Haiti

Many of you know, but in case you didn't, I was in Haiti last week. I had the wonderful honor of escorting a friend's daughter to Miami. Erlande is 8 years old and joined her family on Friday. It's one of the coolest things God's allowed me to be a part of.

I learned some sad news while in Haiti. I had the opportunity to talk to our Haitian processor and I learned that our paperwork is not as far along in process as we've been told. Yes, we did clear Parquet last week, but it was for the first time. According to our facilitator, your paperwork goes to Parquet, then goes for Judgment, then goes back to Parquet for the Judgment to be signed off on. We were told last Friday that we had gotten the 2nd Parquet approval needed so that our dossier could move on. On Sunday I learned that wasn't true. Our paperwork had been in Parquet since the end of January, so that's 8 months sitting in one office. Now we are waiting to hear that we have Judgment, then our paperwork will go back to Parquet for them to sign off on that. It was totally disheartening to learn this, but at least we know the truth now.

My stay in Haiti was wonderful. The last 4 times I went to Haiti we had to stay at an expensive hotel because that is where our mission trip leaders decided to stay. This time I stayed at Wall's International Guest House and absolutely loved it. It was not as nice as the hotel, but they made up for it in other ways. The food was delicious and breakfast and lunch were included in the daily cost - which is only $35 if you have an airconditioned room. The staff was amazing - completely polite and helpful. They went above and beyond to help me out. They have a great swimming pool that they vacuum daily. They also have wireless internet access available for only $2 a day. There were drawbacks - the showers were cold. Not ice cold, but definitely cold. The AC was only for five hours at night. There are not choices at mealtime - it's what they make and that's it. Overall, I felt that the good far outweighed the bad and I will never again stay at Visa Lodge if I can help it.

I've turned off comments on this post because I'm sure some people will be as upset as we were about what I've posted about our paperwork and I don't want a bunch of discouraging comments linked to this. I didn't share it to get people riled up. I shared it because this blog's purpose is to share our journey in adopting our boys. We post updates - all of them, good and bad. As always, feel free to email me if you want.