This happened today :)
Adam and Cindi arrived at Arms of Love orphanage this morning and met our little boy for the first time ever!! They were able to upload these photos to share with me and we were actually able to Face Time from St. Anne's wifi (the hotel) twice today. So much fun to see him in the arms of his daddy. He is doing really well, not really expressing much emotion yet. I'm sure he is scared but he is not crying at all. He has also not smiled yet. All to be expected. Thought I would share a few excerpts from Adam and Cindi's emails to me today about their day.
From Adam:
What a good boy we have babe. I'm nuts about this kid, you are going to freak when you get to hold him. He is the sweetest little relaxed sack ever. At this point I am really confident that he will go to you right away and be very at home in your arms, I sincerely feel like God has answered our prayer to give us a supernatural, solid connection to him from across the Atlantic, because its felt like home today. For real.
From Cindi:
One of our greatest anxieties was Baby Joyce and how he would adjust or respond to us…to being taken from the only home and people he has known for 8-1/2 months by people he would have known for ten minutes!
Our other intense anxiety was just flat fear. I think Adam was suffering the most over this because he was also feeling the burden of taking responsibility for protecting us, as well as Baby Joyce! The hotel where we stayed before getting in at St. Anne's didn’t feel completely safe to us, but we were on the third floor and locked the doors, and may have propped a chair or two…just so any bad guys would get fair warning of what they were in for if they tried to break in to our room! I guess I didn’t make clear to Adam just how many TaeKwonDo and Karate classes I’ve watched of Benjamin’s, Olivia’s, Josiah’s, Girum’s, Tarikwa’s, and Taye’s!!! I knew I could take care of us! :)
Anyway…here we are twenty-four hours later. Our anxieties about Baby Joyce are completely gone. He has been an amazing little guy who has eaten well at the times he was offered to eat, gone to sleep and slept without fanfare (not even a whimper), pottied and pooped like a champion, and only ever seemed to puddle up if it looked like his daddy was going to walk away! He is beautiful and sweet! I am convinced that God has given Adam and Valerie the very best baby in the entire Congo!!! :) ........
I haven’t experienced war, but what we saw today was impossible to convey! I’ve not been to the worst of the inner cities in the United States so I’m not sure of how this compares, but the conditions here outside the city are beyond deplorable. The best I can describe it is a scene I remember from “Good Morning Viet Nam” where the sights of the outskirts are shown. Babies sagging off of their mother’s backs, barefoot toddlers in underwear or tattered clothes playing in the dirt or mud, women sewing, weaving, cooking, washing their clothes in a bucket...men peddling everything in the world. It was like the marketplace at Gatlinburg, but peddling off of rusty carts and out of corrugated steel and particle board patchwork 4x6 or 8x8 buildings. Tires, maps, sunglasses, rocks, bottles of pop, corn on the cob, pineapples…and many of them are carrying these things in baskets on their heads.....
I’m sitting here next to a sleeping angel who isn’t mindful of noises in the room or the fact that the lights are still on…just sleeping soundly…seemingly content with the pivot his life has just made. We couldn’t be happier and are pressing every button possible to bring him home to his mama and brothers!
I am stunned by the realization that not one person I saw today…not one…has any concern over when they are going to get the iPhone 5, making sure their iPad has a retinal display or what color they are going to paint a room, or whether or not they want to go to Olive Garden tonight and Texas Roadhouse on Friday or visa versa! From what I could tell, they might only be concerned about finding an extra thick piece of cardboard or steel just to keep dry! It all brings me to my knees as I re-evaluate my spoil-bratty vantage point on life! I just pray that God will continue to open my heart and eyes…change me…and show me where I can make a difference in the lives of others!
4 comments:
Oh Val, those pictures are amazing! I am sure it is so difficult to not be able to reach through that screen and hold him yourself as well! He is perfect, so so handsome and sounds like an amazing little guy. I pray the next few days go by quickly until he is in your arms.
I love those pictures, especially the one where he's got his head on his daddy's chest and they're holding hands.... I can't stop looking at that. I'm so excited that he's coming home soon. He is going to LOVE his family and his home.
Sooooo happy to see your new little one. And to read your mother in law's take on the country and where our perspective should be. Hope the return trip goes well!
Seeing your baby in his Daddy's arms brought tears to my eyes. I'm so happy for you guys.
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