ARE YOU FINALLY READY FOR SOME GREAT NEWS?! Jeremy has a visa interview tomorrow! Then, the orphanage should be able to get his visa by mid-week. THEN...we can book our flights! We truly ARE going to HAITI!

Stay tuned for the latest!

Jeremy

Jeremy

In our latest update we learned a lot about our little guy:

They said that if they could use one word to sum up Jeremy’s presence it would be “involved”. He is always right there in the middle! He wants to know everything that is going on, and if he can’t lead it he at least wants to be a vocal part of it.

He has joy overflowing!

He almost always has a smile on his face and a twinkle in his eye… though the twinkle is for the mischief he is planning!

Jeremy gets put in time out at least twice a day, so they told us to be prepared! They wrote that he knows right and wrong and just hopes he can scrape by without being noticed. He is pretty good about walking himself into his room and climbing up in bed, he knows its coming so he might as well not resist. The other morning the gal in charge put him in his bed and he got down as soon as she left the room… so she marched him back in and he climbed back up…. And then on a different time he got down and went outside…. He saw her spot him from 50 feet away and before she even headed in his direction he marched himself back in his room and climbed into bed. Ten minutes later she went in to get him out of time out and he was no where to be found. She asked his nanny, whom she had forgotten to tell that Jeremy was in trouble, and the nanny had taken him up to school. One hour later when Jeremy walked in the gate after class, he came walking up to her and said, “I had to get up to go to school, do I have to go back to bed now?” They commented that Jeremy is SO SMART!!! And they also warned us that he’s going to be trying to negotiate all kinds of boundaries with us when we get him home!

He’s a sweet and loving kid. The gal in charge said that she thinks a lot of his difficulties in respecting other kids and authority has to do with being 1 of 70. It just doesn’t suit him. Some kids can handle it, other kids hide inside a shell and never quite come out, and some kids just have to be the loudest, fastest, most recognized child of their age group. She thinks Jeremy does a lot of what he does to get the attention he needs. He wants to be recognized as often as possible. He loves just getting his name called, and being waved to from a distance even if she can’t stop and go give him a high five and ask him how its going. He is thrilled to be picked up and piggy backed across the yard for five minutes time. He does well with positive reinforcement.

Jeremy’s verbal skills are excellent, and he is really bright socially. She said that it’s a good age for him to come home and predicts that he’ll be picking up English in a month’s time. He talks talks talks, and he loves things to be clearly explained to him.

Here's one of their conversations:

“What are you doing?”

“Taking the keys out to Jean Louis.”

“Why does Jean Louis need the keys?”

“So he can unlock the gate.”

“Who is coming to the gate.”

“The trash truck.”

“OHHHH, is the trash truck going to take all of the trash.”

“Yes”

“Can I carry trash out to the truck?”

...And the conversation could go on forever...
















He’s an amazing little boy with so much life inside of him!


Adoption Status: VISA

In regards to our adoption, the translations for the paper that GLA has been waiting for finally arrived to them! They are planning on delivering it to the U.S. Consulate tomorrow (in Haiti).

This is GREAT news!

This means everything has been submitted that has been asked for.
Hopefully they will hear something VERY soon from the Consulate indicating that Jeremy can go for his visa interview. When the interview takes place, GLA is given the visa pick-up slip (which is normally for the next day or two).

At that point, GLA will give us the travel information!

We're getting close!!!

Please come and visit us at:

www.xanga.com/andrewandjennyoung

Great News!

We are out of Parquet!

We got the call that we've been waiting 11 months for!

Whoohoo! This is so exciting!

On Monday our dossier (our documents) will go into "Courts" which takes a couple months of certifying everything (kind of like a notary). Once we are through Courts Jeremy will officially be adopted and will have our last name. Then we go into MOI (Minister of Interior) which deals mainly with Jeremy's passport and visa. MOI is taking about 4 months. So...

It's very hopeful that we will have him sometime around Fall!

Wednesday, April 02, 2008

I've hesitated writing anything because I wanted good news to write. But here I am empty handed. Here again is another example of the way the Haitian system works. We were told that our documents would get signed (finally, after 11 months of waiting for one little signature!) and that they would get picked up by Tuesday, but so far we haven't heard a word. This weekend was difficult because I began to allow myself to get excited and feel that our adoption was really going to take place. We know that the orphanage is doing all they can to be our advocate.
Our adoption journey has been 4 years of one long road of ups and downs, twists and turns. We've tried to rest in God's peace, knowing He is guiding our steps, but the longer and longer that the months have drifted by my patience has been wearing. I keep having to be reminded to keep perspective. From my view point, everything is still, but from God's view point He is at work in more areas and lives than I could ever understand. Soon (what ever might be considered soon, that's all in perspective!) we're going to be holding our son in our arms and have a lifetime to pour our love into him. This will just be one more thing we can record into his life-journal/baby book. This is part of his history and part of the journey into our home. Each day that he is still in Haiti I treasure that part of his heritage that he will remember and hold onto. These are the things that will shape him into the man of courage and compassion that one day he will be.

On another note...
We've been enjoying the beautiful mornings. Sundays are extra special since we go to the 11'o clock church service and have lots of time in the morning to be with the family. This last Sunday was so beautiful outside that Andrew and I enjoyed a breakfast of eggs and waffles on our back patio while watching the birds feed and the dog play. It was such a great time to just talk and reconnect.
We have a Mourning Dove nesting in one of our pots. We've had them nest before but they've always chosen somewhere else to actually lay their eggs.

But this year a Dove stayed and laid two eggs!

Joshua made the discovery while climbing our fig tree in our backyard. They have a swinging rope attached to the tree so they're always climbing and playing on the tree but the little dove was so discreetly hidden in the pot that we hardly could see her little head peeking out.

When the kids play on the tree she decides to leave the pot and sits on the fence where she can keep watch on her precious eggs yet not be disturbed from the shaking tree!

Then, Andrew briefly came home this morning between job runs, and noticed a beautiful bird on our front lawn. At first it looked like a small blackbird. But when we observed closely we saw shining colors of blue and green shimmering off it's neck, it's wings were lined in white and had white speckles on it and it had a bright yellow beak. When Joshua saw it he exclaimed, "It's a European Starling!"
He's our bird man. His knowledge about birds has made me appreciate the beauty and creative expression God has displayed in creation.

Friday, March 28, 2008

We just read this on our GLA Blog Update:
Adoption News
March 27, 2008
Hallelujah! Six (6) children's dossiers came out of Parquet today. Several are from May 2007! We received one (1) at the end of last week that had been in Parquet 13 months! There are another 12 that they told us yesterday will be signed tomorrow and we can come and get them on Monday or Tuesday. We had 18 dossiers stuck in Parquet, so this will be all of the ones that have been in there for so long. It is really good to see movement in Parquet!
We contacted our Adoption Agency and found out that we are not one of the 6, that came out yesterday, but we know that we are one of the 12 that will come out today. We will know for sure by Tuesday!
This is GREAT news!
We've been waiting in Parquet for 10 1/2 months! Can you believe it?! It's actually going to happen!
We started our adoption journey back in '04. We had first checked out the foster/adoption but it didn't fit well with our family at that time with the ages of our children only being 4 and 2. So we began working with Bethany Adoption in finding a place to adopt from. We were really open to any child with any ability (as long as the disability wasn't too great), any race. We were approved for Ukraine and began the process. The Ukraine government closed it's doors for a while to adopting so we decided to try domestic adoption (here in the US). We completed all our paperwork and waited for a while. As we were in the waiting process we were told about an orphanage in Haiti called God's littlest Angels. We talked about switching once again and felt that it was the right way to go for our family. In the Summer of '06 we once again completed paper work and did all the necessary things to prepare our dossier (by now, we were ready to be done with all the running around and the continual hidden costs of having paper work filled out, signed and notarized, and doctor's appointments). During this time we were able to go on a missions trip to the Dominican Republic which was awesome. The DR shares the same island as Haiti so we were able to see a culture and lifestyle similar to Haiti and get a better idea of where we were adopting from.
Dec. 1st, 2006 we were matched up with Jeremy. This was the first picture we saw of him. He was 14 months at the time, was healthy, and was being well taken care of by the orphanage.
Our dossier went into IBESR in Jan. of '07, it was approved, then entered Parquet May of '07 (which authenticates the signatures and checks with the birthparents to be sure that they had given up their child to be adopted). We had thought that Parquet would only take a couple months, but as the months dragged on and on we had no idea what to expect. We knew we had great people in Haiti working along side the orphanage pleading our case (and the cases of others), but there wasn't much hope to go on. (click this link to a web blog that has a great description of why, check out the fifth to the last paragraph) Then, after another meeting, the dossiers are moving through! Yeay!
We feel like we've been waiting so long. It's been hard allowing much emotion to build because there has never been an end in sight. But the end is actually coming. It is an end that is leading to the beginning of bonding and loving this awesome little boy.
Thank you for all your prayers and support during this time. We appreciate our family and friends and all who have all been an encouragement to us!