First Week's Reflections

***Having a difficult time uploading pics here. If you are on Facebook, please check out my Facebook photos for most recent pics***

It is hard to believe we have been here six days. I actually feel like I have lived here for much longer than that. Now I don't think I could have said that the first two days, but now I am starting to feel at home. The past two days in particular have been wonderful.

Yesterday was Lian's first day at Kigali International Community School. She had a wonderful time and it was honestly nice to just have Anna home with me for a day. We were able to have one on one time, made an art project and just played together. Then we went for a walk in our neighborhood. I took a play parachute with me. We walked to the place where people seem to gather. There was one small boy there and a teenage girl. We showed them the parachute and I asked if they wanted to hold it. Then I began to sing Kinyarwandan numbers from 1-10 to the tune of "Ten Little Indians". Before I knew it there were about a dozen kids playing with us. We had so much fun.

Lian had asked me the other day why we couldn't give the kids the candy we had brought. I told her that I wanted the neighbor kids to see her and Anna as their friends first, rather than the girls who give them candy. She seemed to understand. After a few weeks, I'm sure we'll give them some treats, but for now it is neat to see them becoming friends with their neighbors and it felt good to tell the neighbors that we would be here for a few years. Thus, even though we had to go inside, we would be back.

After picking up Lian from school, I went to my first Kinyarwandan language lesson. Carter has been studying for a few weeks, but said I could join him for his lessons. I have much to catch up on, but the tutor was so encouraging. His name is Silas. I like that we are learning the building blocks of the language, rather than just expressions. There is much to learn, but I am so desparate to be able to communicate with the children here.

We had our first Rwandan meal last night since our house helper, Consolee, cooked for us.

What a treat. It is definitely a change for me to have someone helping with the cleaning, cooking and laundry, but somehow I don't think I'll be complaining about it. I am still cooking several nights a week ,but it is fun to have Rwandan meals a few nights as well. We are definitely much healthier here - we drink water all day long and sweets are expensive and not easy to find. Thus we're eating a lot of beans, rice, and fruit.

We got a car today as well. It is a sedan and is the color of eggplant. It has tinted windows and has this lovely "funky" sound when you go into reverse. It's gotten a few laughs, but it gets us where we need to go, is great on the bumps, and gets great gas mileage (gas is $6/gallon here). Kerry said it needed a name. Eggplant in french is aubergine (sp?), so we're calling it "Obie" for short : ) It feels great to be driving on my own. I got lost going to Lian's school today, but managed to find my way. There really aren't that many main roads in Kigali, so should be easy to navigate once I practice a bit. Even managed to find my way to the market and craft store today.

Kerry, Kristin and I went to a Bible study for women today. There are two women there who've adopted Rwandan babies, so another great community to connect with.

On the Karisimbi front, the guys have their first strategic planning retreat this weekend and it looks like three more definite clients are in the works. We have eight proposals out to other potential clients and things continue to move forward.

I just realized this posting isn't really my reflections, but more newsy. I"ll try to be more reflective in my next post because there is definitely a lot upon which to reflect here.

The First 48 Hours in Rwanda

I'll try to post some pictures in the next day or two, but they are taking too long to upload tonight and I am quite tired. We have had a very full 48 hours here in Kigali and according to our friends here, we have accomplished a great deal in a short amount of time. Many thanks to the Crocketts who have been here for five weeks. Kerry has been my tour guide around Kigali and Carter had things like internet, water, electricity (have to pay in advance), and interviews with potential staff lined up for us the moment we arrived. I hear that is a minor miracle.

We were without water yesterday. The emergency tank was empty. Then the electricity goes off almost every day for an hour or more, so that is fun. But, we truly have so much to give thanks for. One hundred yards from our home is a common clustering of shanties and mud houses. The children from this area hang out on our street a lot. While waiting for our ride yesterday, the girls and I orchestrated a game of tag with the neighborhood kids. We had a blast and I hope to see Jackie, Nadesh, Daniel, and Christian again soon. I truly have nothing to complain about when the water tank is empty. Most of these families have to walk to a well to fill their jerry can with water.

I am truly understanding the need for our home to be our refuge. Maybe that sounds selfish, but there are so many needs all around and just doing life takes a lot out of you - and it's only been 48 hours! It is nice to return to our home and just feel safe and surrounded by a few things that make us feel at home. I am very grateful for the beautiful garden we have and I am determined to grow something successfully :) Lian is most excited to eat the mango, papayas and avocadoes growing from our trees.

Lian starts school on Monday and we are going to meet her teacher tomorrow. Anna will really miss having her big sister around, but we met a young woman on the plane who is Rwandan, but has lived in California for the past ten years. Olive has a three year old daughter, who was also on the plane. We hit it off and she asked if we could get together sometime. She wrote me today and Anna has her very first playdate next week. Hard to believe my three year old has lived on three continents in three years.

The guys are hard at work already with Karisimbi. They are hosting a strategic planning retreat with Gerard Sina of Sorwatum, a tomato processing company, in a week or two. And they continue to meet with potential clients. The need for these small to medium size companies in this country is great.

The End of our Great Journey...Beginning of Another

At some point, I need to really reflect on all that took place this summer. We feel so blessed to have visited friends and family from so many different spheres of life. And most of the time, we felt unworthy of the love and prayers we received from those we love. It is hard to know how to say thank you to the many friends who opened their homes to us across the country. We only stayed in a hotel one night. Incredible gift. Just this week, after celebrating my brother's wedding, we traveled to Boston and stayed with our dear friends, Eric and Beth Mollenhauer. It is so refreshing to be with friends who've known you for close to 20 years. We then traveled to Rhode Island to stay with other dear friends, Kurt and Mary Jamiel, and to celebrate our friend Amy Macera's wedding with my annual reunion gang.

Kurt and Mary completely surprised us with an incredible gift. Kurt was a sponsor of the Providence Rotary Club Street Festival fundraiser. He wanted to show us the chalk art done by various artists. As we were walking on the path, we came to one entitled, "Love is Patient" and there was an incredible portrait of our girls. Kurt had hired a local artist friend to creat the beautiful picture you see here. Dano and I did not know what to say.

It seems we've been speechless most of this trip. We are blessed with incredible friends and family members who inspire us with their generosity, humility, good works, and faith. So thank you to everyone who made this "Great American Journey" possible. Now we set off for another tomorrow morning...one we know is already changing our lives forever.

Dossier off to State Dept and Rwandan Embassy

Six weeks ago, we began the process to adopt a son from Rwanda. I cannot believe how fast the time has gone by. We are doing the process independently, so I was a bit nervous regarding the administrative challenges of getting this all done without any problems. However, here we are six weeks later and our dossier is complete and being reviewed by the State Department and will be delivered to the Rwandan Embassy tomorrow supposedly. Hoping and praying that we did not forget anything. I am still in shock by how fast we got this done. We are so thankful to be in Vermont for this process. In Seattle, it took me close to nine months before our dossier was ready to send to China.

Today, Anna said, "Thank you mommy for getting me a little brother. I SoOOOO excited!"

And Lian is already making her list of names for him.

We feel very blessed.

12 days left till we move to Rwanda...in that time we will attend my brother's wedding, drive to Boston, see some Revolutionary War sites, visit our good friends the Mollenhauers, drive to Warren, RI to stay with our dear friends, the Jamiels, and then attend Amy Macera's wedding, which will be my annual reunion with my college roommates, and then finally drive to NJ on the 27th to stay with the Peixotos, before their daughter, Caroline, joins us on the flight to Rwanda on the 28th. Whew....my emotions are starting to run a little high by this reality.

Rwanda Journey Adds Another to Our Family

One more month until we depart for Rwanda. Hard to believe. This summer has been such a gift to our family. It has been amazing to see the girls grow in their love and friendship with each other. Over 6200 miles traveled across this beautiful country. Now we are in beautiful Vermont. For four weeks we don't have to unpack our bags. After living out of suitcases since we sold our house on May 31, this is very welcome. We are settled into my parents' lake cottage in the town of Glover, VT. It is literally in the middle of nowhere, but that is a welcome respite for us. For pictures of the cottage, check out www.villagevictorian.com and then click on the lake cottage link. We have to drive 10 miles to get internet access, so it's been nice to take a break from being "wired."

Our big news as a family is that we've decided to add another member to our family. Dano and I have thought about adding to our family for over a year, but while it was easy for us to decide on China for our girls, we just didn't know from where our third child would come. The wait for Chinese adoptions is now 3-5 years. Since we will be in Rwanda for at least three years, we decided to pursue a Rwandan adoption. While in Ft. Worth, TX, we met with Gladney Adoptions because we knew they worked in Rwanda. While everyone there was very nice, we were overwhelmed by the costs of a third adoption. We talked with another couple who adopted from Rwanda and they recommended we go independently. We then learned Rwanda prefers this method. We also learned from Gladney that if we wanted to adopt from Rwanda, we had better get our homestudy and dossier prepared prior to leaving the States. We had thought we'd start the process after moving to Rwanda. We gulped....how could we process everything in less than 6 weeks? Just to file our I-600A(petition to the US government to adopt an orphan) had always taken 3-5 months for our other two daughters. I truly believe God knew we needed to be in Vermont.

Vermont is very adoption-friendly and it is a small state. We have been working our tails off the past two weeks trying to get all of our paperwork needed for our dossier and we were able to get our homestudy done and written in three days, scheduled an appointment with immigration last week to file our I-600A. Eight days later, we have our approval in hand! I love this state! I also love small towns...(I know I have a blog somewhere in my mind about what I've pondered regarding the future of small towns in America)...we were able to get a doctor's appointmen tfor our physicals within a week. The local notary has processed everything for free for us...our friends from Seattle have been incredible getting letters of reference signed for us and our attorney friend Sherman Snow has been our "notary-in-residence" for all Seattle area documents. We feel incredibly blessed. All this to say....our paperwork is all ready for its next stage.

The next stage is to get our documents notarized by the secretary of state in each originating state, i.e. NY birth certificate for me notarized by Secy of State of NY, bank docs from Texas, notarized by Texas, etc. This is what the agencies used to do for us. Once we receive those documents back, which we hope will only take two weeks, we can then file our dossier with the US Secretary of State's office. Once that is received back (and we've found someone who can do this in person in DC), it is taken to the Rwandan Embassy in D.C. Once that is approved, we can hand it in to the Rwandan Minister of Gender and Family Information in Kigali. Our hope is we will have this in our hands when we leave for Kigali.

What is the timeline for receiving our son? Rwanda is new to international adoptions, so a lot could change, but it seems that once the dossier is received by the Minister, it may only take 2-4 months to receive our referral. This is hard for us to fathom after we waited 18 months for Lian and 2 1/2 years for Anna. So...stay tuned...

Our Africa Reading List

The Following is our book list as we prepare to move to Rwanda next month. A few people had asked me for suggestions, so I hope this is helpful.

Read This Year
A Thousand Hills: Rwanda's Rebirth and the Man Who Dreamed It by Steven Kinzer
Left to Tell: Discovering God Amidst the Rwandan Holocaust by Immaculee Ilibagiza
Scared: A Novel on the Edge of the World by Tom Davis
We Wish to Inform You that Tomorrow We Will be Killed with Our Families: Stories from Rwanda by Philip Gourevitch
The Bishop of Rwanda by John Rucyahana and James Riordan

Currently Reading
The Mission Song by John Le Carre
Africa: Altered States, Ordinary Miracles by Richard Dowd
The State of Africa: A History of Fifty Years of Independence by Martin Meredith
The Covenant by James Michener

Still to Read
The Bottom Billion: Why the Poorest Countries are Failing and What Can be Done About It by Paul Collier
The Blue Sweater: Bridging the Gap Between Rich and Poor in an Interconnected World by Jacqueline Novogratz

Please let us know if you have any other suggestions for us.

Anna's quotes

We have been driving all week, staying with friends and not having much internet access, so I am way behind on blogs. However, before I forget these Anna-isms, I thought I'd just write down two of them:

"Where are we?"
"Mississippi"
"Did Mrs. Sippie eat my fruit rollup?"

"Keep your eyes open girls for a restaurant."
"No, Daddy. I will keep my eyes closed for a restaurant."