He's Home!!!

Hi Friends and family!

We wanted to give everyone an update on our adoption process! There is so much to be said, but I will give some of the highlights. Jonah arrived home on Monday, October 7^th from Uganda, and it has been an incredible 3 weeks so far with him! 

Here are a few pics from his arrival!

Before they walked through the doors!

Silas meeting Jonah for the first time!

Cheryl Sargent and her husband Gary started The Suubi Project where we adopted Jonah from. These are all the children that have been adopted out of the orphanage so far and all live in our area! So amazing to see them together in the US!

All of us with Gary and Cheryl Sargent! 

It is amazing to see how God shaped all the different personalities in our family and how they come together. Jonah has been doing remarkably well for the extreme transition from a 3^rd world country to the U.S.  When he first walked into our house, he asked if the bathtub was where he would sleep because he had never seen a bathtub before! We have slowly been introducing him to all of the machines in our house and watch his amazement at things that I’ve never lived without. The first time Jonah seemed a little bored, I asked him what he wanted to do and he said “mommy, may I please use the machine?” I was so curious to hear what he thought THE MACHINE was. He led me to the hall closet where our vacuum was.  I told him he could use it anytime he wanted :o)

Jonah has always lived around many different ages of children in one house, so getting to know Silas, and Noah, and Ellie came easily.  Jonah is a humble leader with his younger two brothers, and so gentle and sweet with Ellie. When he can see that Ellie wants attention from me in the middle of cooking, he will say “come Hellie” and will chase her around the house (her favorite game). The boys have so much fun doing everything from nerf gun wars, to soccer games, board games, and jumping on the trampoline, and their favorite activity—riding bikes. I love listening to their conversations, especially when Silas starts speaking in a really strange accent to Jonah that he thinks sounds Ugandan, but it is more Japanese-sounding than anything :o)

I began homeschooling Jonah this week while the boys are at school.  We have spent some really good quiet hours getting to know each.  Our time has been much needed since Brad was the one who spent 8 weeks in Africa with him. We’ve had some really good conversations, and I have loved watching him learn so many new things. Jonah is my little side-kick now and I have him do just about everything with me. I am teaching him how to cook a few things and he loves it. A few days ago, he told me he was going to cook something special. The end result of this special cooking experiment was pan-fried bananas on top of scrambled eggs and onions. He loved it! Let me tell you…my boys can eat! Cooking for 4 big boys and 2 girls is quite the change around here!

Some of my personal favorite things that Jonah says are: “daddy why are you cackling?” (instead of laughing), “mommy please remove the lights,” when he gets hurt by something like stubbing his foot on a chair, he says “why is this chair abusing me?” He calls his personal space and things “his kingdom” and the other day, his bed had crumbs in it and he said “mommy I don’t know why everything in my kingdom is having messes!”

Jonah is a constant reminder of God’s grace and that we have so much excess that we don’t even know about. Yesterday when we were eating lunch together, he was telling me how in Nansololo (the village where he grew up), if they ate dinner one night, they would not get to eat the next day—they would have to skip a day and eat again 2 nights later. I can’t imagine telling me kids every other day “sorry there is no food today.”  I really used to think we had so little compared to so many people! I am so thankful for all of the stories and reminders that all we have is God’s and we always have so much more to give than we realize!

Jonah really is a miracle. He is a picture of God’s grace in our lives and it is a miracle that he is here with us as it was never our plan to adopt a 9 year old boy, and as the process unfolded, it seemed impossible that we would ever get approval to bring him home! We are so blessed that God moved our hearts to adopt him.  He moved mountains for him to come home!

We are still in the process of adopting him as we became his legal guardians in Uganda but still have to complete the adoption process here in the US! I will do another blog update about this part of the process in the next day or two to give everyone a break from reading :o)

Thank you all for being a part of bringing our son home!!!