Praising God!!

All I can do is praise the Lord! He is working so many miracles with this adoption. We drove 4 hours to Lusaka on Friday to drop off the paperwork at the adoption committee and we were expecting to have to wait at least 2 weeks before they would sit, review it and give us our effective date of notice. The effective date of notice states that we can go to court 90 days from that date! The adoption committee has to approve you to adopt after your 1 year fostering (they are a little flexible with the fostering though). If they don't want you to adopt they have the power to stop your adoption completely as does social welfare here in Ndola. So....we gave them the paperwork...the minister of social services was the lady we met with..she looked it over and asked us if we could come back Monday as it takes 24 hours for them to review the paperwork!! We were like okay!! (we were definitely not going to question the time frame) Because it is a 4 hour drive we asked if it would be possible for them to mail it too us!! She kind of hummed and hawed for awhile...finally she was like I don't think it will get to you if I mail it...because your out of town I will rush it and do it today...can you come back at 15 and get it...UMMM ABSOLUTELY!! Praise the Lord, we were speechless!!!

We also went to the National Registration building to check in on the application for the girls birth certificates that we had sent in in March! We found out that they were done...but...that the registration number that they had given to the twins had already been given out to other kids...Someone had made a mistake, and the birth certificates needed to be reprinted. We asked if they could be done today...but unfortunately not until Monday...Thankfully one of Grace's care givers was going to Lusaka Monday, and could pick them up for us, so we now have them too. The only things we still need to finish the Zambian side of this adoption are their passports and that final court date!

It has been so humbling to watch the Lord work, to see what amazing blessings the twins are and to realize how little faith I had!! I am realizing more and more how angry I was that he had taken this away from us. How much I felt it was my right and that I wasn't content in the Lord alone and all of the other amazing blessings he had given to me. One of the caregivers at Buseko commented to me that God had truly blessed me!! It made me want to cry to think of how much I have and I still wasn't content to wait on his timing!! I can truly say that I am thankful for everything I have learned, and I'm grieved for the things that I prevented myself from learning. If i had had my way, would I have my girls, would I have the relationship that I know have with my husband, would I be here where I have the opportunity to be taught so much by these kids? Praise the Lord for his mercy and grace!!

The kids here are amazing and I am so enjoying getting to know them better! Not a day goes by that I don't have someone knocking on my door asking to see me or the babies. Some of them will come just to say goodnight to me! I was doing a few pieces of laundry by hand the other day and they helped me to rinse it out since I guess I hadn't done it quite enough, or so they told me..lol...they showed me how to find Ntungulus, which are red fruit that grow underground and taste kind of like lemons! Such cheerful, happy kids!

The girls are doing so well, I have them on a schedule that is working really well! I'm starting to give them some more solid foods, which they mostly play with instead of eating but you have to start somewhere! Their little personality's and quirks are so cute! I can't wait for you all to meet them, they are so beautiful!

Adoption delays!!

It never ceases to amaze me how the system here works!! I don't want to say too much, but I will say that if they say you'll get it on Fri...you probably won't get it until the following Friday, if then!!! We are still waiting on the paperwork that we need to take and submit in Lusaka! When their is only one person in a certain department and she has the control to prevent you adopting if she wants to...You kind of have to be nice to her!! lol...at least with everything else we have been through I'm learning to let it all go and trust in the Lord that it will all happen when it is supposed to!! We should get the paperwork hopefully tomorrow (fingers crossed), and will take it to Lusaka on Thurs....So...that means that the committee that is going to review it should hopefully do that within the next 3 weeks, and they will give us our effective date of notice for our court date which will be 90 days later....so sometime in Sept and then everything will be official...the girls's names will be changed and as far as Zambia is concerned everything is finished!!!

Team comes this Friday!! get to see some familiar faces....the homesickness is in full swing and am trying to keep myself busy to help it go away....it does help that every time my cutie babies smile it reminds me of one of the reasons that we are here....the kids here at Grace love the babies and I've been getting to know a lot of the kids as we play with the babies!!!

The kids here at Grace are going to be doing a garden as part of a school project and I've decided to add a few rows for myself that I get to grow!!! I'm excited as I love to garden and its also something I can do with the kids too!!! looking forward to some fresh lettuce...yay..lettuce is hard to find here!!!

I'll post some pics next time!!! Love and miss you all!!!

It's been too long!!

I have been a very bad blogger!!! I can't believe its been so long since I last updated...So...to fill you in on whats been happening in this end of the world.

The girls are doing well, Eden had an ear infection which is now cleared up and shes back to her happy cheerful self. Cassidy has learned to scootch herself backwards on the cement floor and is so proud of herself when she does it. Their adoption is going well..still waiting on some paperwork and then we can take it to Lusaka...Hopefully in the next week! Also hopefully when we do go we won't have any car troubles..(PLEASE)! We had to take the girls and have a medical done for their Canadian visa's and it was rather traumatic for me and for them. The doctor that was drawing the blood couldn't find the veins and wound of poking them several times each...needless to say I wasn't very happy and was wishing for our medical system back home. Everything came back fine thankfully! I also discovered that they are one month older than I thought they were. The parents had told us that their birthday was Oct 7. But when I got their admissions forms to the orphanage to photocopy for the adoption is said Sept 7, so then I looked on their under 5 cards (this is where the doc records their weights and immunizations) and it also said Sept 7. So my girls just turned 8 months old not 7. I was a little sad on learning this as it is another month of their lives that I was not here for...and also my mom is coming to visit in Sept and was planning to stay until their birthday in Oct....but their birthday is now in Sept and she's not leaving home until the 9th and it can't be switched...So...I have decided to have their birthday celebration when their Oma gets here and since they are only turning 1 they won't now the difference anyways..lol

The other day we found a 6 foot spitting cobra outside our cafeteria. Thankfully the guys were able to kill it without anyone getting hurt, but it did spit at them before it died. We are so thankful that all the kids were in school at the time that it was found and it wasn't crawling around the dorms when the kids were out playing. We are also hoping that since it was such a big snake that it didn't have a little nest somewhere!!!

On Friday we were able to go to Kitwe, its a town about 45 minutes drive away and they have a curio market there where you can buy carvings, jewelry, paintings etc. I was able to get my giraffes!!! yay!!! The market was really cool, everywhere you went it was Madam, Madam..come look!

Well...I think that's all the news!! I will try and do better and post more often!!

My girls are so cute!!!!! I could just squish them!!!!