Most of the time that ends with me stuttering around and giving some kind of a lame answer.
Not because there isn't a really good (non-lame) answer,
but because it is hard to know where to get started.
Sooo, I thought I would begin to share the story that God wrote for us.
It is a looonng story that spans many years.
But don't worry, no chapter book today!
I will give it to you a bit at a time!
If you want to catch up to speed, you can find:
Part 1 {here}
Part 2 {here}
Part 3 {here}
Part 4 {here}
Part 5 {here}
Part 6 {here}
Part 7 {here}
Part 8 {here}
Part 9 {here}
Part 10 {here}
Part 11 {here}
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I left off last with our plans to go ahead and move to Malawi and wait on our girls' US Visas. We had booked our tickets to move to Malawi with the rest of our team in July 2013.
A few weeks before our departure date, we received incredible news from the US Embassy! Our investigation was complete! It was time to go pick up our girls! So, in a whirlwind, we canceled our Malawi tickets and booked tickets to go pick up our girls in DRCongo. In July, we traveled to the airport and sent off the two families that were on our team. We said, "see you later" and went back home to our empty house. It was a strange feeling not going with the rest of our team, but exciting also that we were just days away from meeting our girls!
On August 4, 2013, we boarded a plan to DRCongo! It was really the most surreal feeling. Finally completing our family after 3.5 years of waiting. This was our first time to land on the continent of Africa, and it was all just full of so many emotions as we had been dreaming about this day for so long!
On August 6, after a night of no sleep because of excitement jitters, a van pulled up in front of our hotel. Out popped two little girls.... our girls. A few quick words about schedules and likes/dislikes, and then we were alone. We were now mom and dad to 2 little ones that we had been staring at for months in photos.
We spent 3 weeks in DRCongo completing paperwork and waiting...lots and lots of waiting. We weren't allowed to leave our hotel very much, so the days were long. We missed our boys terribly and were ready to get back to the States so we could complete all the next steps to start our lives in Malawi. Understandably, there was lots of trauma and hard adjustments as we got to know each other and learn to trust. Looking back, I wish I could have whispered in my ear, "it's all going to be ok, it's just going to take time."
Three weeks later, we received our much anticipated Exit Letters and we rushed to the airport at dark to catch our flight. Five weeks later, the country quit issuing Exit Letters and held onto this suspension for over two years. We made it through the long, rough flights and landed back in Arkansas in late August 2013. All four of us were ready to be done with those flights and we were anxious to be back with the boys and start life as a family of six! I wrote more about our adoption here.
Now that we were back on American soil, we had several things to do to get ready for our move. We had to re-adopt the girls in our State, apply for SS #"s, wait on green cards, get new birth certificates and US passports. We lived in the States (in our empty house) for six weeks while we applied and waited for these documents. Looking back, I am still amazed that God accomplished all those things in six short weeks!
In those six weeks we tried to cocoon our family in so we could bond and become a new family. We also tried to soak in as much time as we could with our families since we were going to be moving away soon. It was an interesting transition time.
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I think the next installment of AR to AF will be the last! When I started off writing this series, I never dreamed it would take me 13 installments and almost 3 years!
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