though we had her printed 3 times.  She finally got an exemption due to her age and all her criminal records came back negative.  We completed our domestic home study in May 2010.  We realized that if Haitian laws changed we could easily convert over to an international home study.  In the meantime, we thought if God wants us to adopt a child it would have to happen domestically.  Sometimes you just have to step out of that comfort zone and trust Him.
    So the waiting began.  We had a preference for a girl and we wanted her to be between 3-5 years old.  Can you believe that we were active on a list for more than a year?  We were never considered, not even once.  So what do you do during this time of waiting?  You pray , you live,you celebrate, you love, and in our case, we lost.  March 26, 2011 we lost the matriarch of the family--Grandma.  Shock, denial, and grief can keep you really busy.
    And then just when you think you have God's plan all figured out-God opens the door that you thought was shut.  On May 17, 2011, my college roommate's 40th birthday, Haiti changes it's requirements and the orphanage director posts on her blog that she will now take families with more than 2 biological children.

We have a number!!

Great news today.  Our dossier has been logged into the IBESR(Haitian Social Services) system and been given the magic case numbers.
Their IBESR numbers are:

                                   Julena: 19958

                                    Julner: 19959

                                    Vindy: 19960

                                                  1 original and 4 copies of the dossier

The Adoption process page at the top of the blog explains the process we go through in Haiti to bring them home and gives time lines.  We are on step 6 now.  When we our dossier get out of IBESR, we get to travel to meet the children and they will learn they have a new family.  To get out of IBESR, Haitian President Martelly, must sign our dossier approving us.  The Lord is moving faster than the time lines we were given.  

Time to start thinking about getting those typhoid shots!!

The Love of a Mother

  We can not begin to comprehend how difficult it is to make the decision to relinquish 3 of your 4 children into the care of complete strangers.  How many nights to you pray to God asking for direction?  How many tears are shed?  How do you find the strength and courage to let go and carry on?    Here is what I can tell you about this incredible, strong, courageous, determined woman you see before you:

Her name is Dadane.  She was born May 16, 1986 in Jacamel. She is 25 years old.  She is unmarried and all of the chilldren were born from unknown fathers.  She has no information about any of the fathers.  Dadane has 4  children.  Besides Julner, Julena, and Vindy, there is a daughter Fanise who is 10 years old.  Dadane was placed with another family as a child to work.  We call these Restavek children(child slavery, still in existence today).  She is very fortunate that she knows her biological family, which is not the case with most Restavek situations.  She never went to school or learned how to read or write.  She left home and moved to Port-au -Prince looking for a better life when she was only 14 years old.  She became pregnant with 4 children all by different men.  Her daughter Fanise was born when Dadane was 15 years old.  Her father, sister, and brother are all living.  Her mother is deceased.  She is of Catholic religion, which is wonderful since the practice of Voodoo is thriving in Haiti.

   She had a small vending business and a home before the earthquake in 2010. Both were destroyed.  She lived in a tent city with the children until she was evicted from the tent city in May 2011.  She has had a difficult life.  She brought the children to the orphanage on May 12,2011--my 40th birthday.  The story of Dadane's determination and love to do what she knew was best for her children is documented at this link written by the orphanage director.

http://godslittlestangelsinhaiti.org/2011/05/new-siblings-come-to-live-at-toddler-house/

She reminds me of another woman I knew well in my lifetime who was stubborn and wouldn't take "no" for an answer, who always did what was best for her children-- My mom.

Meet Vindy

Vindy is 3 years old.  His birthday is October 7.  He is 35" tall and weighs 28.5 lbs.  Vindy has bonded well with his primary caregivers. He responds well to affection and loves to be kissed, cuddled, hugged, carried, sung to, and loved on.  He doesn't like new faces and takes a little time and coaxing to be brave enough to go close to them even in his own environment.  He is very close to his sister and looks to her for reassurance in new situations,for comfort, for love, and for help with things.  He has many friends and gets along well with kids his age and older. He is strong and has lots of energy.  He has good verbal skills and wants to repeat the last word of everything you say.

Meet Julena

Julena is 5 years old.  Her birthday is November 16.  She is 39" tall and weighs 37.5 lbs.  She too suffered from malnutrition, but it has not affected her growth as much.  She is described as noisy, joyous, full-of-life kind of girl, with  a bit of mischief in her.  She loves to be cuddled, hugged, tickled and loved on.  She loves both of her brothers.  She has a very playful spirit and is rarely without a smile on her face and a laugh in her eyes.  She is a tease and enjoys making others laugh through her actions, or jokes. She is very vocal and loves to talk. She must ask about everything, what is it, where did it come from, who brought it, is it bad or good, etc.
Julena likes to do everything, and has an energetic air about her even when she is sitting still. She is always willing to play with other children, and prefers that to independent play.

Meet Julner

Julner is 7 years old. His birthday is August 16. He is 44.5" tall and weighs 43.5 lbs. He has suffered from malnutrition and it has affected his growth. He is described as curious, excited,and adventurous. He is close to and protective of his little brother. He is a healthy strong boy, has a good appetite, sleeps hard, and has plenty of energy to play anything he desires. He loves to play kickball,basketball, and soccer. He has a great imagination and loves to build things. In order to represent honestly the reality of what these precious children have endured I will share some not so" pretty" issues that will need to be addressed.

Julner has been called upon to be older than his years, and he has toughened up and became very independent and strong because of it. He is "as tough as nails" and "as stubborn as an ox". He struggles with authority and rage. He is cautious with each new face before he lets his guard down. He was harshly abused by his mother, of whom he bears knife scars on his back from when she was angry with him. It will take some time for him to trust us and accept our love. He does respond well to positive reinforcement and he desires praise,so we will work with him using those methods. We have a wonderful International Adoption Department at Cincinnati Children's Hospital whom we have already consulted with and are now enrolled in their program. They will be helping us integrate the children into school, providing grief counseling to the children, and providing us resources to help them adapt here in the United States. Despite the bad things mentioned above, we look at it with a heavenly perspective---we all are broken and only love can heal us. We trust that our heavenly Father with provide us with His wisdom and guide us through the challenges that lay ahead.

Personally we are so thrilled to have been given this gift of life from the Lord. We adore his smile, which is infectious and is seen brightly in almost every picture and video we have received of Julner. He is a handsome child, full of life and endless possibilities. He has been chosen for our family. He has great value and we can't wait to see the miracles God will perform for him and through him.

Our Secret

For most of you this may come as a surprise, but for those of you who know us and our hearts--we have a secret to share---we are adopting!! It's been in the process now for about 5 years, but has finally come to fruition. So let me introduce to you the precious Haitian Sensations we will be bringing home in early 2013. Julena (5), Julner (7), and Vindy (3). We are beyond thrilled and want to share our journey full of faith required to bring them home!