Our Latest Adventure

We have some big news. We are in the process of adopting 2 children from the Democratic Republic of Congo (formerly Zaire). We made our decision at the beginning of August, and have just completed our home study and are waiting for it to be written up, which will be sometime before October 6. As soon as we have it in our hands, we will send it to USCIS (immigration) to be processed. This will take 2-3 months, and at the end of that process we will be issued visas to bring the children back. During that time, our agency, One World Adoptions, will be matching us with children. We have requested a two year old boy and an infant girl. The adoption will be complete after a court hearing in the DRC. Once that happens, Daryl will travel to the DRC to pick them up. D and J will accompany him. The trip will take approximately one week. I will be staying home with the other children, preparing to welcome our newest family members home!

Our children are SO excited. I can't believe that I will soon be the parent of TEN children! It is exciting to be "expecting" without having to be pregnant. I will undoubtedly miss not having been able to enjoy my children's newborn/infancy,but I believe we have been called to do this.

The last 2 months have been filled with paperwork (filing for adoption is sometimes referred to as the paperwork pregnancy), medical appointments and lab tests for everyone in the family.

My doctor was happy to write a letter stating that my health is good enough to not affect my ability to parent two more children! I am still receiving IVIG infustions, only once every 3 weeks now, and am down to only 3mg of prednisone a day, although I am now tapering it once a month--veeeerrrry slooooowwwllly.

The citizens of the war torn DRC are some of the poorest in Africa. There are thousands of displaced people living in camps, and the violence against them continues. Many flee to the southern part of the country, where the capital, Kinshasa, is located, only to find that there are no better opportunities for them there. It is estimated that 15,000 are living on the streets in Kinshasa. Our children will come from Kinshasa.