Nairobi

Ok, we're back! Sorry about the 5 day lapse. We moved from our friends' house to a guest house the last two nights in Kigali, where the internet was not fast enough to post anything. Then we came to Nairobi. It took us a while to get settled and to an internet cafe here where we can post. But here we are! So we'll start with some pictures and update along the way.

Here we are with the MIGEPROF. She is the one who allows people like us to adopt Rwandan kids. She is a cabinet member, the Minister of Gender and Family Promotion. Her position in the Rwandan goverment is similar to Obama's cabinet members, like Hilary Clinton and Secretary of Defense, etc. This was taken last Wednesday, the day I posted about screeching to the passport office with the letter she signed saying we were free to travel with Zeke. She was very kind and very affectionate with Zeke.


Here we are visiting our driver Bebe's house. All week his wife kept calling and asking him, "When are you going to bring the muzungu's (foreigners) home for a visit?" Finally we made it on Friday night. It was such a neat chance to interact with real Rwandans! Bebe was hilarious all week. He seems to know nearly everyone in town (Kigali is a pretty small city) and was always making us laugh somehow. His son (age 4) he named Tony Brascoe. "I was watching on CNN...," he said. :)

This was our last meeting with Agnes our lawyer. She is in the Senate and is very busy with her responsibilities there, so we didn't actually see her much during the week. But the times when she showed up, the waters parted! People know and respect her. I think our connection with her was a big factor in things going extraordinarily quickly. She also introduced us to Norbert, another lawyer who would help us when she was busy. Here he is:

He is a believer and is a genocide orphan. God's rescue of him is a pretty incredible story. I cried and cried as he told us the story. It's one thing to read stories in books. It's another thing to have a brother in Christ, whom we've come to love, look us in the eye and tell us the story. He took us home to his house for lunch on Tuesday, after he represented us in our court hearing for the adoption (hence the black robe). By the way, did I mention the court experience? It was in a cinder block, dirt floor room. The Judge sat in front with a secretary. We sat in the last of 5 rows of wooden benches. The first 4 rows were filled with prisoners wearing pink jumpsuits. We've been told that pink is the color for those who are serving life sentences and they are usually genocide perpetrators. There were also soldiers with machine guns in the room. But the proceedings were very formal, despite the surroundings.

The last morning (Saturday) in Kigali, we had Bebe take us to the Genocide Memorial. It was an amazing day to be there because this week is the Genocide Memorial Week. So there were busloads of Rwandans from out in the provinces coming to the memorial to bury more victims that have been found this past year. They are still finding bodies and mass graves around the country. Whenever a body is found and identified, the family will bring it to the Kigali Memorial to be buried with dignity. There was a burial service happening while we were there. We cried there as well, both of us, as we walked through the exhibits. What a horrible thing these people have lived through.

That afternoon, we boarded our plane for Nairobi. Zeke's first flight! I again got teary as I helped Zeke wave goodbye to Kigali, his birthplace.

We have an internet friend here in Nairobi, Celestine, who arranged for a friend of hers to pick us up at the airport. Philip was to take us to the guest house where we are staying. We got the the Catholic Savelberg Guest House at 8:45pm on Saturday night and all the nuns had gone to a special mass since it was easter weekend. We waited in the parking lot for about an hour and a half, but they didn't come, so finally Philip took us to Celestine and Sammy's house and they graciously put us up for the night. We went to church with them on Easter Sunday. It's been such a blessing to worship with believers from different countries for two weekends in a row and especially on Easter. We sang many of the same songs and hymns we would have sung if we'd been home in america. I cried, of course.
Here I am with Zeke on my lap in their living room with their girls, Baraka and Mumo. They also have Jabali, who is 7 months old, just a month older than Zeke. They had fun goo-gooing at each other during church.


Here we are shaking hands with everyone in the whole church at the end of the service. They have all the visitors line up so the church members can welcome them.

And here we are in Celestine and Sammy's dining room having Easter dinner. Celestine is on the left front and Sammy is back right. Sammy's brother and sister-in-law were also with us.

Today we went to an Elephant reserve, where they raise orphaned elephants. We got to pet them! And then to a giraffe preserve where we petted the giraffes!
Tomorrow we start the work. We have a dr appt for Zeke at 7:30am to get his tests done required for the Visa appt. While I take Zeke there, Dave will go to the Embassy to get our process started with them. There is a new law, called the Adam Walsch law, which requires another background check to be done on Dave and I in order to get Zeke's visa. We have heard this can take up to 2 weeks. We are scheduled to leave Friday night. So again, we need God to work miracles if it is his plan for us to be on that plane. Please pray for Him to work it all out for his glory and for us to trust in Him.
Thanks again for tracking with us. We'll try to update regularly now that we found this cafe.