It is there!!!

Our paperwork has arrived!!! It actually arrived on the 21st of April, which is wonderful news:) Now we will be entering a time of waiting where we won't hear anything for quite a while. The fruit of this waiting will be a letter from The Minister that will be taken to the orphanages. Thank you for your prayers!!! Please continue to pray for a swift turnaround- in God's timing of course.

Prayer Warriors!!!

Dear Friends,
As I said in my earlier post...our POA (Power of Attorney) has not received the copies of our paperwork we sent to him and it has been over three weeks:( He is checking in with The Minister's office and it is uncertain whether they have received the originals--yikes! Please pray that it arrives safely!!! I am in semi-panic mode right now.

On another note, the man who is functioning as our POA is a Rwandan pastor and he shared the following prayer requests with me. Please pray for him.

• Pray for my wife to be healed... she has cough and to get a job
• Pray for my father in law is very sick
• Pray with us also we are not enjoying paying monthly house rent, we need our own house or land to build ours.
• Pray for my wife and I to have scholarships/ God's provision for education.

Prayer Request

If any of you think of it, we are asking for prayer as we are still waiting to hear that our paperwork has been delivered safely to our POA in Rwanda and The Minister's Office. It is not a major concern yet as there are bound to be delays with the mail from time to time, but we would be so grateful if you would lift it up before our awesome God. We would just love to hear that it has arrived safe and sound:)

THANK YOU!

A Mother for Choco

My friend Becca came over to help me paint today- THANK YOU BECCA! She has two adopted sons and has been an absolute wealth of encouragement and knowledge during this journey. When I first told her we were adopting, she brought me the most beautiful and thoughtful little books for our children and a journal for me, but today she gave me an absolute MUST HAVE for all families adopting little ones. It is called "A Mother for Choco" by Keiko Kasza and it is soooooooo precious and sweet. The book simply tells the story of a little bird without a mommy who finds a home with a bear who has three other children (a hippo, a pig, and an alligator). Even though it is so simple, it is truly beautiful and profound.

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For those of you who are wondering...we have no news other than we are waiting for word that our dossier has arrived safely in Rwanda. Thank you for all your prayers!!! God's timing is perfect:)

Project Rwanda

Considering the love Adam has for mountain biking and coffee, I thought I should share some information about Project Rwanda. You can visit their website for more details http://projectrwanda.org/.

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Mission Statement: Project Rwanda is committed to furthering the economic development of Rwanda through initiatives based on the bicycle as a tool and symbol of hope. Our goal is use the bike to help boost the Rwandan economy as well as re-brand Rwanda as a beautiful and safe place to do business and visit freely.

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The coffee-bike program: If the transport time of cherries coming from the coffee field to the washing station was reduced to from six to 12 hours down to two to four, research has shown that cup quality will increase significantly from 82/100 to 86/100 on sensory evaluation scores from which coffee price is determined. This translates into a $0.15 or higher premium per pound of green coffee sold. It’s our opinion that bicycles can solve the transport problem if a program could make the bikes available to farmers for a reasonable price on credit and where quality premiums would cover the bike’s cost. A collaborative venture is being formed between Project Rwanda (http://www.projectrwanda.org/), Ritchey Design Inc. (http://www.ritcheylogic.com/), and Rwanda Smallholders Specialty Coffee Company (RWASHOSCCO).

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The program has great potential since it not only increases quality and income generation through coffee, it provides a major capital asset to the family. This asset can in turn be used as collateral for loans, generate supplementary income, reduce transport costs and time for water carrying and market going and provide a means to ‘gather socially’ for community events or other friendships that were impossible to attend otherwise.

A journey within a journey...

Here are the details of what has happened over the past 36 hours. It is so clear that GOD has orchestrated EVERY DETAIL. It just makes me smile to think of all of the ways He is handling this whole process.

Adam and I decided to drive our dossier out to Washington, DC to take it to the Department of State and hand deliver it to the Rwandan Embassy. We left at 6pm on Thursday and arrived at our hotel at around 2am on Friday. We slept for a few hours and then went to the Authentications Office a little after 7:30am. We initially went to the wrong building, but a nice security guard helped us find our way! All of our papers were given another official cover sheet and then it was time to head over to the embassy. It was pouring rain and parking spaces are a little hard to come by in DC:) We parked about 3 blocks away and ran- trying not to get too wet! It was now just a little after nine and the door to the embassy was open. When we walked inside all the lights were off, but a man greeted us and asked what we needed. Just as we were answering another gentleman came in from the rain who happened to be Mr. Michael Rukata, the person we were hoping to see!!! He said he had three minutes because of a meeting with the ambassador and asked what he could do for us. We gave him our dossier and informed him that we would return with a pre-paid envelope so he could mail it back when he was finished. He looked it over (we had already sent it there once), and said that he would stamp our documents and have our approval letter ready to pick up by 4:30 THAT DAY!!! This was totally unexpected:)

After our initial trip to the embassy, the rain stopped and the sun came out making for an absolutely gorgeous day. We toured some of the sites and enjoyed the cherry blossom trees, which were in full bloom. When we returned to the embassy, our dossier was finished and we were granted the much needed "No Objection" letter. We left to drive home at around 5pm, hit major DC traffic on our way out, and returned safely home at about 2am this morning. After making copies and bundling everything together, our paperwork is now en-route to Kigali, Rwanda. The Minister of Family and Gender is the next step along the way.

These are some pictures of our "road trip" to DC that I plan to put in the lifebook I am making for our kids!!! We just can't wait to hold them!!!

Approval Letter!!!

I'll post details later, but after a 20 hour round trip drive to DC, we have our approval letter from the first counselor. The next step for our papers is the desk of the Minister of Family and Gender in Rwanda!!!