Week 4 in Uganda

This was the week we were scheduled to appear back at court. This week was hard. It started the every day battle of "when will we go home" and our hope being deferred over and over again. It is not that we did not enjoy Uganda, and we certainly enjoyed the undivided attention to our family, however, the whats ifs still hung over our head and the normalcy of home seemed so far away. Really we had been in Uganda for three weeks and accomplished very little on the process side. We had spent three weeks with D and we had not even been granted the adoption. "What if the judge says no?" "What if we run into other issues with the process?" Satan was at work with the fear and emotional exhaustion.

We started this week with me being sick which was scary and not fun but luckily it passed quickly. These days we just stayed around the guesthouse. One morning we were sitting on the porch and D began to pretend like he was going to kiss us and then not so we would tickle him. He did it over and over again and made L and I laugh. He was the joy in many days of these last few weeks.

Before we headed back to court we went to have L and D's hair cut. I asked the barber to "trim" D's hair but apparently that means shave in Uganda, because baby boy did not have any hair left at the end. We also found a playground at the mall where the barber shop was and let D play in a jump house for the first time, he loved it!

jump house fun

hair cut

after head shave

We traveled back five hours west the night before court. On the way we stopped at the Equator and saw wild zebras on the side of the road. Our room was right by the "club" and it was about 100 degrees inside. The beds were literally harder than concrete but we crawled under the mosquito net and tried to fight our anxiousness with sleep. I woke up a few hours later with a mosquito attacking me and music blaring. Over the next few weeks this is when my breakdowns came, in the middle of the night, and they usually involved mosquitoes and loud music. I put on one of my long skirts, despite the heat, to keep the mosquito from attacking my legs more and tried to sleep.

equator

zebras or zee-bree-as as d calls them

The next morning we woke up, me quite tired, and I realized I had forgotten my hair dryer at our guesthouse five hours away. If you know me well you know I wash my hair daily, and that if I do not, it looks like someone poured baby oil in it. Luckily, by the grace of God, it did not look too terrible so I opted to go without washing it instead of appearing in front of the judge with wet hair. I know to many people this may seem trivial...but most girls will understand, when your hair feels dirty you just feel "ick" all over. I did. I felt that and every other emotion possible all at once.

We put on D's super cute suit and dress shoes, but the very shoes that fit three weeks before were too small on one foot then. We tried everything, including getting him to jump, in order for it to fit. L even tried to "alter" them with his knife, but nothing worked. We did get quite a few laughs out of it though. Shoes are a very big deal to Ugandans so we tried our best to keep that one "appearing" as if it was on for the important moments.

We kept reminding ourselves of God's promises and all He had done to bring us this far and confirm this was His will for our family. We kept remembering the crazy and miraculous things He orchestrated so that we even knew about D. I kept saying over and over in my head, God DOES set the lonely in families, He does fight for our good, He will finish what He has started, He is faithful and just. Those words got me through that day of court and the two more weeks we spent in country.

before court

We headed to the court house after breakfast. We met our lawyer as well as others who were there to speak on behalf of our case. We entered the court room with many other people. Eventually the judge came in and I think I let out a sigh of relief as he entered the room - PRAISE GOD he was there. His clerk went through the large stack of files that were on the desk and each time he would call out the number of the case we would stare anxiously at our lawyer to see if it was ours. Many cases were dismissed because all parties were not present and only one case before ours was heard. Everyone was whispering or talking very low, including the judge, so we could not understand everything that was going on and I was terrified the judge was going to ask us questions in that same tone and we were going to have to ask him to repeat things. There were microphones but the electricity was out, of course. Finally the clerk came to our file and the judge said he was see us in his chambers. I was so grateful for this, mostly because I knew we would be able to hear what he was saying, but also because D was getting very restless.

We entered his chambers and he asked everyone with our case questions while we sat listening trying to take in every word and moment. During this time D began running around, pulling papers from his cabinets, and trying to steal his pens. It was such an awkward moment of "I do not want to appear mean/you are about to make me a parent and I do not want to seem inadequate right before you do that." As I finally made the decision to get up and get him, the judge told me to leave him alone and let him play. I was relieved he made the decision for me but also wondering if those papers he was tearing were important?!? After speaking directly to us he finally said the magic words. The words we had dreamed about for over a year, and just like that, we were D's parents. It was a glorious moment. One I will never, ever forget.

daddy and d after court

After court we ate lunch and headed back five hours to the main city and our guesthouse. We were on cloud nine and we celebrated at Little Donkey, a Mexican food restaurant by our guesthouse that surprisingly served great food (and I do not think it was just disillusionment since we had been gone from Texas for 4 weeks)!

celebratory side of the road roasted plantain on long drive back

The judge did tell us the written ruling, the paper we needed to come home, would not be ready until the next week, after our scheduled flight home. Although we had prayed for a miracle, we somewhat expected this so we spent the next few days changing our flights and buying D's one way (way expensive) flight home.

This was a great week because we legally became a family. It felt wonderful. God had been so true to His promises and we were grateful for the favor He had bestowed upon our family. Now we just needed permission to actually bring him to the US...that's for the next post.