Approval!!!!!!!!!!!!!

A thing long expected takes the form of the unexpected when at last it comes!

Mark Twain's Notebook

Imagine my surprise when I opened email this morning and found our APPROVAL letter! What a blessing and what a big step! Thank you to Peter and the Ministry in Rwanda; this is so quick and efficient especially considering they just had all the work of getting the referrals out for the previous group. They are working so hard over there on behalf of us and these children. Thank you for your prayers--Thank you, God! The letter states that we will now wait 2 months for a referral (the information about our child). Here is the letter for those of you who'd like to see it:

October! (And a little adoption update . . .)

"October gave a party;
The leaves by hundreds came -The Chestnuts, Oaks, and Maples,
And leaves of every name.
The Sunshine spread a carpet,
And everything was grand,
Miss Weather led the dancing,
Professor Wind the band."
~George Cooper, "October's Party"

Wow! What a month October was! When you're done reading this post you'll understand why I didn't have time to stop and blog for the last month. It has been crazy and fun around here; as you'll see Brooks spent the better part of October dressed as Darth Vader. It has been beautiful weather, and we have been able to stay out-and-about just about every day. Enjoy these pics of all our October fun. (If you are reading this for adoption news only, scroll down; it's at the bottom!)



At the Pumpkin Patch







Oktoberfest

Happy Half-Birthday (notice it's 1/2 of a cake!)

Tulsa Kite Fest

The Oklahoma State Fair in Tulsa

Halloween! We all had fun, but judging by the reactions of the 9-11 year old male crowd in the neighborhood, Mommy's costume was the biggest hit!

Hallowmarine--They had a mermaid swimming in the fish tank, but her picture didn't come out well.

Hall"zoo"een--I think one of Brooks's favorite parts was seeing a group of dancers do a rendition of the "Thriller" video! And, he got to meet the Ghostbuster gang; I think Daddy liked that more than Brooks. You can tell it was a LONG night!

KiddiePark in Bartlesville--We really love this place; it's just perfect for the little kiddos.

Star Wars in Concert! Daddy and Brooks went and had a great time. Other people asked to take pictures with Brooks! Brooks has been humming the Star Wars music almost non-stop since this.

The Haunted Castle in Muskogee

Well, I hoped you liked the photos. It has been a fun month--all this and football, too!

Adoption news: I have come to the conclusion that God has decided that I need to learn patience. Honestly, I wish He would have picked a different time for the lesson, but, alas, I will be forced to learn. It appears that our best course of action for now will be to revise our expectations. We had really hoped to have our son home this Spring, but I think we would be better to shoot for the family reunion in mid-July. In order to not bog you down with adoption lingo, just suffice it to say that Rwanda has been swamped with adoption dossiers and they just don't have the man power to process them quickly. I applaud them for doing all they can to make the process very ethical and careful even if it means slower. They have made changes in the process to better protect their children and to safeguard the process. Anytime changes are made, the first few groups through will be somewhat "trial and error." It will happen.

The basics of where we stand is that our dossier is being reviewed by Rwanda. We await our "approval" and then we will wait for our "referral" or the information about our specific child. The general time frames are 3-6 months waiting for approval (you can see on our ticker where we are in this wait) and then 2-3 months waiting for a referral. After this, the best guess is 4-6 weeks for court dates, etc. and then we travel.

Right now, more than ANYTHING for our adoption, please pray that there is a way for our fellow adopters who are waiting for their referrals any day to get through court in time to bring their children home for Christmas. For us, please pray that we are in the next round of approvals, whenever that may be. Please pray that the Rwandan Ministry will have the time and resources to devote to the adoption files. Please pray that the children are well and loved. Please pray for me to learn to be patient.

Finally, for no real reason, for the last few weeks, I have had the song "Maybe" from Annie stuck in my head. Then, I caught it on late-night television one night and another blog used "Tomorrow" on their blog. Maybe if I write about it, my mind will move on, but I think I keep playing the song in my head because I wonder what our son thinks about, wishes about, dreams about. Many of these adopting families are adopting very young babies and toddlers. Our son is nearing 3 already; he has fears, concerns, questions. One person who has been in the orphanage, recalls the "older" children (preschoolers and toddlers) clamoring about them calling them Mommy and Daddy and asking to be held. Now that these children are seeing more and more of them--usually babies--leave with Mommies and Daddies, I wonder if they dream of getting a family. I wonder if our son wishes for us even though he doesn't know us. I wonder if in his way he has a bunch of "maybe's" rolling about in his little heart. Anyway, if you don't know the song I mean, pause the blog music and listen to it here if you'd like:

17 years ago . . .

It has been seventeen years since two high-schoolers in Humble, Texas, started "going out." How time flies! I'd post a homecoming picture from that week, but gosh-dernit I can't seem to find one!

Into the Wild-ish & Adoption Dreams

Well, the third time is a charm, at least for zoo campouts, that is. This weekend we went to our 3rd "Zoofari" which is a Tulsa zoo event for its members where we get to pitch a tent and spend the night at the zoo. The first time we went it was horribly hot, the next time there were severe storms, but this time was perfect. It did get a little chilly (in the 50's overnight) but it was so nice throughout the evening. We were able to ride the train and the carousel, make smores, and explore the zoo by flashlight. They had stations set up with the docents where we were able to meet and learn about a snake. Brooks also colored a giraffe mask to wear.

It was also really neat to be able to see the animals first thing in the morning. The cheetas are usually very elusive, but they were content to chill out and have their breakfast right out in the open. Even the zebras were unusually lively as they galloped around their enclosure pausing to stare at the people as if they were wondering what we were doing there so early. The lions are apparently very early risers as I began to hear them roaring at about 3 am! Maybe their new cubs were getting up in the middle of the night for attention! Brooks got some time on the payground before we had to break camp and get out before the Saturday crowds showed up. Needless to say, a zoo campout puts us on track to spend the rest of the weekend being lazy and enjoying some football.

* A complete aside: I took a break from publishing this post to go do our nighttime routine with Brooks. Although, I, like many moms, spend a good deal of time convinced that I am really botching this whole Mommy thing since I can't gather the energy (okay, the interest) to spend as much time playing Clone Trooper or Jedi Knight as Brooks would like. Or, because I realize that he didn't have a proper vegetable all weekend unless you count pizza sauce. Then, he saves me by telling me as I leave his room, "You love me too much!" Not possible, but how sweet to hear!

On the adoption front, we really aren't expecting news of any kind right now. We're 1 month into the 2-6 month wait for approval. We are now starting to focus on learning what we will be able to do to help our son adjust and bond when we come home. Every child and every family have different experiences, but what we do know is that he will need a lot of time and patience as we recreate that infant bonding experience with him. He will need to test and have proven to him again and again that we will be there to meet his needs (sounds familiar from Brooks's infant days!). He will need to know that we aren't leaving him; that this family is forever. I predict that it will seem odd at first to us and to those watching us that he has to be "babied" so much, but the holding, swaddling, etc that we didn't have with him as an infant will need to be recreated when he comes home.

As most of us in this adoption journey do, I always read other families' blogs to glean from their experiences and insight. I always wondered how so many people seemed to have dreams related to their adoptions--I'm just not the "got" a message in a dream" type. I still don't claim to be getting any messages, but I've now spent 2 nights having dreams about the adoption. In one, my "wishful thinking" dream, I received a middle-of-the-night phone call from Rwanda in which a man named Fernando (don't know where that came from!) informed me that we'd be recieving our approval letter the next day via email. I agrued with him that we hadn't been waiting long enough to which he just replied "congratulations!" and hung up. Then, last night, I dreamed that I received another call, this time from a young woman named June, who said she was a caregiver at the orphanage and she was playing right next to our son. I asked her how this could be since I didn't know our referral yet and she said they had read our file and just knew that this little boy was right for us. She said he was 27 months old and would I like to talk to him? I told her I didn't want to get his hopes up in case the official referral didn't come through. This dream was complete with clear images of June sitting in a room with another caregiver while a little boy played at her feet. So, now I am one of those whose waking and sleeping moments are consumed with thoughts of our son. Any dream interpreters out there?

Are you ready for some football?!?!

Three seasons ago we made the long drive from Tulsa to Austin for the Ohio State game and the Texas A&M game; it has taken this long to be willing to attempt it again. It is a very long drive and after a loss it is even worse. However, we figured that an older Brooks (with a newly developed Star Wars obsession and DVD player) combined with a game against the University of Louisiana-Monroe might work out better for us. So, Chris said he wanted to go to Austin and the game for his b-day and off we went.

IT WAS GREAT! We had heard so much about the Lake being very low that we had given up on the idea of getting in the water, but after quite a hike over the rocks we were able to get to the water(for those of you who've been to the Lake house; check out the pictures!).

Making it even better was the fact that Aunt Terri and Uncle Ronnie were there and let us take out their jet skis. This was a first for myself and Brooks, and we both had a blast. Brooks swam around in the lake like a fish. He was so much more comfortable and relaxed than in the pool--go figure! Sorry, Aunt Terri, about all the splashing in the face! In fact, we had so much fun that we lost all concept of our carefully planned schedule (so sorry Cameron--we WILL see you next time!). But we were able to get in a visit with Chris and Alaina Hanson and their adorable little girl, Olivia. Here you can see Brooks is already making little girls run!

We had a leisurely lunch at The Oasis and realized that we were supposed to be somewhere--Oh yeah, the game. After some nervous moments looking for a ticket for Brooks, a nice gentleman one section over sold us one for $20 on the condition that we promise that we didn't send Brooks to sit with him. Brooks was tired, but he did really well and looked too cute!

We were able to make it to Kelli and Erin's new place in Kingsland in time to help with the last moving truck and spend a few short hours visiting and playing with Lance. I think this photo is so funny because of Brooks's mouth. Apparently it is ingrained in our human DNA to open our own mouth when feeding a baby. Soon after this picture, I hear Brooks tell Lance, "You know what would make you a big boy? Learning to feed yourself." This sunset photo is at a scenic overlook on the way to their house.

We intended to stop at the Dallas zoo for a break, but instead we saw a road sign for this dinosaur place and stopped and had a great time. We then took the wrong fork of I35 and went to Fort Worth instead of Dallas, but that even turned out great because there was a Salt Grass on the way back into Dallas which we had been hungry for all weekend.

So, a great weekend full of unexpected fun and a UT win!

Then after a short recovery week it was an evening under the Friday night lights of Oklahoma for the "Backyard Brawl" between Union and Jenks High Schools. Let me give you an idea of why this Oklahoma game was "Texas" sized. These two teams are ranked 1 and 2 in the state; between them they share the last 14 state titles; they moved the game to TU's stadium because almost 20,000 people show up! For a high school game! Anyway, Brooks had fun--we're down a few articles of clothing (Note: Red face paint does NOT wash out of clothes and it itches little boy's noses!)

Adoption update: Nothing to tell; please just pray for a quick approval and protection for our son, whoever and wherever he is. To be honest, I was trying to not think about how long the 6 monthish wait could be when all of a sudden my thought process reversed. I MIGHT ONLY HAVE 6 MONTHS TO GET READY FOR THIS CHILD! When I began to think about all I would be doing if I were pregnant and bringing home a baby, I began to realize that 6, even 9 months, isn't that long. Of course, I'd gladly accept an even shorter waiting time (if anyone in Rwanda is reading!)! However, I want to enjoy these last few months with Brooks as my only; I want to close out this time of ours by having all the fun in the world! A side note here: We pulled him out of Pre-K so ignore those first day pics--I'll take more next year! He's my baby and I'm going to enjoy him for a little longer.

Also, I was touched by a blog post of another family going through this process: read the post at, http://hunterandadrianne.blogspot.com/2009/09/god-is-so-good.html. It gently and eloquently addresses the tendency I feel from people to treat adoption as being given the chance to "pick" your child. What if he is mentally or developmentally delayed? What of he has a genetic disorder you didn't know about? What if he disrupts your family?
Are are we asking for these things? Of course not. Could they happen? Of course. Just like they could happen if I was pregnant. God is going to place our son in our family--God knew our son and all his days when He knit him together in the womb, even if it wasn't my womb. We will love him and all the good and bad that comes with him, just like we do with Brooks, no matter what.

Tempus Fugit

Then followed that beautiful season... Summer....
Filled was the air with a dreamy and magical light; and the landscape
Lay as if new created in all the freshness of childhood.
~Henry Wadsworth Longfellow

Well, it seems as if summer has come to an end and with its end has come a new beginning in our home. Brooks started Pre-K at Grissom Elementary School. It turns out that they are about the only school on the Tulsa area that has a 1/2 day program (2:45 hrs), so I put in for an out-of-district transfer so he could go there. The first week is absolutely kicking our rears! Mommy and Brooks rarely see the clock during the 6 am hours, but his school starts at 7:50 across town so it's "rise and shine" for us.

Brooks has yet to admit he likes anything about school. He adamantly insists that he will "Never, ever have fun anywhere y'all aren't." We're thinking of making him sign a contract about that and the fact that he and his family are going to always live with us when he grows up! Somehow I don't think teenager Brooks is going to have trouble having fun without us-we'll enjoy it while we can.

On the adoption front: BIG PROGRESS! Our dossier is now in the hands of the Rwandan Ministry. Now all we can do is wait. Most approvals are now taking 4-6 months with referrals (them choosing your child) taking another 2. We are spending our time planning our trip to Rwanda. Please pray for steady progress and quick approval. And, more importantly, pray for our son as he waits for us.

Here are some pictures of the first day of school and an album of just a few of my favorite summer photos.

Make a Smilebox slideshow

Moving right along . . . (Very Long Post!)

Well, perhaps the most important compilation of papers I have ever held is now on a Fed Ex plane headed to Washington D.C. If all goes well our dossier will arrive to The Assistant Stork courier service on Monday. On Tuesday, they will then take the documents to the U.S. Department of State to be authenticated (they've already been notarized locally and authenticated at the OK Secretary of State). Steve from the Assistant Stork will wait while the authentications are done and then hand-deliver the package to the Embassy of Rwanda. He will return to pick up the documents (which need yet another seal from the embassy) and, hopefully, our Letter of Recommendation from the Embassy. The embassy has stated that they will only need 8 working days for their part, but you never know--I've heard of it going faster and slower for different folks. He will then FedEx Overnight everything back to us and we will send it to Rwanda!

In the meantime, I am going to use this post to do what I think will be my one and only "history lesson" regarding Rwanda's history in regards to the genocide. This is not because I don't feel that we shouldn't all be learning, teaching, and remembering such events, but because I want to use this blog to focus on the amazing, exciting miracle that takes place any time a child is brought into a family. That said, Rwanda has a powerful history that most of us only vaguely recall.

Most of the first comments I hear when someone asks what country we're adopting from sound something like this: "Oh, isn't that where they had that really bad . . ." "Is that the place where all those people died . . ." "Isn't that where the, oh you know, the . . ." Yes, the word you are searching for is "genocide" and if we as a nation, as a people, as a government, hadn't been afraid to use the word in 1994, it might not have escalated the way it did.

"The only thing necessary for the triumph of evil is for good men to do nothing." — Edmund Burke

Rather than state all the facts surrounding the genocide, I am going to give you my few brief thoughts and share a blog post (with permission of its author). I will also give some links and books/movies that warrant the attention of anyone who wants to inform themselves. There are also two short videos for you to play.

The most stunning facts that I have uncovered during all my reading are the following:
1) Rwanda's population was, by definition, decimated (10%+ of the population killed) in only a 3 month time period. Many current estimates put the number of dead at over 1.1 million.
2) This killing represents the most efficient killing of humans at any time in modern history other than the Hiroshima/Nagasaki atomic bombs.
3) World leaders, including those in the US, Great Britain, and China were all warned explicitly in time to prevent the genocide. World leaders that were complicit in ignoring the warnings included all members of the UN security council. However, in an effort to avoid having to legally get involved, the countries mentioned refused to use the actual term "genocide" because UN statues would have compelled intervention. Instead they used terms such as "Acts of Genocide." Also delaying US intervention in the genocide was the government's inability to agree with the UN and other nations about who should foot the bill for the vehicles, etc. Help is expensive--lives in Rwanda just weren't worth absorbing the costs. Shocking to me was the blatant lack of empathy by figures such as Madeleine Albright, known as a daughter of the Holocaust, and Kofi Annan, fellow African and head of UN Peacekeeping at the time. Both have expressed remorse over their lack of actions, but in such "official"type statements that the sincerity of their acceptance of responsibility doesn't strike me as being very convincing. William Clinton, has since repeatedly and, it seems, sincerely apologized and admitted to his administration's gross mishandling of the situation. The French were complicit in the genocide, providing arms, supplies, and money to the Hutu Power regime. As a result, there seems to be a fairly blatant hatred for the French in Rwanda and a deliberate effort to convert to an Anglophile country and away from a Francophile. For instance, public schools and signage only feature Kinyarwandan and English.
4) Much of the genocide was fueled within the country by the extreme power if propaganda via radio broadcasts which dehumanized the Tutsis by calling them "cockroaches" and calling for their "extermination."

"Words—so innocent and powerless as they are, as standing in a dictionary, how potent for good and evil they become in the hands of one who knows how to combine them." Nathaniel Hawthorne

It bothers me on some level to think what was happening to Rwanda while I happily picked out a prom dress and looked forward to high school graduation. It bothers me more that I attended one of the more "liberal" and diverse universities in the country and heard nothing on campus about Rwanda. None of my "socially conscious" professors in classes such as history, psychology, "Contemporary Moral Problems", etc. tried to open our eyes to what was happening on the other side of the world. We gathered in droves in the months and years after the Rwandan genocide to mourn the victims of the Oklahoma City bombing (rightfully so) and to watch the O.J. verdict come down (not so rightfully so), but never learned of Rwanda. Could it be that Rwanda doesn't have oil or gold or a strategic location? Could it be that when Clinton (and America) said "If the horror of the Holocaust taught us anything, it is the high cost of remaining silent and paralyzed in the face of genocide," we really meant that it would never happen again to people who share our skin color, our political allies, or our beliefs?

Before I move on to share with you some of the information I have gathered, let me conclude by clarifying that I believe that the United States is the greatest nation on Earth. I believe that as a nation--both through the government and as individuals--we do more for humanity than anyone. I believe that as a whole we are good, caring people. I also believe that we as a people consistently elect good, caring people to lead us. But, having pride in American cannot blind us to our mistakes or we will repeat them--again and again. We can't save everyone, can't prevent every famine, can't stop every civil war; but we can intervene in every genocide, every time, regardless of the political implications, and certainly, regardless of what the UN thinks.

I have contacted Mark D. Jordahl, the author of a blog for permission to copy his words here. I think he is able to capture some of my thoughts more eloquently than I can, and he has a first hand perspective. Here are his thoughts after visiting Rwanda:
"I'm rarely at a loss for words. We've been back a week, though, and I still don't know what to write. What is there to say that hasn't already been said? It was important to visit the memorials - it made it feel so much more personal and brought the scale of it home to us. At the memorial centre in Kigali, more than 250,000 of the 1 million victims are buried, and more are added each year as their remains are found.

This genocide was different from the others in this century. And there have been far too many in the last 100 years. The memorial in Kigali (www.kigalimemorialcentre.org) has a section dedicated to the genocides in Germany (6 million), Turkey/Armenia (1.5 million), Bosnia (200,000), Cambodia (2 million) and Namibia (65,000). And those are just the ones that were selected for the memorial.

The difference is that those others were perpetrated by governments using their militaries or other tools of the state to do the killing. In Rwanda, the masterminds of the genocide got their fellow Hutu citizens to rise up against their neighbors in an incredibly brutal way. How do you do that? I believe that in any society there is a small percentage of people who are waiting for any opportunity to kill. On the other end of the spectrum, there is a small percentage who will NEVER kill, no matter what. Then the vast majority lie in the middle. What does it take to get those millions of people in the middle to become mass murderers? And this isn't killing at a distance - this is chopping people up with a machete and throwing babies at walls.

The leaders wanted it to be this way. They wanted everyone to be complicit so that nobody could point fingers. They were after group guilt. And it was hard work. 10,000 people per day were killed for 100 days. There were times when the genocidaires would lock a bunch of people in a church and when they got tired from killing, they would cut their victims' achilles tendons so they couldn't run away. This allowed the killers to get a good nights sleep and know that their victims would still be there in the morning so they could continue.

I won't even go into detail on the extent to which the international community holds some of the responsibility here. The French were arming the genocidaires. The Belgians set up the Hutu/Tutsi divide in the first place (contrary to media reports, this was not a “tribal war” that had been going on for hundreds of years. Hutu and Tutsi were more like class distinctions, and people could move between groups as their fortunes waxed and waned. There was plenty of intermarriage, and before the Belgians came up with a system of identity cards, many people didn't even know who was a Hutu and who was a Tutsi). Some say that the number of foreign and UN troops that arrived to evacuate ex-pats would have been enough to put a stop to the genocide. Even the regular UN troops that were stationed there were instructed not to intervene. Then the UNHCR and Red Cross refugee camps that were set up in Congo to house the fleeing genocidaires and surviving Tutsis became bases for continued raids on Tutsi communities and also indirectly funded the continued assaults. The Hutu leaders in the camps would take the food that was provided, sell it, and buy more arms. Even when it was safe in Rwanda for Tutsis to return, the Hutu leaders wouldn't allow them to leave the camps because they were such important bases for them. If you want to learn more, a very fascinating book is We Wish to Inform you that Tomorrow We Will Be Killed With Our Families.

What amazes me most, though, is that this is a country focused on reconciliation, not vengeance. We sat down with a married couple in a village. She was a Tutsi who had lost most of her family in the genocide. He was one of the killers and had spent 9 years in prison where he met a priest who was creating “Unity Villages”. Did I mention that this man had killed six members of that priest's family.

Rwanda is not trying to pretend this didn't happen. There are memorials everywhere, village-level courts to try perpetrators, articles in the newspaper on a daily basis. It is a living conversation. It is group therapy on a national level. Imagine the impact if it was kept quiet and people weren't allowed or encouraged to talk about it. I was in the back area, behind the memorial in Kigali, and heard screaming. There was an incredibly distraught school girl who had just come out from an educational session. I can only imagine the memories she was reliving. The thing that was most poignant to me about the situation is that there were mattresses out back where she was flailing around. Not only is it accepted that people have powerful emotions to process around this, but mattresses are provided to give you a place to do it. That mattress might be the most lasting image for me of the entire trip. It reminds me that this is real, that it happened to real people, and that real people are still living the trauma of it.

I don't think we can keep genocides from starting, but I would like to think that the international community could stop providing arms to the perpetrators, we could step in even when the victims aren't white, and we could set some very low bar for intervention. Maybe we could say “anytime more than 10,000 innocent civilians are killed in a place, troops will be sent in just to calm things down until we can figure out what is going on.”

One thing is for sure - when the world said “Never Again” after the Holocaust, we didn't really mean it. It has happened again, it is happening again in Darfur and Nigeria and probably other places I am not aware of, and it will happen again in the future, particularly as resources get more scarce and the population continues to grow." http://www.travelblog.org/Africa/Rwanda/Ville-de-Kigali/blog-378042.html

Another good travel blog post can be found at: http://www.travelblog.org/Africa/Rwanda/Ville-de-Kigali/Kigali/blog-337397.html

This travel blog site as some great posts and wonderful photos of Rwanda: http://www.travelblog.org/Africa/Rwanda/blogs-page-1.html

Finally, if you haven't already seen Hotel Rwanda, I do recommend it. The best book, by a long mile, that I have read about the Rwandan genocide is We Wish to Inform You that Tomorrow We Will be Killed with Our Families. Also incredibly touching and almost unfathomable are the stories of forgiveness in As We Forgive. I plan to read Shake Hands with the Devil, written by the man who inspired Nick Nolte's character in Hotel Rwanda. Both As We Forgive & Shake Hands with the Devil have also inspired films, but I have not seen them yet. Finally, I also enjoyed The Bishop of Rwanda which has a forward by Rick Warren.



I leave you with two of the many videos which can be found on YouTube to give you a brief glimpse into the horror of the genocide. Please pause the blog music before continuing (just look on the left side of the blog and hit the pause button). Some of the images in these videos are disturbing and graphic. The longer one (the second) contains many quotes and facts; I would click the pause buttonwhen a quote appears if you want to read each one because they move quickly. The shorter video (the first one) is more about the images and a powerful song fom Wyclef Jean.