Saturday, November 27, 2010

Home At Last!!

The long saga is finally over.  Our little Immaculée is finally home where she belongs.  As our earlier posts suggested, it was a tough struggle.  Once we knew that Immaculée had a plane ticket from Kinshasa DRC to Minneapolis, we bought plane tickets to Minneapolis so that we could be there when she arrived.  Late on Friday, November 12, we found out that the group would not be permitted to leave Kinshasa.  We were told that it would probably be the next day, so we decided to go to Minneapolis anyway.  When we were in the Denver airport we got more bad news -- first, that the group would still not be allowed out of DRC, and second, that there was a blizzard in Minneapolis and all flights were canceled.  We waited around for several hours and they decided to let one plane fly on in to Minneapolis.  We arrived to find 12 inches of snow.  On Sunday we had to make more decisions.  Jim had to fly back to Oklahoma City and Brycie stayed in Minneapolis.  She was stranded there until Friday, November 19, when she was finally united with our daughter.

This is Patty, the Exeutive Director of our adoption agency, Acres of Hope, with Immaculée in tow.

Brycie, Immaculée and Patty

Mom and daughter.  Welcome to America little one.

Remnants of the 12 inch snowstorm in Minneapolis.

Our little rental car in Minneapolis.

Brycie, waiting it out in Minnesota.

Brycie and Immaculée arriving in Oklahoma City.

Immaculée and her new Bitty Baby doll, which we bought for her over two years ago.

A beautiful little girl.

Immaculée playing with her dolls.

This is too precious.  We have a marble statue of Mother Mary in our home, and Immaculée saw it and went over to it and this is a picture of what she did.

Friday, November 19, 2010

Thank you, Jesus - Our baby girl is coming home!

The twin's father just posted on Facebook that they made it to Brussels! Whew! Thank you for your prayers! THANK YOU, JESUS!!!! Immaculee is coming home!!

Thursday, November 18, 2010

Immaculée Update

St. Michael the Archangel, defend us in battle, be our safeguard against the wickedness and snares of the devil; may God rebuke him, we humbly pray, and do thou, o prince of the heavenly hosts, by the power of God, cast into hell Satan and all the evil spirits who prowl around the world seeking the ruin of souls. Amen.

We feel that the devil has been working overtime to prevent our daughter and two other little girls from being able to leave DR Congo to come home to their families.

Our daughter and 17-month-old twins are the first adoptions for our agency in DR Congo. The twins' dad left for DRC a week and a half ago. The dad, his daughters, our agency director, and Immaculee were supposed to leave DRC last Friday and arrive in Minneapolis on Saturday. As it turns out, the first lawyer our agency hired to assist with the adoptions was corrupt, and our agency reported him to the authorities. He repaid them by bribing an immigration official in DRC to not let them go - even though they had all the paperwork. Since then, there has been one obstacle after another. Yesterday they missed boarding the plane by 10 minutes. Please pray with us that they will make it out on tonight's flight. I have been waiting in Minneapolis since Saturday. Jim had to go home Sunday. If they do not make it out tonight, I will have to head home without our baby girl, which would break our hearts.

I am now staying with the twins' mother and brother as the family lives in the Twin Cities area.

JESUS, WE TRUST IN YOU!