Palm Sunday, Sad Tuesday.

Sunday we went to evening service instead of our regular early morning.  Usually we don't have evening service, but every other month the church has a worship service at night.  It literally rocks, off the chain! we have some very talented musicians in our church, and it's a good time.  We also took communion.  Usually Ava is in the kids service, and she had not done it before, but she and  Stevenson were with me (Elle playing major video games with the rest of the kids---go figure) and I asked Ava if she wanted to take communion and she said yes.  We couldn't leave Stevenson sitting there by himself, so I took him thru it.  I was a little afraid because he had just been whining that he was HUNGRY and I was not sure what would happen, but he did fine.  He did not ask for more bread.  He did drop it on the floor before he got to the juice, and we had to start over, but other than that he did perfect.  Being hungry, I'm sure he wondered when the heck he was going to get some real food!  Ava has been asking me alot of questions about Christianity, which is encouraging.  I have found that even though they attended church regularly and were from a devout family, they don't understand much of the concept.  She knows all about Jesus, but she's asked me several times who God is.  Also, they don't know the Christmas Story or the Crucifixtion or Resurrection or Passover either.  So....lot's to try to explain in a way that hopefully they can grasp.  Not so easy, since so much is paradox and mystery.

Overall, I feel like Stevenson's adjustment in our family has been going pretty well.  Having him here with his sisters is like the final piece in the puzzle.  It has brought Ava some peace, as well as purpose, and Elle loves having a mischievious playmate, when they are not fighting with each other.  But I have worried about him because he has been such a stoic little trooper, a tough little guy.   In reality, he is just a little child that has been thru a tremendous amount of trauma, and my gut feeling is that he has had alot of walls up.   I even think he started that as survival behavior in the orphanage.  He learned things in the 10 months he was there that he never did when he was with the girls at their birth parents. Like hitting, biting, and best of all, cussing.  The cussing is in Creole, so I don't know he's doing it until his sisters tell on him, and they always do.   He has let his walls down little by little.  This morning he had a complete melt down, the first one.  I had to drive him to school, and wait for his teacher to get there so she could take over.  He did well the first 2 weeks, but his language barrier frustrates him and I think he is feeling isolated.  And afraid.  Even though he is in a very caring environment, and his sisters are nearby.

I'm wondering if I need to take him out and put him in preschool for the rest of the school year.  Not sure if that would be good or bad, he'e be seperated from his siblings and he depends on them alot more than he would like to admit as a little tough guy.  Part of me feels like it's the trauma coming out and it does not really matter what educational setting he is in, the stuff has just gotta come out.  He brags to his sisters that he was not afraid during the  earthquake or in Port-Au-Prince in the aftermath, or on the airplane coming to Miami.  I don't believe that, but I will just have to wait until he trusts me enough to tell me the truth. 

Crazy Kids, Spectacular Results

Walked outside the other day to this, and them begging me to take their picture.  So I did.  Hambones, all of them!  I noticed something else in the photos too, so I cropped it:

I love glass- reflection photography!

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Stevenson was in the mood to talk the other night, so I asked him (via translater) what happened during the earthquake.  That boy laid there in bed and talked and talked and talked.  I have no idea what he said, because everytime the translater (Ava) tried to say something, he would say "Shush Ti Fi!"  The child was on a talking marathon!  It's remarkable because usually he does not say much.

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After one week of school he has decided he does not like it anymore.  I think he is just overwhelmed because of the language barrier, and hopefully he'll start feeling better about it soon.

Jellin'

Stevenson started Kindergarten yesterday.  He looked pretty scared when I left him there with his huge language barrier, but I knew he would be OK, and he was.  For everything the kid has been thru in the last 2 months I figured this was one of the easier hurdles.  And he was pretty excited when I picked him up yesterday.  I'm sure the novelty will wear off soon :) but for now, he's good.

He is a quiet boy, well behaved, until he gets around his sisters and then they are a wild bunch, let me tell you!  After school I took him up to the church yard so he could ride his bike.  He was mad because his sisters are very fast without their training wheels, and they are also old enough to ride around the neighborhood a little bit by themselves, and he feels left out.  His time will come soon enough!

People ask me if this is just so much harder now, but so far the reality is, it's been easier since he has been here.  I know that sounds strange.  It's more work physically, keeping up with laundry, cleaning, and getting three of them up and on the bus at 6:45am, but we are jelling as a family unit; the girls are more at ease, and even though they get mad at him (alot) for little boy reasons, they love him and love to play with him and take care of him.  And so, that makes things easier.

Florida

 Just a few photos from our successful Florida trip.  You can see in the first one he is kind of shell shocked.  Ava took him out to play after about 15 minutes, and he started smiling.  By the next morning he was posing like a movie star, and he has been wide open ever since!

Ti Gason

This will be a quickie.  My computer at home is down and I am at the library WITH MY LITTLE BOY! 

Late in the evening of my last post, I recieved several frantic phone calls.  I did not hear any of them because I was in bed with the girls and knocked out like a light.  Finally my older son came to the door and said "somebody must be trying to get ahold of you"...it was 10pm. 

It was a messege from the orphanage director...Stevenson was on the plane!!!  Getting ready to land in Miami!!!  Wait...What???

The next morning I loaded up the girls and drove to Orlando, stayed with a friend.  The day after that Ava and I droved to Miami, picked him up at the children's home and drove back to Orlando.  The day after that we drove home. 

He was so scared when he came into that room at the children's home.  Totally shell shocked.  It was great that I had Ava with me.  She started playing with him and he came out of that in about 15 minutes.  He has been doing pretty well at home.  He is very funny.  He calls Lucas 'ti gason' (little boy)...he calls the girls 'ti fi' and sometimes 'madame'.  He calls me madame, sometimes mama blan.  His heart has alot of healing to do, and I don't really think he knows what is going on.  He misses his first mama alot, I can tell.  So we have alot of work ahead of us.

I will post more with pictures, when I get my computer going again, but I just wanted everyone to know we are home and doing fine!

Double D=Drama+Delay

Delay when it comes to international adoption???  You must be kidding!!!

Perhaps you detect a bit of sarcasm in my tone. It's my latest coping mechansim.

As you may or may not know, Stevenson was on the list (or supposed to be) that went to the Prime Minister in Haiti last Monday, the 8th.  We got the call (from our internal network, not the G-Men, those guys never did call anyone!) that the signature was done, and those of us that were not in Florida already got moving.  I had a flight out of Atlanta at 8:37.  Just before I got to the airport, I received the messege that Stevenson was not coming with this group.

Wait...What???

I was encouraged to come anyway, the feeling being that his 'problem' could be remedied quickly and he would fly out on Tuesday instead. Admittedly, alarm bells were going off in me, because in Haiti, well, NOTHING ever goes as you think it will.  However, I decided to go for it and hope for the best.  My feeling was that I had everything in place (pets, kids) and also, I would be half-way to Haiti in case I had to go that far.

His 'problem' was that the Embassy did not like his identifying photograph, and there was another boy in the group with his name.  So they rejected him.  What I found out (much) later is that it happened before the list went to the PM, but nobody knew that.  Nobody knew there was a problem until he was taken for travel that night with the other kids.  Indeed, the next day he did have his photo redone, but he still had no signature from the PM.  It took me 3 days in Florida and alot of phone calls and text messeges to find this out. Marie sat with Stevenson all day at the Embassy on Thursday, hoping the signature would come back and he would fly out, but it did not happen, and when it was said and done, she told me not to worry, but go home for now.  The Embassy was closing for 4 days plus the week-end, and so nothing was going to happen for awhile.

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One good thing that happened was I got to meet, in real time, people I had 'known' for years through our adoption group, people who's stories I had followed and who had followed mine.  I got to see their kids come home.  Some of them had waited for unimaginable amounts of time.  I also filed my paperwork at the children's home where the kids are recieved.

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I spent my time at the hotel trying to make contact with US officials and others who could make something happen.   The good news is that they are now fully aware of my case!  But finally I had to get on that last plane out of Miami on Friday and fly back to Atlanta, landing in a snowstorm.  I was on the road by 5:30 pm in all that lovely traffic and about 4 inches of snow with 3 passable tires and one bald one.  It took nearly 4 hours to get home, which is about 2.5 times longer than normal.  But I made it safe and sound, praise God!

Elle did fine on her extended stay away from home, but Ava... not so much.  They stayed with my ex-husband and his wife (I know, we are the wierdest family in the world) and Ava and his wife Emily did not hit it off in the long term.  If I were to give it a short diagnosis, I'd say they are both just too much alike. Both pretty much Type A personalities.   Poor Ava cried every single night for me to come home, and by the last day, she was a  pretty difficult child.

I was afraid that the rest of the week-end would be rough as a result of all that, but she just seemed happy to be home.  Saturday she would not let me out of her sight. 

So, I am here.  Waiting again, to go.

Part Of The Miracle

Haiti from Compass Church on Vimeo.

He got some his facts wrong, as he was told the story second hand, (ie I'm not a school teacher, but my salary is equivalent to that!  And Elle would die if she knew he called her Ellie, lol) but the result was that we reached our entire goal in one week! It was amazing!

Our church rocks but it's not huge. It's not rich. Right now it's running 12% unemployment. But they met the need, and it totally overwhelms me. They blew their own selves away with what they did.  Grown men and women were crying.  I did not cry.  I might cry when it's all over, but right now there is still too much work to do.  But God does not surprise me anymore by what He does when it comes to Haiti.

The majority of the money goes to Marie. Some of it will go towards adoption fees on the US side.

Truely a miracle.