Yes, there has been deafening silence. I feel horrible, guilty, shameful, etc. But there is reason behind it all. For those of you following our journey, you know we had been told we were approved. Well, we kept waiting and waiting for the papers to be signed, and then out of the blue we got a....
DENIAL NOTICE!
Yes indeedy, can you %#$##* believe that? "Our documentation does not quite meet the requirements" in Rwanda. We have no idea what that means other than no. So. back to the drawing board.
It came as quite a shock, and we weren't/aren't updating with all the details on this public forum for a variety of reasons, mostly legal. Some would suggest an appeal in Rwanda, but that is a futile effort we believe, and as of now we are not ready to pursue international adoption in another place like Ethiopia. We are brokenhearted and exhausted.
I packed all the baby stuff away again, and it was hard altho I have to say it is nothing like the feelings I had when Trace died. It did bring up all sorts of the emotions from when Trace died and I am still really struggling over here in my little microcosm of a world. How can it possibly be that a woman who wants to be a mother so badly to a child who needs a mother can't seem to have the cards line up in her favor? It is easy to go to a place of feeling like the Universe is trying to tell me that I am not worthy. I am not sure that God is that personal, though...
Anyway, if you would like to know more, you will need to have contact with me off this public forum. Leave me your email and I will be in touch when I can. You have all been amazingly supportive and kind, and have held me up at some pretty weak times. I only wish I could have some feel-good news, but this journey is not yet at that chapter, I guess.
Along other lines, we were able to completely change the lives of 6 people in Rwanda. The family I wrote about before... the mother was trained to make jewelry by my dear friend Tina, and she has already made so much money that she opened a bank account! Days after we moved her out her old house collapsed to a three foot pile of rubble. I try to keep focused on this... we did not travel to Rwanda for not and I am sure I will be continuing work there in some way in the future. This woman and family are so grateful and they literally have a new life and joy.
Many blessings,
jaya
Monday, July 28, 2008
Wednesday, May 14, 2008
Downer post
The adoption is still stuck, stagnant. The explanation we are being given is that the person who needs to sign the document (the Minister by my understanding) is still not in. But I did some fancy calendar referencing and it seems very suspicious to me that the Minister would be out of the office for three weeks straight. Now who am I to pass judgment, but she is head hauncho there and I can only think of three possibilities. Either the adoption agency misinterpreted and she really is there, but just hasn't signed it yet (cause we all know how hard it is to get time to write your name in cursive at the bottom of a page stuck under your nose), or she Minister who was new when I traveled just couldn't hack the job and she hasn't been replaced yet, or they have no intention of signing the letter or just the same, there is no letter to sign. Regardless, it is all out of my control obviously and is discouraging me to no end.
Honestly, I want to quit. Kinda. Let's be honest: if a baby was dropped from the sky and landed at my feet, I would be happy beyond belief. But enduring what seems like an impossible journey at this point puts me over the top. I just don't want to expend energy on it. And you might say, "So don't. Don't think about it." But that is just not possible. If we quit I'll think about it and if we keep going, I will also.
The only thing new here is another wave of nearly paralyzing grief. I can't determine why it is surging now... perhaps this longing for a baby left unsatiated... perhaps the arrival of Mother's day. Perhaps the anniversary of my dear friend's death. Regardless, the nightmarish dreams that I had in the beginning are back. If you have lost a child, you know the ones: where you dream some hell, perhaps your child dies in the dream, and when you awake you realize there is no escape of the hell. You get to live it in real life. It is the exact opposite response from usually bad dreams where you startle yourself awake only to say "Phew... it was just a dream." Someone made a joke to me the other day when I was with Ariah. They joked about leaving our children behind with the facilitator of the group. "And never come back" the joker said, referring to the children. Oh, how he didn't know how that sounded to a mother whose child is dead. On Mother's day we attended a choral performance, some of the singers sang a tribute to mothers to the tune of Amazing Grace. All I heard of it was something about watching your child learn to walk, and holding his hand through this or that... I bolted for the door, needing fresh air and trying desperately to escape the pain of never being that kind of mother to my child.
So life goes on, but there is a painful emptiness here... a suspension between the loss and the longing, an inertia that penetrates me.
Just the other night I watched the most fantastic movie on the genocide to date: "Sometimes in April." It renewed my commitment to Rwanda and the people there. What a heartbreaking story they live every day, a journey that seems utterly impossible and yet it is taken, has been taken, one step at a time for 14 years. What a testament they are to the power of humans to endure.
Honestly, I want to quit. Kinda. Let's be honest: if a baby was dropped from the sky and landed at my feet, I would be happy beyond belief. But enduring what seems like an impossible journey at this point puts me over the top. I just don't want to expend energy on it. And you might say, "So don't. Don't think about it." But that is just not possible. If we quit I'll think about it and if we keep going, I will also.
The only thing new here is another wave of nearly paralyzing grief. I can't determine why it is surging now... perhaps this longing for a baby left unsatiated... perhaps the arrival of Mother's day. Perhaps the anniversary of my dear friend's death. Regardless, the nightmarish dreams that I had in the beginning are back. If you have lost a child, you know the ones: where you dream some hell, perhaps your child dies in the dream, and when you awake you realize there is no escape of the hell. You get to live it in real life. It is the exact opposite response from usually bad dreams where you startle yourself awake only to say "Phew... it was just a dream." Someone made a joke to me the other day when I was with Ariah. They joked about leaving our children behind with the facilitator of the group. "And never come back" the joker said, referring to the children. Oh, how he didn't know how that sounded to a mother whose child is dead. On Mother's day we attended a choral performance, some of the singers sang a tribute to mothers to the tune of Amazing Grace. All I heard of it was something about watching your child learn to walk, and holding his hand through this or that... I bolted for the door, needing fresh air and trying desperately to escape the pain of never being that kind of mother to my child.
So life goes on, but there is a painful emptiness here... a suspension between the loss and the longing, an inertia that penetrates me.
Just the other night I watched the most fantastic movie on the genocide to date: "Sometimes in April." It renewed my commitment to Rwanda and the people there. What a heartbreaking story they live every day, a journey that seems utterly impossible and yet it is taken, has been taken, one step at a time for 14 years. What a testament they are to the power of humans to endure.
Thursday, May 8, 2008
small post
Well, to answer everyone's question... no there is no update. I am beginning to really believe that this was all a joke. A nice expensive vacation in Rwanda... the hope we needed to get us through the hell of losing so much. Now though, still nothing and I just can't believe that it will ever happen. I am grateful to be with my family and that feels like enough right now.
Spring is upon us and gardens need to be planted, summer camp needs to be planned for and fuel needs to be saved for. Life happens. So I have let go of the process of this adoption.
I am still feeling very connected to my Rwandan friends, though. Happy has lost his job and all his friends have left for the US. I feel awful for him and wish there was something I could do. Richard has come to the US only to find out how cost prohibitive the college he was hoping to attend is... and now I hear that the baby of the family I am helping is very sick. That is where my mind is, not so much on the adoption.
Mother's day approaches and feels different this year than it did last year. I think then I stayed in bed all day long feeling awful... how could it be mother's day when I had failed as a mother and only managed to "kill" my baby, or so I chose to view it... this year I know I am a mother of all my babies regardless of what world they are in. I am grateful for that healing.
I'm off to dig in the dirt,
Jaya
Spring is upon us and gardens need to be planted, summer camp needs to be planned for and fuel needs to be saved for. Life happens. So I have let go of the process of this adoption.
I am still feeling very connected to my Rwandan friends, though. Happy has lost his job and all his friends have left for the US. I feel awful for him and wish there was something I could do. Richard has come to the US only to find out how cost prohibitive the college he was hoping to attend is... and now I hear that the baby of the family I am helping is very sick. That is where my mind is, not so much on the adoption.
Mother's day approaches and feels different this year than it did last year. I think then I stayed in bed all day long feeling awful... how could it be mother's day when I had failed as a mother and only managed to "kill" my baby, or so I chose to view it... this year I know I am a mother of all my babies regardless of what world they are in. I am grateful for that healing.
I'm off to dig in the dirt,
Jaya
Monday, April 28, 2008
What A Few People Can Do
I am at a complete loss for words and hence my silence.. that and I keep waiting for good news (or just plain news for that matter) to share with you all. So the news to report on the adoption front is only that supposedly the Ministry has "approved" our case, but now the Minister needs to sign the letter and she has been out of the office. The lawyer is going back tomorrow to check, but with the way things work there, it very well may require her to go back again and again. Nothing can happen until that letter is signed. Sigh. For a week we have been in limbo over whether or not to celebrate the "approval" but I think we will hold out until it has been signed and is official.
I think I will tell you all of the family we are trying to help...
So on one of my last days in Rwanda, I asked my dear friend Happy to show me the slums. He asked, "Are you sure?... You will cry." "I'm sure. I have been living in a very ritzy American household, I want to see another reality." So Happy took me to his neighbor's house. This is a family of six, he told me, a widow and her children that he has been trying to help for months now. Their church group has gone to clean the house and Happy has donated food and clothes. We bounce up and down through the ruts along the red mud road, Happy stopping along the way to ask through his window to the kids below where the mum of this family is. We come to a stop in front of a dirty house front and out come the kids, followed by their mum holding the five month old girl. "Muzungu" is all I can make out, the rest is Kinyarwanda that I can't understand. We go in to look around at the living conditions.
The roof has blown off, the mud walls crumbling beneath it, and the dirt floor has turned to mud with the April rains. The house is made of two rooms, one for sleeping and one for cooking. In the sleeping room is one mat where the six of them sleep together and the children are covered in bites from the bugs that sleep with them also. Above their mattress is a leaning mud wall, cracked vertically in two places. Happy and I inspect it for a while determining that it is only a matter of time before the family is buried alive while they are sleeping. The other room houses a cooking pot and branches used for fuel. The kids themselves (ages 5 months, 4, 6, 8 and 13) are gorgeous, but filthy. When we ask, we find that the woman feels it is impossible to clean since the mud comes in constantly with the rain and dust from the road. Their source of water is very far away and they can scarcely afford to buy it.
Cleaning this mess up seems impossible, futile. Looking at the wall, Happy and I are thinking the same thing at the same moment. We need to move this family. And so we do...
In a day's time we have met with the mum, received assurance that she will keep a new place clean and safe, heard her ideas for sustaining her own life, found a new house with power and cement floors, paid five months rent, purchased 3 brand new mattresses, collected new sheets and clean clothes, sent the family for haircuts, cleaned them up and moved them in!
Moving them was amazing, the mum was so excited.. can you imagine? In the morning you wake up not sure how you will survive and by nightfall you have a new home, clean clothes and beds, and hope for tomorrow! A crowd grew that day, watching us work and word spread around the neighborhood that a Muzungu and her friend Happy had helped this family. The next day Happy had five more families banging on his gate for help... you can't help everyone, but you can help where you feel called to do so.
Now here in Vermont, some homeschoolers are learning about this family and working hard to sponsor them. One family has sold brownies on a college campus, earning 27 dollars so far- enough to nearly pay for one months rent! On Memorial day Ariah will be selling her famous chocolate chip cookies to raise money for the family. In addition to helping the mum to keep her home and buy food and water, we are also researching sending her to tailoring school so she can learn a skill that will allow her to make money in the future, supporting her own family herself. Next year the kids will need $210 dollars total for all their school fees.
I will forever remember looking into the woman's eyes as we stood in her new house deciding to buy it. I couldn't speak to her with words, but I stood in front of her facing her for a moment, then we hugged and began the move.
I think I will tell you all of the family we are trying to help...
So on one of my last days in Rwanda, I asked my dear friend Happy to show me the slums. He asked, "Are you sure?... You will cry." "I'm sure. I have been living in a very ritzy American household, I want to see another reality." So Happy took me to his neighbor's house. This is a family of six, he told me, a widow and her children that he has been trying to help for months now. Their church group has gone to clean the house and Happy has donated food and clothes. We bounce up and down through the ruts along the red mud road, Happy stopping along the way to ask through his window to the kids below where the mum of this family is. We come to a stop in front of a dirty house front and out come the kids, followed by their mum holding the five month old girl. "Muzungu" is all I can make out, the rest is Kinyarwanda that I can't understand. We go in to look around at the living conditions.
The roof has blown off, the mud walls crumbling beneath it, and the dirt floor has turned to mud with the April rains. The house is made of two rooms, one for sleeping and one for cooking. In the sleeping room is one mat where the six of them sleep together and the children are covered in bites from the bugs that sleep with them also. Above their mattress is a leaning mud wall, cracked vertically in two places. Happy and I inspect it for a while determining that it is only a matter of time before the family is buried alive while they are sleeping. The other room houses a cooking pot and branches used for fuel. The kids themselves (ages 5 months, 4, 6, 8 and 13) are gorgeous, but filthy. When we ask, we find that the woman feels it is impossible to clean since the mud comes in constantly with the rain and dust from the road. Their source of water is very far away and they can scarcely afford to buy it.
Cleaning this mess up seems impossible, futile. Looking at the wall, Happy and I are thinking the same thing at the same moment. We need to move this family. And so we do...
In a day's time we have met with the mum, received assurance that she will keep a new place clean and safe, heard her ideas for sustaining her own life, found a new house with power and cement floors, paid five months rent, purchased 3 brand new mattresses, collected new sheets and clean clothes, sent the family for haircuts, cleaned them up and moved them in!
Moving them was amazing, the mum was so excited.. can you imagine? In the morning you wake up not sure how you will survive and by nightfall you have a new home, clean clothes and beds, and hope for tomorrow! A crowd grew that day, watching us work and word spread around the neighborhood that a Muzungu and her friend Happy had helped this family. The next day Happy had five more families banging on his gate for help... you can't help everyone, but you can help where you feel called to do so.
Now here in Vermont, some homeschoolers are learning about this family and working hard to sponsor them. One family has sold brownies on a college campus, earning 27 dollars so far- enough to nearly pay for one months rent! On Memorial day Ariah will be selling her famous chocolate chip cookies to raise money for the family. In addition to helping the mum to keep her home and buy food and water, we are also researching sending her to tailoring school so she can learn a skill that will allow her to make money in the future, supporting her own family herself. Next year the kids will need $210 dollars total for all their school fees.
I will forever remember looking into the woman's eyes as we stood in her new house deciding to buy it. I couldn't speak to her with words, but I stood in front of her facing her for a moment, then we hugged and began the move.
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