Passports Approved!!!

We got great news late yesterday, the girls' Haitian passports have been approved!!! We are getting very excited, we think we only have about a month to go. The printing of the passports takes about 1-2 weeks. Then we wait upon their US visas to be approved, that takes about 1-2 weeks (we hope, there has been some delays here). Then we make plans to travel! We are hoping to go get them at the end of June, early July. YEAH!!!! Finally!!!!

Life just got super crazy. I am taking a class to keep up my teaching certificate and that ends on June 15th, but I have a ton of work to get done for that. Plus our preperations to travel and to get ready to welcome our girls home! So let me get back to writing one of my school papers, but just couldn't wait to share our good news!

Again, thank you for your many prayers, keep them coming!!! Will keep you all updated on the progress.
Love,
Allison

The Boys!

Hummer Limo

Walker Brian at home

Just had to share these pictures of Brison and Walker. Brison was one of the top money collectors in his school's Walk-A-Thon and got to take a ride in a Hummer Limo to get pizza. The picture of Walker was at his Trike-A-Thon.

Hoping to hear some good news real soon on our adoption, will pass it on when we hear.

Allison

2 Months

Well we are officially 2 months in MOI! The average time is 3 months, so getting closer. We have been busy re-upping some of our information. After a year some things need to be redone. We are scheduled to be fingerprinted again (just in case we committed a crime in the past year and developed a new set of fingers!). Ahh the government! Also our 2007 financial information has to be filed. Brian and I also got some immunization shots done, so that when it comes time to travel we will be good to go! Lots and lots of stuff to keep us busy!

Our latest update was encouraging. Sounds like things are settling down in Haiti once again, but that the cost of food has gone way up. The good news is that it is the rainy season and the orphanage no longer has to rely on the water truck to bring them water. They have a cistern and it is overflowing, praise God!

I thought I would include the following from our update. I think some of my Holland (MI) friends would appreciate this celebration. Lots of people from the Netherlands adopt from Haiti by the way.

We have a special holiday planned for all of our kids, though I think it will have the most meaning to our kids being adopted to the Netherlands. April 30th is Queen’s Day in the Netherlands, and will be as well at GLA. We’re going to celebrate by playing a game where each child lines up in front of a string with their hands behind their back, and competes to eat a piece of spiced bread/cake from a dangling string the fastest without using their hands. Friends from the Netherlands introduced us to this game two years ago when they were visiting and it was a great hit. Even our nannies participated, though laughed to hard to really concentrate on eating theirs the fastest. We of course also have to have orange punch, balloons, flags, and what holiday is complete without a little Haitian singing, music, and dancing!

We learned a little more about how the girls are doing with their English. Falancia (the oldest) is doing great and that is all the workers speak to her in. Jiovenda is not enjoying it so much, but can understand it. And the following is the description of Sivencia's (3 yrs old) love for English...

Sivencia does not seem to understand much but the simplest things. Come here. Please sit down. We are finished. Are you finished? Do you want more? Simple things like this. She is often, I guess I would say annoyed, for lack of a better description. Annoyed that I or Joyce would use English with her when we clearly know that she speaks Creole.

So wish us luck, hopefully they will all learn quickly once they get here. I guess they will have no choice.

They also told us that the girls recieved a package that we had sent down and showed us pictures receiving it. That was exciting!

Well hopefully we will hear more soon! Thank you again for all of your many prayers!

Love,

Alli