Needing Prayers

I'm back on blogger to ask for everyone's prayers for this difficult season in our adoption process. 

So where have we been since February? We decided right before Brad and I left for our court date in Uganda to make a secret facebook page for adoption updates to keep things more private while we were overseas and our adoption was being completed. While we were there, we still had some issues at that point with privacy in our story so we were forced to shut that down. Now we are picking back up where we left off on this blog. 

I am going to do a “brief” overview of what happened over the last few months in our adoption process. It has been a ride we never could have imagined when we began this process! Brad and I left our 3 kids with family to fly to Uganda at the beginning of March for our court date. It was so good to reconnect with Martin who we hadn’t seen for almost a year since our Missions trip to Uganda in June of 2012 when we met him. We were so ready to ask him a million questions, but had to take it slow because of the language barrier.

Our court date was scheduled for March 6^th, but was rescheduled for March 14^th. I had to fly home before our rescheduled court date to be with our 3 kids at home and I said a very teary goodbye to our husband and son in Uganda, praying that I would be seeing them both at our Dallas airport in 4 weeks or so.

Here is a picture of Jonah and I before I left walking together at Suubi.

Here is Jonah doing his favorite thing EVER! We asked him how he learned to play soccer and he said that when he was a little boy he would tie banana plants together into a ball shape and he taught himself to play--WOW. He's pretty incredible at it too.

Court went very well on March 14^th and Brad moved out of the orphanage, into Kampala with Martin when we received a favorable verbal ruling from the judge. At Martin’s last night at the orphanage, he was able to celebrate the first birthday he has ever celebrated when he turned 9 years old. That night Martin told Brad he did not want to be called Martin Marvine (understandable) and so they were discussing a new name to give him. Brad asked him about the name Jonah, and he loved it. He read the children in the orphanage that night the story about Jonah, a story God has already used greatly in our lives. So our son's full name is Obwara Martin Jonah Marvine. When Brad moved into the city, we were able to use facetime to see each others faces almost on a daily basis. It became our favorite time of the day. I got to walk around the house using our ipad and show Jonah the various rooms of our house and he quickly got to know the quirky personalities of Silas, Noah, and Ellie here at home.

 This picture was taken at the nicest hotel in Kampala where we would go and eat sometimes. Jonah was amazed! I'm telling you these are two of the most incredible men that exist and I'm so thankful for them! One of these days I'll have Brad hop on here and tell you some amazing stories of their adventures together in Africa.

We received legal guardianship of Jonah on April 4^th and Brad was prepared for the final step of our process which was an interview at the US embassy to attain Jonah’s visa so he could come home. On June 8^th Brad went in for the visa interview and the embassy requested to schedule another interview with Jonah’s biological parents to be present for the second interview. Two days later we brought Jonah’s parents in for the interview, which Brad was not a part of.

On April 22^nd, Brad received a phone call from the US embassy telling him that our case was “not clearly approvable” and would be sent to the embassy in Nairobi, Kenya for further investigation. It was devastating to get the call from Brad that he would not be bringing Jonah home after being in Uganda for almost 2 months.  Brad had to say a very difficult goodbye to Jonah, which they called "see you later" after spending 7 and a half weeks with him by his side every second of the day and night.  Jonah recorded a video on Brad’s phone for each of our kids and I.  He told me to “stop crying mommy! I will be home soon!”…not that I had been crying or anything :o) Jonah is staying at The Suubi Project where he had been living and where he will be taken care of until we see him again. We’ve even been able to talk to him over the phone on and off while other families who are adopting are staying at the orphanage to tell him that we are fighting for him and love him and pray for him every day.

On April 4^th we received our “Request for more Evidence” from the embassy in Kenya that contained some pretty concerning issues. We will have around 3 months to clear up the problems with our case. We decided to hire a lawyer in the US to help us with this part of the process. After we turn in our evidence the embassy could request more evidence, give us an intent to deny, or approve us for a visa so we could bring Jonah home.

Brad and I have absolutely never come close to going through something so painful and yet we feel God doing an incredibly deep and good work in us through this waiting and all of the unknowns.

Please pray for us as we fight to bring our son home. It has been an emotional and overwhelming process that we know God is using in us and Jonah. We are asking for prayer for Jonah as it is so difficult to describe to him what is going on and why we can’t just fly over there and bring him home. Please pray that Brad and I would keep our eyes on the Lord and not put our hope in circumstances, or people, or paperwork, but only Him. Please also pray that God would make a way for Jonah to come home quickly!

Thank you all!