A friend of mine has written the most poignant stories of her struggle to adopt a 20 month old Ugandan boy. His name is Patrick. My friend and her husband have three biological children but have felt a "calling" to adopt a child for a couple of years now. They were led to Uganda through the ministry at their church. While in Uganda, they came upon a little boy lying on the side of a road, malnourished and dehydrated. His mother had just died of AIDS and they found him lying by her side, lifeless and appearing dead as well. He did not have AIDS and was HIV negative. His father, who also has AIDS, has never been a part of the child's life and had only seen him once. His father said it was out of love for his son that he stayed out of his life, so that Patrick might avoid any additional exposure to AIDS. I don't know if this was really the reason, but it would provide a good explanation for his son to hear as he grew older and wondered why his father was never around nor a part of his life.
Patrick's biological mother somehow avoided passing the AIDS virus to her son. She did not breast feed him and did her best to gather food, provide shelter and protect him while trying to survive her illness. She never lived to see the miracle of her son being adopted and loved by this wonderful family. How awful it must have been for his biological mother to wonder what would become of her son and who would take care of him!!
Once Patrick's mother died, Patrick was sent to an orphanage, thus adoption became an option. My friend and her family happened to be in Uganda shortly after his mother's death and for some reason they happened to visit this particular orphanage that Patrick had been sent to. They took one look at each other and their "Loving Bond" began. With a deep desire for him to become a part of their family, the adoption process was started.
Since Patrick is now in the adoption process he was sent to live with an African family that has helped prepare him for the adjustment of being part of a family.
Below is one of many e-mails my friend has written sharing some of her thoughts and feelings of the events involved in the adoption of Patrick. I am going to edit some of it for safety reasons. Anytime you see "***" you will know that I have removed something for protection sake.
"Dear Family and Friends,
I’m not even sure when I will be able to send this to you, but I’ll write anyway, and send it when I can. Current situation: I am sitting on the sofa in my African host family’s home (the same family that has taken care of Patrick all these months we’ve been waiting), and guess who is sitting next to me? You guessed it—our son! I am living African right now, without even my luggage, which didn’t make it with me. So the same set of clothes—or borrowed ones, an almost non-existent amount of shampoo to wash my three-day-old dirty hair, and currently the power is out, has been all day, and I am only writing this because I was able to charge my laptop before it was gone. Still, I HAD electricity, which is more than MANY Africans can say, and there is running water, so I had a cold sponge bath today that felt absolutely heavenly! And I’m being totally serious.
At the same time that my introvert soul says that I would like to be alone for at least a few minutes a day (or alone with our new son), I am asking God to help me to have patience and rest and understand that this is part of the journey that He has ordained—and also that He would help me to just walk it with Him.
I can see—at the same time that I just want to be his mom full-time, to be alone with him to really get to know him—how wise it is for me to get acclimated to him in the environment where he is familiar. I am learning what he acts like when he needs to go to the bathroom (yes, he IS potty-trained; amazing, I know), that he is a night owl, how he likes to play, how he is used to eating—so much. I am learning, too, what it is that African women respect and see as good mothering.
Time warp. I am now writing this at not-quite-four in the morning here. My body has not yet adjusted to the time change, and even though I am able, after a while, to fall asleep fairly well at night, I wake up far too early and lie in bed waiting until I hear someone else stirring. I have no idea what time it is because I was too cheap the last time I bought a watch to purchase one with a light on it.
That may change when I get back to the States (***** probably rejoicing as he
reads this!). I have not yet woken this early, but I’m sleeping tonight with
20-month-old Precious (and the name fits) and she fell out of the bed and I
scooped her up, cuddled her until she was calm and asleep again, laid her next
to me on the bed—and couldn’t fall asleep again myself. The past two nights
Precious has slept on the bunk above me with 23-year-old Angel (also a fitting
name), and Precious’s mother, Florence, has slept next to me on the larger
bottom bunk. But Florence is spending the night at a friend’s house, so Angel is
getting a break from squirming Precious—and I am awake. And, just as a side
note, I am also incredibly thankful for the mosquito net that surrounds us all
in this bed and keeps us from the nasty, black, malaria-carrying creature that
is buzzing around the bed. I have not seen a mosquito yet in the daytime, but
they do come out at night. Whenever I am tempted by the self-pity that is
such a natural reaction of my human soul, and feel sorry for myself being
separated from loved ones right now, I remind myself of Florence’s story,
twenty-five year old Florence whose husband died when she was pregnant with
Precious and whose older daughter Shama was taken from her by her husband’s
family after his death because they were not sure she could provide for her.
Florence has not seen Shama in a year and a half. So, self-pity, be gone with you. Oh, and good news—one of my bags (they missed MY flight to Uganda and the baggage service here has been tracking them down for me) arrived yesterday. Of course, it was the one WITHOUT my clothes. Florence told me that today I was borrowing from her because she is tired of seeing me in the same pants. Perhaps the other bag will come today.
Oh, so much to tell you. How do I explain a culture that is so vastly different from our own? I don’t know, so I will just try to include bits and pieces of the sights and smells and sounds as I tell you of what I’ve been doing the past two days. I have been getting a lesson in African grass-roots politics—and it is, well, I cannot think of a nicer way to say “corrupt.” You see, even though ****** has gotten the report from the probation officer and the paperwork for this and that, now that it is court time, it must all be typed up in some form of legal fashion and re-signed by all the people who wrote it in the first place AND by the officials in charge of or in some way connected with that district. AND we have to do it in two districts because one is the local and the other is the regional—and somehow they’re both involved. Now, ****** would probably read this and say it was all wrong, a very bad description of what he’s been doing, but that is what it seems like to me. So yesterday we encountered the family and child services agent, dressed in a police-type uniform, who looked over the paperwork, pointed out some wording she didn’t like, handed it back, and told *****, “Get that fixed, and I’ll sign it—but it won’t be free, you know.” So ****** pulled out his laptop; I retyped the legal document (see what I mean by “legal”); I saved it onto my flash drive (boy , does ******** need one of those. I’m going to leave him one of mine when I go. Fortunately, I have two with me); we drove across the road to the stationary shop (which has a computer, a printer, and a copier—now don’t go thinking internet because I haven’t yet found that in any of the places I’ve been so far); he paid to have it printed out; and we went back across the road to the agent—and she signed, accepting a “fee,” of course. I stay in the car during these encounters, ******* assuming that if they saw ME—a muzungu (white person)—the “fee” would be multiplied. *************************So let’s see, at my count we’ve bribed two or three *******— sometimes I don’t even know that ******* done it because it is SO common he forgets to mention it—and we’ve bribed*******. Oops, the ********* money was called “appreciation.” That one happened yesterday. I was with ***** and ****, two other young men from the church. **** is a teacher, but he’s on “holiday” (that’s what they call “vacation” or “break” here), and ****** is a pastor at the church (he’s twenty-three!). So ***** is driving me (we’re borrowing cars right and left, and I pay to fix them up to the point that they will take us there-and-back in relative safety—more expensive than public transportation, but it would have taken a week to do what we accomplished in two days had we not had vehicles).
Anyway, back to my point. ****** is driving me up to meet Patrick’s father
(who’s dying of AIDS) and to bring him back from his village to Kampala because
he has to sign some documents and appear in court with us. We have an
appointment at six p.m. with the probation officer to sign those papers, so
****** is flying, and I almost say that literally. I just close my eyes much of
the time—and pray for our safety. So the officer—standing on the side of the
road, khaki-uniformed, beret pulled down over his forehead, gun—semi-automatic,
no less—waves us down after ****** pulled a particularly risky passing maneuver
at an extremely high speed. I have no idea what to think, but I notice *****
pull some money out of a small wallet and hand it to *****, who hides it in his
palm. *****, very apologetically, explains to the officer what we are doing, but
the officer doesn’t seem to want to budge. Then he calls ***** to the back of
the car. I’m a bit nervous for him at this point, but *** actually seems to
relax at that point, so I take my cues from him. Two minutes later ******
returns to the car, grinning. The officer did not take his license, but he did
accept a small “token of appreciation.” It’s weird. How do you apply biblical concepts to a situation like this? I don’t know. Nor do the Africans involved. **** told me he doesn’t like to drive fast and he doesn’t like to bribe, but that is life here, and there is no one to go to who might not be corrupt themselves. Ah, that is not entirely true. In the midst of the corrupt officials, I have also met several truly Christian officials—and there is a world of difference about them.****, the local information officer who also serves on the board of the ********** orphanage, is absolutely wonderful. People here tell us we look alike/act alike, that I am a white version of her, and she a black version of me. I don’t know if that’s the reason—or simply because she’s incredibly nice, but we hit it off right away. Yesterday evening we went to her house to look over some paperwork and she gave me cabbage leaves, some corn, a pumpkin, and some thyme—all from the wonderful garden she has in her yard. I really like her—and not just because we look alike.
Oh, back to the wild ride to pick up Patrick’s father. We met him and the teacher in his location and then we drove to the next village to meet the pastor of his church. (At some point this Muslim father turned to Christ—or maybe the story I heard about his being a Muslim wasn’t right to begin with. Who knows.) All those meetings went well, lots of shaking hands and “God bless you” and “You are welcome here.” But then we began the ride back to Kampala, and I was afraid this man and I—at the
moment we share a fairly important bond—were going to ride the entire way in
silence and he would hate me and refuse to sign the consent form to let me adopt
his son. I’m praying, “God, please let me know what to say,” and wondering how
much English he knows—and then he turns to me and starts telling me about the
scenery we’re passing. Praise God (and if you make the “o” long and accentuate
the “d,” you might just sound like a Ugandan saying it). He really is dying. Not like, “Oh, my word, this man needs to be in a bed somewhere—stat!” but he is rail-thin in the way that makes you afraid someone might snap in two if they fell, and when he moves you sense every movement is a deliberation and costs some effort. We got along well. He asked about Patrick—and I was happy to tell him—and he told me about the absolutely beautiful Lake Victoria, the Nile River, and the Owens Dam, all of which we passed on the road. Then, just on the edge of Kampala, ***** calls ***** (have I mentioned that **** is also one of my favorite people here?) and tells him the meeting with the probation officer has been postponed. After all that speed! My dear Father, I KNOW You protected us today. There is not a doubt in my mind about that. On the drive home, both ***** and then ***** called me. So, so, so good to hear their voices. I am a bit afraid that at some point I will be overwhelmed with sadness or exhaustion or frustration and cry or be unable to BE here with this African family in the way I know God wants me to be. God has sustained me, though, and I can truly say that the fortitude I feel is not from myself because there are times it is almost as if I am watching myself react to something and thinking, “Oh, my Lord, that had to have been you, because I felt a moment of panic or despair crawling in my gut, and it didn’t come out.” One such moment was today, when ******* informed me that our court date has been pushed back a week. Oh! Lord, what are you asking me to do? I miss the kids and *****SO much already. Help me! I wanted to cry, to be honest, or at least to gasp, but then this came out of my mouth, “All right,*****, it will be next week. Can you bear with having me as a house guest that long?” God, how did you do that?
And then, tonight, clarity set in. We were NOT ready for that court date. There are still a few things to be gathered, AND ****** has an exam that he must take in the morning at the same time he was also supposed to be in court with me. So I step back and say, “My good God, I have no clue what ride you have me on, but I’m just going
to let You hold me.”
I have not written that much about Patrick, just about the process of making him our son. He and I are bonding. He runs to me when I come in the door at night, and he understands that I’m his “momma,” that, somehow, I am his in a way that I am not Precious’s, even though I hold her a lot, too. How are you making that happen, God? Again, I am amazed, and though I am very ready to get on that plane with him and be his mommy in complete practice, I am also amazed at how You have put me in this family’s home so that he can be cared for while all this is going on.
One last little bit about Patrick (or Amooti—the pet name his birth father gave him; it’s pronounced AH-MO-T, just tack the “t” sound on the very end of the long “o”sound). He’s bright and funny, with a very good sense of humor and a great belly laugh. He’s busy and active and a fantastic jumper on both feet. He loves to run through the house pretending he’s driving a car and he LOVES to look at the photo album filled with pictures of **** and the other kids. He’s starting to know their names and to be able to distinguish them. Another miracle! All for now. I’m running out of battery."
Love, ******
I hope that you will keep them in your thoughts and prayers! Hugs, Kelly
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