Friday, January 25, 2013

Meeting Daphine!

Last week we had the amazing privilege of meeting the little girl we sponsor through Compassion! I've been sponsoring Namanya Daphine since August of 2008, before Drew and I even got married. And since we've gotten married we've been sponsoring her together.

Daphine will be 12 years old in February and lives in a small town called Maziba, about 6-7 hours away from where we live in Kampala. Compassion gave us the option of either traveling to visit her for the day or paying for her and a companion to come to us for the day. With two small kids, 14 hours in the car didn't sound very appealing so we decided to have Daphine come to us!

She arrived early Monday morning and my first thought was "She is SO beautiful!!" It was an incredible thing to meet her for the first time after 4 1/2 years of writing to her and only seeing/sending pictures. We were so excited! Daphine does not speak a lick of English so thankfully she had a translator with her. The translator told us that Daphine had never been out of her village and was shocked by the big city of Kampala! 

Meeting her for the first time!!
Isaiah was so excited about showing her all his toys, especially his magnetic cars.

Daphine brought us a sweet gift of fruit and a basket.
After some tea and cake at our house we took Daphine to the big mall downtown and took her to see a movie in the theater! We also had Isaiah with us and it was his first time seeing a movie in the theater too. He and Daphine were both completely glued to the screen the whole time. It was awesome to see their faces!!! =)

We had some gifts for her as well.

Opening up her gift bag!

She was so excited!

She loved her new shirt, a hand-me-down from my sister, Adelynn.

We got her a handwriting book to help her practice writing her letters.

She said her favorite gift was her English dictionary!

When we returned from the mall we enjoyed an African style meal that our house help prepared. Daphine had no idea how to use a fork so she used her hands! All too soon it was time to say goodbye. We really enjoyed our visit with Daphine and feel so blessed to have had the opportunity to meet her! She is a beautiful girl inside and out and we look forward to our continued communication with her now that we know her more personally!!

Here I was telling her translator to tell her how proud I was of her for being such a helpful, studious girl who loves Jesus!

Saying goodbye after a wonderful day!

Saturday, January 19, 2013

More Photos From The Field

Perhaps this is not the most appealing photo to begin with, but this is what a bathroom out in the village looks like. Make sure to bring your own toilet tissue!

We were at a field function on this particular day. As I was heading to wash my hands after eating, I could see this black line in the distance. As I approached it, I could see it was moving! It was a herd of ants crossing the path.

We didn't finish our work in the field until late this particular evening. On our way back, I was driving us down all of these village dirt and bumpy roads. Along the way I was trying to  snap some pictures of the village nightlife and this boda guy made one of the photos.

You see a lot of cows out in the village, but usually only about one per a family. Cows are very expensive, but are one way people both feed their families and make money. When I saw this guy, only one thing came to mind: A spicy chicken sandwich from Chik-fil-a.
The night life, even in the village, can be pretty vibrant. This was a group of people who were cooking up some fried fish to sell. We couldn't resist, so we stopped to buy some.



This fish was delicious!

Here's part of the team I work with - some of our stellar IJM lawyers - reviewing some notes for the legal education program we were conducting this day.

This was at a church we were asked to speak at. On this Sunday, some of the youth did a dance a drama for the church.

This was at our last WMBR event for the year. Our office has team challenges each month called "WMBR" (We Measure By Results). We're on the same team for the whole year and our last challenge which would determine which team came in first place for 2012 was a couple of rounds of bowling. The team I was on came in second place. Maybe next year we'll take home the #1 ranking.
This is the team I work with everyday - great and amazing people! A couple of them were pregnant at the time and we were having an out-of-office lunch to celebrate their pregnancy.

Some more returning from the field late, more driving on Jinja Road at night. Jinja Road during the day can already make for quite the adventure while driving on. At night, it's nearly outright dangerous.
We are big believers in measuring our performance so we know if our work is making a difference. I see these graphs each day and they motivate us all the more to work hard for our clients and those we're serving. Our end results for 2012 are much higher than  what you see here as this graph was made half way through the year. We well exceeded our goals for 2012!
Sometimes you just never know what you'll find around the office. I walked in to the kitchen to make some tea and found our mascot, until he became someone's dinner.
Speaking of chicken for dinner, this is Uganda's best chicken! In our project area, there's a place we sometimes pass by called Namawajallo. They have several workers who cook all kinds of food and sell it for people making the long trip to Jinja. This chicken is always sauteed with salt or some seasoning and then grilled. It makes for some good and inexpensive eating.

Coffee is one of the main crops in Uganda, it's actually their largest export. On our way to the field on this day we passed a coffee harvester who had picked the beans and was now letting them dry out.

Although this photo is not from the field, I couldn't resist posting this amazing checkmate setup. For Christmas I asked Amber for a chess set and board and she found this amazing hand made soap-stone one in the local craft market. Although this was one of Amber's first times playing chess, she fared well. In the end, however, my Knight and Rook conquered her King. For those who know chess notation, Am's King is on G5 (the blue lion facing right).





Monday, January 14, 2013

End of 2012 Family Pictures

We had some family pictures taken last month and got the digital copies today. Wish we could post more pictures of our precious Baby Girl. Praying someday soon we will be able to.

What a wonderful end to the year 2012 we had- celebrating with our TWO wonderful children. We are blessed!

 














Sunday, January 13, 2013

Adoption Update: Bonding and Attachment

Yesterday we went to visit Baby Girl's orphanage. We hadn't been there in a while and wanted to bring Baby Girl back so everyone could see her as well as bring a cake we had for them. We also have some friends who are adopting from the same orphanage. They live in the States so we went to check up on their little guy and take pictures and video for them. We even Skyped live with them while we were there so they could see their precious guy in real time. It was fun!
One child is different from the rest... =)
When we arrived ALL the children rushed out to great us. One of the bigger kids grabbed Isaiah and another one grabbed Baby Girl. They were all shouting "Zander, Zander!" (A nickname that they have for Baby Girl).
Some of the precious faces who came out to greet us.
For those of you who are close to someone who has adopted, you may remember them asking you to be a little "hands off" with their newly adopted child at first. Of course all adoptive parents want you to love on their child, but many parents choose to "cocoon" the baby at home for a certain period of time, with the parents being the only ones to feed, bathe, hug, kiss, love on, etc their child. This is so that the newly adopted child can begin to form a strong bond with their new adoptive parents. It is a very wise thing to do especially for a child who has had much trauma in their life and/or been moved around from caretaker to caretaker.
The bassinet with the blue blanket on it is where Baby Girl slept.
Since we have had Baby Girl home we have constantly been working on gaining her love and trust.  Because I am a stay at home mom, I am the one who meets all of Baby Girl's needs during the day (with Drew (being the awesome, hands-on dad that he is) helping out on evenings and weekends). Baby Girl has developed a deep bond with both of us and adjusted amazingly well. We could not have asked for things to go any better. But, until we went back to her orphanage, we didn't realize just how attached she had become to us!

Cutting into the cake we brought for them. They were SO excited!
Baby Girl started screaming and crying at the top of her lungs when they grabbed her away from us. Not right away, but as soon as we got out of her line of sight, she lost it! We immediately took her back, comforted her, and she calmed down. The staff at the orphanage just couldn't keep their hands off of her though and grabbed her back soon after. It's understandable because they loved and cared for her for her first 5 months of life and they were so excited to see her.  She did end up letting some people hold her but always kept an eye out for mommy and daddy and wanted to come back to us often.

These kids love this little toe-headed white boy!
Isaiah finds anything that's on wheels, no matter where he goes!
We were THRILLED with her response!! It means that she now knows that we are "hers". She belongs to us and we belong to her. She is OURS! She finds comfort and security in our arms, not in the arms of any old stranger, and not even in the arms of those who cared for her three months ago. She loves us and wants us to be close by. She knows we are her parents! It can bring tears to an adoptive parent's eyes when this shift happens in a child. We are so grateful that God has allowed her tiny little heart to put aside (for now) the hurt and pain she has experienced in her life and learn to love and trust a family who, just months ago, were strangers to her.


Praise the Lord! He does ALL things well!!