Tuesday, June 19, 2012

Who is he?

I'm not sure if there is a day that goes by that I don't wonder about this... "Who is he?"  which of course goes further into - How old is?  What is personality like? What is his name? What is his Ghanian family like? Is he tall or short?  Is his skin on the darker side (like those in Ghana tend to be) or on the lighter side of the African spectrum?
So here's the little that we DO know (& it's not much!!):
..... we know we are asking for a boy age 0-36 months.  Currently our agency is placing kids age 2 & older (with a couple younger here or there), so we anticipate he will be around 2, but we don't know for sure... This is what we preferred as truthfully, the newborn stage isn't our favorites. (Which is what lead us to international adoption in the first place; options were either that or foster care which we ended up deciding to forego after many months of searching & a lot of prayer).
.....we know that he will be from Ghana.  This took awhile to figure out, but after narrowing down to Africa we debated between Uganda & Ghana, finally deciding on Ghana for a number of reasons.  First, it is a fairly stable country politically (as opposed to Uganda, where Ryan has spent a lot of time - a lot of progress there, but between Museveni's desire to keep control & the LRA persecution in the north, a lot of unrest still remains).  In fact, Ghana is currently ranked the friendliest & most peaceful country in Africa.  (They call themselves the Land of Sunshine!)  Second, things are moving in Ghana - boys age 2 & up are the most commonly placed children from Ghana & average length that we saw is anywhere from 6-18 months (as opposed to Ethiopia which, as many people probably know, is experiencing a "growing pains" of sorts within all the bureaucratic red-tape).  Ghana's first language is English (whew!), plus we found out there are 1.1 million orphans in this small country located in West Africa between the Ivory Coast & Togo.  Also, to be very honest, getting to experience a new country & culture is very appealing to us!! 
.....we know that we are working with Dillon International.  We were very committed to a well-established agency with a high reputation for ethical adoption & orphan care, as well as an established program in Ghana before international adoptions began.  Dillon Adoption Agency met all of those requirements and were highly recommended for their ethical adoptions from a number of other agencies (plus the Ghana program coordinator & I just clicked!  Her name is Jynger with a "J" & if you know my "J" family, then you know that just got me excited!!).
     Despite all those kind-of "knowns", as we fill out all the paperwork, take all the recommended education hours, & get ready for our home study sometime in July.... we just keep asking God what He wants for our family.  We imagine a boy - most likely we will be "twinning" (in adoption terms this means he would be within a year give or take from our littlest)... We imagine he's active enough to keep up with our Sonshine who is ready to teach him all the ropes of baseball, soccer & basketball... We imagine he's sturdy enough to withstand our Precious's enormous hugs & "in your face" kind-of love (& to hug her back tightly in return!)...We imagine he's tough enough to hold on to his toys from when our Little One tries to pry them from his hands (she'll most likely be right in that oh-so-enjoyable "Mine, Mine, Mine" stage when he gets here!), but still adore her for all the fun & smiles she's sure to bring to his life!
And as a side note, we've already been praying for his name & we invite you to do the same with us... All our children have the same initials (first names all begin with a T).  Normally we would probably just allow him to keep his African name, but we want him to have a sense of belonging & identity with our family, after all he will be our son!!  So, truthfully, we have been praying that he will already have a name starting with the letter T (sometimes it feels like a little much to ask for, but we know God is in the "more than you can ask or imagine" business!).  And in the meantime, we will keep exploring options that will honor his African heritage but give him a firm sense of being "ours"... We are always open to suggestions!!!

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