Quick Update

So we closed Kafala on Tuesday the 8th, and the Judge we had was not the normal Judge. There are 3 judges and 2 of them are out of town and I guess the one we had is kind of a stand in judge. Well when we were trying to close Kafala, him and the lady helping us, and another guy sat and argued back and forth in arabic for like 15 minutes. We could tell something wasn't good, and could hear the would Islam, every so often. We kind of gathered that they weren't happy that we were Americans and didn't think we were going to raise the kids Muslim (I don't know why they thought that :) but anyway, they finally signed the Kafala and we were out of there.

Well the lady helping us said she would turn in the passport papers the next day and we would hopefully have them on the next Friday. Well Friday came and went, Richie went home on Sunday the 13th - Monday came and went, no -still not ready, so on Tuesday the 15th, I just happened to go up with my friend who is also trying to adopt, so that we could pick up Cohen, cause I was tired of waiting for the passports. So we get to Meknes to do stuff for my friend, and instead, she has me running all over to sign papers because the judge was being petty and making her do all kinds of little extra's. So, not only were passports not ready, she had even turned stuff in for them. So I sign all these papers and she says she will turn them in the next day- Wed.- and passports should be ready on Friday again. So the next day on Wednesday, I get a call that she forgot to have me sign one of the papers, so I run to a place here in Rabat, cause Meknes is 2 hours away, to sign this paper that they have waiting for me. I'm told that it will be sent back, that day, by driver and that she will turn in for passports on Thursday now!

So, on thursday, I do some run around work for the US side at the Consulate in Cassablanca (an hour a way) and basically got nothing accomplished except now I know the area and where I need to go- because passports weren't ready and no one said they had to be when they told me to come and I had told them already that I didn't have them yet- but I feel good about the trip cause now I knew a little about the process anyway.

So on Friday, I had a friend call in the morning to the lady helping us (she speaks pretty good English but sometimes it's hard to get details across) , but a friend calls her and then informs me that they still don't have that paper I signed on Wednesday, so here I am waiting for passports and they still haven't even been sent in yet!!!! Now we're going on like 2 weeks of just waiting for an easy 2 day process! So now, passports won't be done till atleast next Tuesday, if not later, and once I get those I have to have them all translated into English, which takes a few days, and then turn in all of that to the Consulate to get visa's, which takes a few days- I'll be lucky to make it out of here on the 30th for my flight. I can bump that flight back but that is the last thing I want to do right now. With the way things went in the beginning we thought we might be able to bump it up- not back. So I'm about to scream!

Don't anyone stop praying for me just cause I have custody of the kids, cause the process isn't finished yet. Till I'm on that plane landing in Utah, we're not done. And actually, then I'm gonna need the prayers to help me get through life after the fact. Jordan is a good natured kid, but he is from an orphanage with a culture all of it's own. For instance, he has never seen the process of preparing the food for dinner. At the orphanage, they are taken to a table where their food is already on a plate waiting for them. Yesterday, I was trying to fix spaghetti and he cried the whole time because he couldn't figure out why I wouldn't let him eat the food that I was handling. Plus he doesn't really even chew his food - I don't know if they have a limited time to eat or if there isn't a lot of food, so the faster you eat and finish, the more you get off other kids plates or what the deal is. Communication is also an issue. We get a lot understood by hand gestures and things and he is picking up on it rather quick, but in the middle of a tantrum, there is no cooperation or understanding. Dallas wants me to tell you he is clumbsy too- because there are no stairs at the orphanage so, when we got him, he would just walk right off of a stair and fall, and going up he didn't really know what to do either. But he is even picking up on that, he used to cry for our help to go up or down, but now he atleast knows to sit down and scoot, and one of these days he will have them mastered. There are just a lot of things that you don't realize that are ordinary things that they have never even experienced.

Anyway, my little blog entry turned into a novel, but now you are all somewhat caught up on a little bit of my experience here. Thank you to eveyone who is helping us out this whole time. Sorry if it feels like it's been going on forever, but trust me no one wants me to hurry and get back more than I do! Hopefully, that will happen soon! I'll post again when there is anything new!