Wow, what a great week! Kim and I along with my sister, my niece and two of her friends spent last week in Haiti working on a school sponsorship program, (coming soon), but also spent the week with our daughter, Francesca. We packed her up and took her out of the orphanage to spend the week with us at Christianville, It was awesome being with her night and day for a week and for the first time in my life I began to feel like a dad. A dad who already is proud of his little girl. I cannot tell you what it feels like to hear her say "Papa"....it feels like God touching me.
I hope I can do justice in telling you how amazing Francesca is, and I will try. She is strong both mentally and physically, she is independent, she has an incredible spirit and she is really smart. In fact Kim and I have spent a lot of time since we have been back discussing and praying that we do not ruin her by bringing her here, seriously. She has such a beautiful spirit and you can tell her hardships have in many ways have made her a stronger, special, unique child, a unique person. She has a smile and a giggle that force a smile and warm the heart. We loved spending time with her knowing at the end of the week, leaving her was going to be rough, and it was, trust me. But, if all goes as planned, we will be back in October.
Just to prove I am not completely blinded, I can also tell you she is spoiled, big time. In her orphanage, every girl of about ten years or older takes on a mothering role and kind of caters to her needs. When she cries, she is picked up, when she is bullied, she is defended, when she wants something, she likely gets it. You would think that living in a tent city and then a Haitian orphanage that this may not be the case, but it is true. As soon as things did not go her way, she had a very clear and loud way of showing her disapproval! However once we simply left her alone and allowed her to cry, I think she quickly understood that Toto was no longer in Kansas!
The last night when she was having one of her mini tantrums, we took her to another room and sat her on the ground and let her cry. She realized we were not coming to rescue her and in about five minutes she was back up and playing. You could almost see her thinking, "well shoot, that didn't work".
Hopefully in the next week our paperwork will be making its way thru the US side of the process and will be in Haiti by mid September. Also, concurrently, our guys in Haiti have begun the process down there. They tell us it could be as long as a year, (UGH!), but could be, should be sooner than that. We are working every angle to make it sooner, God willing, much sooner.
Thanks for your continuing prayers!! I hope you all meet her very soon!
