Pictures!

Here are some pictures as promised.  We are so pleased to introduce you to our daughter, 

Emmanuella Dirkse! 

    Meeting Dad for the first time at Emmanualla's school.

Giving her a coloring book that she spent many hours coloring in detail!

                           

Ready to hit the pool for the first time ever!

The giggles were nonstop in the pool.

Above the treetops on the Canopy Walk in the Kakum National Forest

Happy girls after finding out we passed court!

Could she be any cuter??

Flooded roads on our way home from court in Eastern Accra.

Family selfie in the car after court.  This was her silly face. :)

We Passed!!!!

Day 9 in Ghana - Court Day!

We had a wonderful night sleeping with E - she fell asleep quickly and was a little angel having to get up early in the morning and get ready for our 6am pickup.  If there was any day that we wanted our driver to be on time for our pickup it was today because we had a 2.5 hour drive to the Eastern Accra Region where our case was to be heard.  The goal was to get there by 9am so that we'd see the judge in his chambers before he headed to the courtroom to hear the regular cases.  Well, true to fashion, the drive came at about 7:15.  He claimed we still had enough time to make it by 9:00 and the way this guy has driven all week I actually trusted that ... until we hit the traffic.  It was really bad today, as I guess every weekday is horrible here.  What was a 30 minute drive on Sunday to pick up our social worker on the way was almost 1 hour today.  You can say I freaking out on the inside.  We have no wiggle room and needed our case to be heard today!  When we picked up Naa, she said we would for sure be late but we will just wait for the judge to be done with his other cases and he'd hopefully see us before he went to lunch.  So, we arrived at the courthouse at about 10:30 and we waited outside the courtroom.  E did great - she was happy coloring, playing "hand jive" games with me and snacking.  The lawyer representing us showed up and introduced himself and said he would go in the courtroom and get us on the judges list to be heard. (so, we assumed we'd be heading into the courtroom instead of chambers ... cool, doesn't matter to us where this happens!)  I don't know how many of you were up at 6:15am Central time and said a prayer but it worked.  At 11:15, only 45 minutes of waiting, our lawyer came out and said it was done - the Full Adoption Order had been granted and they will forward the paperwork to Bethany.  That was it!  We didn't even go in front of the judge!  Our social worker said that the judge would have already reviewed our paperwork prior to today and must not have seen any reason to even see us.  (she also thought he may have been in a hurry to get out of there since there was no power and even the ceiling fans weren't working!)  The best part about it was E's reaction - she was jumping up and down and hugging us and was so happy.  So were we!!!  We kept saying "Emmanuella Dirkse, Emmanuella Dirkse - you are officially our daughter!"  That was so great to see after a few rough days in the middle of our trip when she was a bit quiet when she was around us.  The rest of the day was also fun.  We stopped at the mall on the way home to grab a late lunch and E was again just wonderful.  She claimed she wasn't hungry and didn't like Chinese food but when it came she ate off of all of our plates and I'm sure ate twice as much as I did.  :)  She was singing, dancing and coloring in the car the whole ride.

Then it was time to bring E back to her foster home.  While that was tough, she made it easier for us.  She kept her same lovely, upbeat spirit she had all day and she seems to understand well that we will be back as soon as we can for her.  There were many blown kisses as we pulled away but no tears for this was not a goodbye, just a "see you soon".  :)

We returned to the hotel to shower and pack and we are heading to the airport in a few minutes.  Ironically, the internet is back up for the first time in 8 days.  Funny Lord.  ;)

Can't wait to get home and start the next part of the process to get Emmanuella home.  Once we have a copy of the paperwork from today we can apply for her US Visa.  If/when our Visa application is approved E will need to have a checkup and be cleared by a doctor and they set up a "Visa Interview" at the US Embassy here in Ghana.  (all the while the Bethany workers here will be getting her a passport and bringing her to her appointments, etc.) We will most likely fly back for that Visa interview.  If we are approved at the interview they will print her Visa about 2 days later and we can bring her home.  If the Visa is not approved and the US Embassy wants to review her case more we will be put in what is called "Administrative Processing" and won't be able to bring her back until that is completed ... which can take weeks to months.  So, the next process is to pray for Visa application approval, then Visa interview approval.  We hope to have her home in early fall if all goes well.

I don't have a way to put any pics from my camera on my iPad so I will post a few pictures tomorrow when we get home.

Thanks everyone for all of your love and support during this process - it's not over yet!  :)

Robin

Monday in Ghana

Day 8 in Ghana, Monday May 26

Today was supposed to have been our original court date but because of a national holiday here (I think it's African Unity Day??) we now have court tomorrow.  That left us with today as our sight-seeing day.

We were picked up at the hotel at 9:15am - they said they'd pick us up at 7:00 but our driver ended up stopping to have 4 new tires put on his car in the morning before he came to get us since it was a long drive today.  That wasn't too bad because it gave us time to meet the other family that flew in late last night.  We had a nice talk with them in the lobby before they headed to breakfast.  It was great to meet them even though our time was short.  (they got to meet their daughter today - yay!)  

We drove about 2.5 hours and saw some different countryside which was really nice for a change.  We headed to do the Canopy Walk in the Kakum National Forest.  OSHA would not approve of this place at all.  First, I believe we climbed roughly 9 million uneven steps to get high into the forest (keep in mind it's also 8,000 degrees outside, the amount sweat dripping off of us was crazy)  After the hike there was a rope bridge about 250 ft in the air. (that's a total guess, I'm bad with judging that kind of stuff.  Google the Canopy Walk in the Kakum if you are interesting in seeing it)   It was really fun and a neat experience.  We were also famous there ... several people wanted to take pictures with us (the white people) and I had a middle school aged girl ask if she could get my number so we could be friends.  :)   She said she liked my hair ... a frizzy, curly mess wet with sweat - lovely.

After that 2 hour canopy walk experience we loaded back into the car (thank goodness for working a/c in the car for a chance to recover!) and drove another hour further (mostly along the beautiful coastline) to see the Almida Castle.  The Almida Castle was built orginally by the Porteguese, then it was taken over by the Dutch and then sold to the British.  The tour was very interesting, full of history.  It is still hard to hear of how horrible the slave trade was, the conditions were unbelieveably inhumane in that castle.  After that great tour we were finally on our way to pick up E!

Greg & I were a little concerned about how well things were going the last 2 days.  She had been giving us a lot of silent treatment which we don't know her well enough yet to know if that is just her response to being tired or that she was just not having fun or enjoying us.  When we finally arrived at her house tonight she came running out with huge hugs for us.  That felt so good!  We had a few hours at the hotel eating supper and playing with her and she is now sleeping like a baby right here beside us.  We gave her the picture book that I made for her tonight and showed her all of the family pictures, our house, etc.  She went pretty quickly over the house and pictures of "things" in the book but any page that had the other kids on she was intently looking at them and saying their names.  I asked her tonight what she most looking forward to in the U.S.  - "playing with Caris" was her answer.  Awwww!  There was a picture of the trundle bed that is in the girls room and she was really intrigued by pulling out the drawers and sleeping right there next to Caris.  (she sleeps right next to the other kids and her foster mom now so I think that will be comforting for her to be right next to Caris like that)

Tomorrow morning will come early for court.  We are being picked up at 6:00am and it will take about 3 hours to drive there.  E picked out one of the dresses that I brought along from home to wear (which was actually my nieces dress!) instead of wearing the new African dress we bought for her at the art center.  She had a good time putting all of the options out on the bed and making her choice.  Hopefully it will be an uneventful night of her sleeping here and we will pass with a full adoption order tomorrow.  

All in all, it was probably one of the best days we've had here ... and we get to fly home tomorrow night - although saying goodbye to E tomorrow night will be sad,  we also can't wait to see Braden, Caris & Cade on Wednesday after school!  This not having all of our kids together for the summer is not going to be easy ... but nothing that is worth doing is easy.

Robin

Sunday in Ghana

Day 7 in Ghana, Sun May 25

Our time here in Ghana has a lot of downtime in the evenings with no internet and only 3 channels on the t.v. ... one being Telemundo so that really isn't an option either.   We have normally been back to the hotel around 5pm with nothing else to do for the evening.  Greg & I have both agreed that besides not being able to communicate with the kids as much as we'd like, it really has been good for us.  We haven't talked this much in years!  (tonight we joked that it's the 15 year anniversary trip we didn't know we wanted - Hawaii sounds a little better to me;)  If the internet had been up Greg would have been working for a few hours each night and I would have been blogging, emailing & checking Facebook.  Instead, we've typically gone to the upper deck of our hotel, had supper some of the nights up there and cooled down in the evening breezes until the mosquitos come out.  (although we really haven't seen many bugs, just 2 enormous roaches in our room that Greg bravely used my flip-flop to kill)  Then, we've headed to our room to shower up and play some cards and I've typically typed up a blog that I can put up whenever we get to a Wi-FI location.  Our room light is really low, we literally only have 2 really dim light bulbs so we have to squint to see our cards at times - it just adds a little flare to the game.  ;)  (PS - did I mention that I've actually won a few hands here?? You know that's amazing if you've ever played cards with me!  I'm keeping the scoresheets as proof for Greg's family!)   It's highly unlikely that the internet will be fixed at all while we are here since Sunday & Monday are holidays and the repair person won't be working and then we are gone to court all day on Tuesday, we'll stop back to shower and grab our bags and then we head to the airport.  I guess that is ok, Greg & I will have time to talk through and process nearly everything before we get on the plane without any of those "pesky" internet distractions.  I am hoping to sleep hard on the plane this time!  (I only slept about 2-3 hours on the flight here, but Captain Phillips was a good in-flight movie!)   So, after all of that, I guess what I'm saying is that this may be our last update until we touch down in NYC early Wed. morning.  So, please pray hard on Monday night that all will go well in court on Tuesday.  We have to be there by 9:00am and we hope to be seen right away in chambers before the judge goes to his regular court.  Please pray that we are granted a FULL adoption order, not a temporary adoption which would mean we have to come back in 2 years to finalize.  This should all be done before most of you rise on Tuesday morning! 

There is another Bethany family flying in later tonight and we are disappointed that we won't get to see much of them or share any time traveling or sight-seeing with them.  We will be gone sight-seeing on Monday while they meet their daughter and then we are picking up E and bringing her to our hotel to sleep over with us on Monday night.  Hopefully we can connect with them Monday night even though E will be here.  Supper or something together would be nice.   

Today we got up early (5:45am - that's 12:45am in WI!) to get ready for church.  (the a/c kicked back on sometime during the night so we actually slept pretty well)  Our driver was to be here by 6:30am to pick us up.  Turns out he was early and arrived by 6:15.  They like to keep us on our toes here!  ;)  That was fine, we were ready because there wasn't much we could do ... no water this morning to shave/shower or anything.  We took about a 30 minute drive to meet the Bethany social worker, Naa, at her church.  She attends a very nice Presbyterian Church and we were greeted warmly outside by her pastor.  The building was really nice and Presbyterians in Africa are much the same as in America ... they arrive late and all want to sit in the back of church.  :)  The service was actually very similar to ours at FPO, just a little longer and the praise songs (although there were few) were a bit more lively.  (they did sing normal hymns also that were unfamiliar and all sounded the same to me)  It was good for us to again be the minority in a setting like church, it helps us to know how E will feel back in Oostburg.  The teachings were very biblically based and Greg & I had to listen very carefully in order to understand the service.  Almost everyone speaks English here but their accents make it very hard to understand at times.  It was a great experience overall - we are glad we got up early for it!

After church we were dropped back off at our hotel to eat some breakfast and the driver went to pick up our guide, Patience, and E to bring them to the hotel for us to head to the beach. (our hotel is very close to the ocean so it just made sense to do it that way)  What we thought would be about 1.5 hour wait ended up being a 5+ hour wait for them to come back because they had car trouble.  While we are glad we weren't along on the ride when the car broke down, it really cut into our time with E today because our driver and Patience had to pick up the other family at the airport in the evening and that all takes time to drive around the city.

After they finally came we headed to the beach.  E gave us the silent treatment again in the car but by the time we got to the beach she was ready to play.  That girl has no fear - she loved the huge waves and kept trying to pull us out further but the waves were big and strong.  Even when she'd get swept away and go under she didn't really seem to care - she's crazy.  (she didn't like the salt water very much though!)  We spent about 1 hour playing in the surf and then headed back to the hotel to shower up and get her some supper.  She ate in our room and then we had to bring her back home already.  She got really quite again in the car and wouldn't talk to us at all.  Before we knew it she was sound asleep on Greg's lap.  It was absolutely adorable.  :)

I'm cutting this short because Braden finally got us on Facetime and we only have 10 more minutes of Wi-Fi before we have to leave.  :)

Love to all,

Robin

Saturday Adventures

Day 6 in Ghana, Sat. May 24

**I can't tell our daugher's name yet or show pictures until after we pass court so I am going to start referring to her as "E" - that will be much easier in writing and those of you who know her name can insert it. :)

Last night was rough.  I was sick all night with the "Ghanaian revenge" and we can't really even figure out why.  I haven't eaten much at all while we were here (it's a great kick start to the diet plan!) and what I have had was very safe and plain.  Greg has been more adventurous and he feels fine.  We've been very careful about water, even when brushing our teeth, no ice in our drinks, etc.  and we are washing our hands often.  So, as the sun came up I needed to decide whether or not I should leave the "safety" of the hotel today.   Our plan was to pick up E and head to a mall where she could jump in some bounce houses.  Luckily, our driver wasn't coming to pick us up until 10:30 (which actually ends up being 11:30 by the time they arrive ... it's called "GT", Ghana Time:) so I had some time to decide.  I ended up downing some Imodium for my breakfast & going for it and I'm so glad I did.

When we picked her up she was napping and it took a long time to wake her - she sleeps tight!  She was also not talking to anyone in the car ... we think she was really tired and she also said her stomach didn't feel good.  On our way into Accra our guide said we would stop at the Art Center first before the mall.  We had no idea what that was but we were up for it.  (although we were a bit worried it was an art museum and we didn't think our crabby little girl was going to have a change of heart looking at a museum!)  As it turns out, it's a big area of all little shops where we could purchase souveniers of African culture.  We got out there and after a while E perked up.  Imagine what you think of as an African market and that was pretty much it.  People coming at you from all sides wanting you to look in their shop, excessively hot, very overwhelming, etc.  But, we got some great items to bring home and even bought E an African dress she can wear for court on Tuesday if she wants to.  We were very glad to have our guide from Bethany with us - she was really good at bartering.  (Rod Dirkse, you'd be proud of your son today!) It was so hot there that I started to pass out - you know that feeling when you get the tunnel vision and can't hear anything?  Yep, that happened.  I sat down for awhile and got water and we were luckily getting into the car shortly.  E was so sweet, she took out her little hankerchief and was wiping the sweat off of my face for me.  :)   

After the car ride to the mall I had cooled off and felt much better.  On the way to the mall E has asked if we could get ice cream.  ("Please Momma you get me ice cream?"  in her little accent. How can you say no?)   That sounded perfect to me! The 3 of us all ordered strawberry ice cream which hit the spot and seemed to sit well in my stomach.  After ice cream E jumped in the bounce houses and on the trampolines there in the middle of the outdoor food court.  She had never done anything like that before and she just loved it - the trampolines more than the bounce houses.  (we told her that we have a trampoline in our backyard but I'm not sure she can fathom that)  She was a sweaty mess jumping in those things but she didn't seem to care at all.  Being there was interesting - they had workers at each station taking care of the kids for you and all of the parents sat in chairs under a tent.  I'm pretty sure some of the parents even left them there and went shopping!  I had started out following her around and taking some pictures and then realized that I was the only parent out there.  I quickly sat down so I wouldn't stick out more than I already did.  :)  The children here in Ghana are amazingly well behaved and independent.  E looked at me often for approval while she was jumping but quickly made friends with a few other girls there and just followed their lead and followed them wherever they went.  She didn't care at all that I was sitting in the shade and just watching- thank God!

By the time E was done jumping it was getting late and was time to bring her home.  On the car ride back to her place she was much more talkative and pleasant than on the way there.  (although she did again complain that her belly hurt so I hope she feels ok tomorrow)  

Greg & I returned to the hotel hoping the internet would be fixed.  We knew the chances were slim but we had a glimmer of hope because all week they've been telling us Saturday.  No luck, it's still out.  And... the power is out so we are on generator power so there is no a/c again tonight.  At least the water is on and we can shower after our sweaty day at the market.  I'm learning to count my blessings!

Tomorrow we are going to attend EARLY church with two of the Bethany workers, they claim they are picking us up at 6:30am for a 7-9am service at a Presbyterian Church they attend.  Then we'll stop back at the hotel for a little breakfast and to grab stuff for the beach.  We'll go pick up E and bring her to the beach ... another first for her.  (she told us once she was going to go but it was raining so she didn't)  At least that is the plan ... but we go with the flow here.

A few observations about Ghana:

1.  Although it is very sunny, no one wears sunglasses.

2. People prefer to shop locally at the "markets" along the streets rather than shop at big stores.  And the markets never close - there are people in the streets all night it seems.

3. People are very friendly, not in a hurry, and seem happy all of the time.

4. Very few people own cars but there are taxis and small van-like buses everywhere packing the streets.  I'm glad we have a skilled driver to do the navigating between all of the cars!

5.  Greg spotted a Milwaukee Panthers and a Green Bay Packers t-shirt on some men in the market today.  :)  Go WI - keep sending your clothes, they are wearing them!

6.  By US standards, the food is incredibly cheap - and the portions are enormous.  We asked our guide today if it was normal for people to eat just 1 or 2 meals per day because of the portion sizes.  She said no, most people eat 3.  I guess walking around in this heat must burn tons of calories if they can eat like that 3x a day!

7.  There are many tow trucks here and they all remind me of Mater, from Cars.

E sure has a sweet personality.  We are enjoying getting to know her but we are ready to head to court on Tuesday and get the process going to bring her home to the US.  Our time with her is coming to a close (a few hours together tomorrow and then Monday evening and Tuesday morning for court)  but it has been great.  It has been emotionally exhausting for all of us (including E) so we really feel that seeing her the 4-6 hours a day like we have been is good.  I think that more than that would be hard for everyone.  

Hopefully you can all meet her sometime this fall!  :)

Robin

PS - Dirkse/VanderJagt Family: I needed to come to Africa in order to win a game of cards ... I have a 3 night winning streak going!  :)

Friday in Ghana

Today was much the same as yesterday.  We picked our daughter up and she came to the hotel with us.  We played in our room for awhile, ate at the hotel restaurant, swam and then had to take her back home.  Today we saw a little bit of the drama queen ... pretending to be hurt when she wasn't, etc.  We catered to it the first time, but the second we didn't give it any attention and she stopped right away.  Good to know!  She again loved her lunch - the way to this girl's heart is through her stomach!  :)  We didn't try the banku yet, she wanted jillaf rice and chicken instead.  It was a huge portion so she shared some chicken with Greg. (he said it was good) I had ordered a burger and it wasn't very good (just different than I'm used to) - she was very concerned that I didn't finish it.  She is always concerned about us eating and drinking, we guess that probably comes from needed to always finish her meals.  To Caris's delight, she tried some of my french fries and loved them.  Sisters can bond over french fries.  :)

To end the day we had our driver again bring us to the pizza place with Wi-Fi. (this time with out her so we can spend time on our iPads!)  Since there was not school for our kids today we were able to Facetime with them and a few others that were at the house.  I cannot tell you how happy that made me!  I am pretty homesick for those kiddos so at least seeing their faces ... and the faces they make at us... makes us both happy.  (we hadn't been able to see them since Monday night)

Tomorrow we are picking her up late morning and heading to a mall that has bounce houses on the weekend.  I guess it's a real mall (there's an Apple store and everything!).  That will be a real contrast to the areas of Accra we've been to so far.

Please continue to pray for our time together.  We have only a few days left!  Also pray for our health - my stomach was a little off today but I think it was just a little nerves and anxiety.

Love to all,
Robin

A Whole Bunch of Updates ...

*Let me start by saying I've been writing these every evening, but our internet service at the hotel has been out since Monday evening.  We are sitting at pizza place now so we could get WiFi.  Here is Tuesday, Wed & Thurs. update. * 


Day 2 in Ghana, Tues May 22  

I don't even know how to start this out but by saying that we serve an amazing God who has gone before us in all of this and He totally has us in His hands.  

A power outage due to a huge storm passing through last evening happened right after we got to Facetime with our kids.  We were so glad we got to see 2 of their faces (Braden wasn't home) and then we turned in and slept hard.  Today we had the perfect day which He had layed out for us long before we even knew we would be adopting.  Meeting our daughter was just incredible.

Our morning started out at the Bethany Christian Services offices where we got to meet the staff and sit down to discuss what will happen on the rest of our visit here and discuss our daughter a little bit more.  It turns out that May 26 is not going to be our court date as was planned - Tues.  May 27th will be.  Sunday is a holiday here so they then make Monday the holy day and the court will not be open.  That is perfectly fine except for that we leave on Tuesday late in the evening so we need everything to go as planned at court in order to make our plane in the evening.  We made a little itinerary for the rest of week so the planner in me was very happy to know what we are doing the rest of the trip.  :)  There is only one day that we are doing some recommended sight-seeing that our daughter cannot come with us, and even that day we will see her right after our sight-seeing adventure.

After we met with the staff we were driven to meet our daughter.  I cannot even begin to explain the roads to get there ... we do not have a pothole problem in Wisconsin people, try this place!  I was very glad I had taken Dramamine with my breakfast!  We got to her foster home and went in and met with her wonderful foster mom, Precious, for a short time and then walked right next door to get her from school.  (she knew we were coming so they had told her we'd come and get her rather than keep her home waiting anxiously)  I was worried that I may not recognize her in a group of kids all wearing the same uniform, same hair, etc. but that was not a problem - we spotted her right away and she was just beaming.  She ran out and first hugged the Bethany worker that she knows and then she came to hug me (Robin).  Her hug was so tight and wonderful and she was just giggling ... then she moved to Greg.  I wasn't sure she was going to let her new Daddy go - ever!  This little girl is VERY happy to have someone to finally call "Dad".  I really can hardly put into words how great the rest of our day was just hanging out with her and playing.  Her English is amazing, we could actually communicate quite well with her (thanks God!) .  She is every bit as beautiful in person plus more - her personality seems like she is a perfect fit for our family.  (thanks again God!)  She loves to sing & dance and be silly ... doesn't sound like any other little girls I know.  ;)  She colored very intently and carefully & wrote out the alphabet and numbers with near perfect penmanship. (we were VERY impressed!)  Mrs Ramaker, this girl will be ready for you! :)  She was a little quiet at first, but not once we got a ball out to play with.  Then the screams and laughter came out ... yep, she'll fit right in.  It didn't seem like she had ever played catch before but after a few tosses she got it.  It of course turned into a fun "throw the ball purposefully too far and make Daddy run after it" type of game.  She got a big kick out of Greg playing that up  and would come and give me a huge hug every time he went to chase it so I liked that game too. :)  Precious made us lunch and set a little table for just the 3 of us to sit at and eat together inside while the others ate outside.  It was so sweet of her to provide that for us so I made sure to put down a little over half of mine.  I don't know what it was, (probably best I don't know!)  but it wasn't so bad.  Our daughter put hers away in no time (she may give Braden a run for his money on speed eating) so I tried to get her to finish mine too but she wouldn't - darn.   We had learned from the Bethany workers that this girl loves her food ... yep, again thanks to God, fitting right in our family!

  

We were there about 5 hours today with her and will go back tomorrow again for a few hours.  We promised the students at her school that we would bring them some candy tomorrow if they would let her come with us today so we will stop for some candy before we go get her from school and she can hand that out to the kids there.  I have a feeling that will bring some big smiles to their faces!

Please pray that we will continue to bond with our little girl over the next few days and just enjoy every minute we have together - we appreciate it!  (if you also want to throw in a prayer that it would cool down about 20 degrees in Ghana and drop to humidity lower than 90% that would be awesome too.  Just sayin'.  Thanks.)

Robin

Day 3 in Ghana, Wed. May 23

Neither Greg or I could fall asleep last night - the a/c was not working well so we were a bit sticky and there were so many things going on in our heads.  (not to mention that the internet is not working at the hotel so we were not able to write emails or contact the kids at all last night - not good for this Mom & Dad who wanted to tell them all about our big day!)  Greg was thinking about the rest of our trip here and mulling over our day and I was already thinking of all of the changes she will have back in the US.  (we already saw many things yesterday that will not be appropriate back in the states!)  We both agreed this little girl is ready to come with us NOW.  As Greg said to me last night, we'd feel comfortable taking her on a plane tomorrow and throwing her right into our family.  I know that is not the best thing for her, we need to get to know her slowly and build that bond and trust, but we are ready!  We finally fell asleep around 1:00am and luckily had set an alarm that woke us at 8:30.  We were picked up and we went to see her again for about a 4 hour visit.  We picked her up at school again today and brought a bunch of candy to give to the kids in her school.  Oh my, they were so adorable!  The teachers said that some were afraid to give Greg a "high five" - they had not seen a white man before!  But, they all did with encouragement from their teachers.  

We took her back to her foster mom's home and did some more coloring and played with the ball again and some bubbles & stickers.  We brought along a small puzzle today, she had no idea what it was and was confused at first.  But, this smart little girl caught right on and did it a few times with only a little help. (yep, I'm bragging about how smart my kid is already!;)  After awhile it was time to say goodbye again but tomorrow & Friday she can come to our hotel and swim and play here for awhile.  We are getting picked up around 9:00am and we will go get her and bring her back here for a few hours both days.  Greg & I are really excited for that.  I think it will be good to have her here for something different.  (plus we'll have a/c & a pool to cool off, this heat is killer!)

Greg & I finally tried the food at the hotel tonight and it was really good.  He ordered tilapia and I had some spicey noodle thing.  He (for some reason) had forgotten that they serve the full fish so the thing was staring right at him when it was brought to the table.  Yuck!  He didn't eat the head and bones like the locals would have done but he did say it was very good.  That was actually the first meal that we purchased since the airport in New York on Sunday night - I think the heat and the nerves ruined our appetites until tonight.  (we had just been eating the food we brought from home and food that was graciously provided  by the foster mom)  We found out today that breakfast in the restaurant is included in our room price so we'll hit that up the next few days.  Tomorrow we will order our daughter's favorite food from the restaurant when she is here for lunch - banku.  I am excited to try it - really!  Her foster mom said she will show me how to make it if we have time in the upcoming days.

The internet is still not working since Monday night so we are completely disappointed that we cannot communicate with our family or friends.  (especially with our kids who have to be wondering what is going on!)  The day would have been perfect if we would have returned to find the internet up and running.  :(  Tomorrow morning if it is still not up and running Greg said he is going to ask our driver to bring us someplace with WiFi so we can at least shoot out an email and let people know we are alive.  Hopefully there is something like that ... we haven't seen anything promising on the roads between here and the foster home!

Day 4 in Ghana, Thurs. May 24

Today we are seeing just a few of the huge benefits of having a child in foster care rather than an orphanage.  We went early this morning and picked her up and brought her to our hotel to hang out here with us.  (that wouldn't happen in an orphanage situation)  We played a few games in our room and then we took her out for lunch.  We went to a pizza place very close to here that has WiFi so we were finally able to make contact with family and friends.  Luckily, my sister (who is with our kids right now) was online and we could at least talk via Facebook messages while Caris & Cade were still home before school.  That was so nice to be able to tell them we were ok - I figured they'd be worried and we so desperatley wanted to make contact with them.  I'm all for "unplugging" for a few days, but then I'd like all of my kids around while we do it!

As far as the pizza, our daughter gave it 2 thumbs down.  :(  Greg & I thought it was fine but she didn't like it - luckily we also ordered some spicey chicken for her and she loved that.

We then headed back to the hotel for her to join us in the pool.  We are pretty sure she had never been swimming before but she had no fear about the water.  (good thing we have the auto cover for our pool at home because I think she'd jump in without thinking whenever she wanted to!)  After just a few minutes she was saying "Daddy leave me" in her cute little accent.  She wanted us to let go of her!  She is so independent!  Again, she is so smart (brag!) and caught on quickly and was on her own "swimming" around in a small inner tube by the end of our time this afternoon.

We have learned a few things about her in the last 3 days - she is very giggly, playful, loves food, loves music & dancing, likes to sing (and knows many songs we do, Old MacDonald, If You're Happy And You Know It", etc.) wants to learn how to do everything on her own, LOVES playing on our phones or the iPad, and she is not shy.  Today at the pool we went to use the bathroom and on the way back there was a man at a table using his iPad ... she asked him if she could play on it.  Nope, not shy at all.  (we are already second guessing exposing her to technology - she is obsessed with it right now as most kids are at first)

We played until about 4:00pm and then took her back home.  It is hard to leave her, she is really sad when we leave.  Luckily, so far, we can promise to "be back tomorrow" ... in a few days we can't promise that.  We talked today about her coming to the U.S. and she is excited.  We think she has a decent grasp on how long it will take because we have the benefit of her being in a foster home with another little girl whose adoptive family is about 2 months ahead of us in the process.  She has seen her parents visit, then leave, and she will see them return soon for her.  That is helpful.

Tomorrow we will do just about the same as today, we'll go to pick her up and she is coming here.  We are hoping to eat lunch with her at our hotel and do some swimming.  (hopefully the weather cooperates for all of those plans)   Our plan is to stop at a restaurant for supper after we drop her off that has Wi-Fi so I can do this update and we can check emails without having her with us.

Saturday we are going to a mall that has bounce houses for her to jump in, Sunday we will go to church and then to the beach.  Our social worker, Naa, will bring us to her Presbyterian Church ... I'm sure it will be just like FPO. ;)   On Monday Greg & I will do some sight seeing without her for part of the day and then go pick her up and bring her back to the hotel with us to stay for the night.  We have to wake up early on Tuesday morning to drive to court and that way she will already be with us.  :)

Answered prayers:  

1. The weather wasn't quite as hot today as it had been, thank you Jesus!  :)

2. Greg & I have both felt good physically here even though we are having trouble getting to sleep.  (the 5 hour ahead time change??) 

3. Our daughter seems to love being with us and we love being with her.

4. The hotel power & a/c, which are both spotty, seem to be working tonight. (we learned tonight that whenever we have to go on generator power the a/c units do not work ... and that has happened every other day so far)

5.  Even though I blew up (yes, blew up - there was a flame.) my flat iron today with the high voltage electricity that runs here it gives me a good reason to just do the "natural look" which is how my hair has been looking after a few minutes in the heat and humidity anyway. :)

6. My anxiety level, which is usually high and can make me physically sick, has been amazing low.  (I guess giving everything up to God and being completely out of control works, ay?;)

Prayer requests:

1.  That the hotel will get the Wi-Fi fixed!!!!!!!  (going on 4 days and they have no idea when the dude is coming ... that's how things work here.)  We would like to be able to Facetime with the kids in the evenings and also research some things about Ghanaian culture when we have questions.  (we have ALOT of downtime at night .. like 5+ hours)

2. That our time with our daughter will continue to go well as we get to know her and she gets to know us.  It's hard to know how much to "parent" her already.  (like when to say "yes" and when to say "that's enough time on the iPad", etc.)

3.  That our court day will go smoothly, especially since we have no wiggle room anymore and are leaving that night.  (Pray hard Monday night for that as we will hopefully be through court by the time you all wake up on Tuesday morning)  Pray that we will be granted FULL custody of her.  (we found out that it is possible that they would do a partial adoption order which means we'd have to come back in 2 years to finalize it)

4.  That we will all continue to stay healthy and strong.

Thanks everyone - Love to you all.  

Robin

PS - we cannot tell you her name or show pictures online until after we pass court and we are officially her parents so when we get home on Wednesday expect to see her beautiful face.  :)

Safely Here

After the 10 hour red eye flight from JFK to Ghana last night we have arrived to sunny, HOT Accra.  (90 degrees and like 8000% humidity) I will no longer complain about the cold spring weather we have been having in Wisconsin!  We moved pretty quickly, I thought, through immigration and customs and one of the Bethany Christian Services workers was waiting for us when we exited and she took us to checkin to our hotel.  On the drive we learned that we would not be meeting our daughter today as the Bethany staff in Michigan had told us we probably would.  That was disappointing but we are trusting God's timing for our first meeting tomorrow.  (a shower and a good night's sleep will be good too!)  We will meet the other Bethany workers at their offices tomorrow and then go to meet her in the afternoon.

The drive from the airport to the hotel took about 30 minutes and was very enlightening for us to see some of the Ghanaian culture and the buildings and homes.  Greg was just reading something online that Ghana has one of the highest GDP(Gross Domestic Product) per capita and the fastest growing economy in all of Africa.  I was shocked.  Really brought it home to me (again) how lavishly we live.  I thought many times about our new daughter and the condtions she may have been living in before she was given to Bethany's care.

We stopped at a little grocery store and bought a few snacks and bottled water.  That was a fun experience for Greg & I since we hadn't really looked much at the currency.  I'm hoping the checkout girl was honest.  ;)   Seems like we actually got quite a good deal now that we look at our receipt - tons of water and a few snacks for what equals about $7, and that is the only money we spent today after eating breakfast on the plane and just having jitters and no appetite.  I'm not sure we'll dare the hotel restaurant tonight, may just eat PB&J in our room to make sure our stomachs feel good for tomorrow.  After the sun got lower we sat outside around the pool and listened to the sounds of Accra.  (horns, happy yelling, etc. :)  We are hoping to be able to Facetime with our kids when they get out of school so we are just pretty much waiting around for that time to roll around.  Other than that Greg just made my day by figuring out how to watch the season finale of The Amazing Race on his iPad to pass time tonight. :)

Thanks for all of the support - I can't figure out how to get pictures attached to this blog with this computer so I'll put some on Facebook instead.

Robin (& Greg)

And We're Off!

We finally got the phonecall yesterday morning and we are heading to Ghana to meet our little girl ... tomorrow!  Yes, nothing like 2 days notice to pull it all together but things are falling into place.  Our court date has been set for May 26th and we need to be in the country 5 business days before that.  So, right after we land on Monday (1:20pm Ghana time, 8:20am Central) they will bring us to meet her!  We are nervous, excited, grateful, sad to be leaving the other 3 kids for 10 days ... just a ball of emotions going on right now.

Please pray for safe travels, health for all of us, low anxiety for Robin (Is that possible?? Only with God's help!).  Pray for our little girl, that she will bond well with us and enjoy the time we have together even though she will not understand us.  Pray that the language of bubbles, coloring books, hugs, swimming, etc. will be enough for her to feel and see our love for her.  Pray for the judge, lawyers, and paperwork to all fall into place and to go smoothly.  Pray for Braden, Caris & Cade.  We have never been away more than 5 nights and Cade was too young to even remember that time.  Pray that they will enjoy their time with the family and friends that will be caring for them and pray that we can do some Facetime with them while we are there.

We will get to spend 8 days with her and then we will have to leave her there while we return home to work on acquiring her US visa.  Please pray for understanding and peace for her to know we ARE coming back for her as soon as we can.  It will probably take another 4-6 months before we have her home.

I will try to update our blog several times while we are in Ghana so stay tuned!

Thanks to all of you for your prayers and support,

Greg & Robin