The rest of the story, Conleigh's homecoming, part 1

As many of you know, Conleigh's homecoming was very unconventional.  But, I'm not sure how many of you know the WHOLE story.  And as I sat down to write a post commemorating February 3, 2010, I realized one post was not going to cut it.  It quickly became long and complicated.  So we're starting a few days early, before the actual date.  Let me set the stage for you...

The days and weeks following the January 12 earthquake were chaos.  There were many concerns about both Kenson and Conleigh's orphanage having food and water.  There were many rumors about what different governments might do to unite Haitian children with their adoptive families.  And foremost, there was a constant stream of general infomation about Haiti being reported by CNN, Fox, ABC, etc..  I spent a lot of time on the phone with government officials, contacts I had in Haiti, contacts in the States, trying to straighten out things in regards to Conleigh as well as trying to see what might be done to advocate for both orphanages. 

When the initial news started trickling down that Hilary Clinton was working to secure refugee status for these kids, it seemed too good to be true.  We were very cautious in believing that Conleigh might be allowed to come home early.  In international adoption, such situations are unprecedented. 

We were required to submit documentation with the US State Department, indicating that we had been in process prior to the earthquake.  We did not expect an immediate response but after many days of waiting, not having an approval from the State Department was confusing and disheartening.  We knew that there was no reason for Conleigh's parole to be denied but it still felt like we could have the rug yanked out from underneath us at anytime. 

To add to that was the confusion that existed between the orphanage, the adoptive families, and the US government both in Haiti and in DC.  Adoptive parents were told that their orphanage directors would receive notice to appear at the Embassy to present their documents which was the final piece of receiving parole.  The orphanage directors were being told to show up at the Embassy with the kids and to be prepared to travel at the drop of a hat. 

I think we finally started to believe that it might really happen the last week of January.  On Friday, we received a phone call indicating that the director of Conleigh's orphanage believed that they would be leaving Haiti for Florida that day.  This followed multiple days of the orphanage director bringing the three American children to the Embassy and sitting at the Embassy all day, waiting to be processed, only to have to get back in the truck at the end of the day and drive the 2 hours back to Mirebalais.  We still had not received any confirmation from the State Deparment indicating that Conleigh had been approved for parole, let alone travel. But Melinda, the director, was saying to come.  We were greatly concerned that if we were not in Florida when Conleigh arrived that she might be placed in temporary foster care.  It's not the worst situation but for an already confused child, it could be traumatic.  So we quickly tried to gather our stuff to make plans to get there.  My dad was at  meeting in Grand Island and came to pick up Kenson.  But by the time he got here, we had gotten another phone call saying that the kids were not traveling on Friday and no one knew when they would be traveling.  I tried to see if Senator Johann's office or Adrian Smith's office had any more information but they had the same information we did which was that our file had still not received approval and there was no reason to believe we were set to travel.  We decided that it would be sooner rather than later and so Kenson headed to my mom and dad's while D and I tried to decide what to do. 

We were really feeling like we needed to head to Florida but we had no idea of how long we would have to wait.  The actual parole process had started about a week previously but had stalled in the middle and there were many days where no parole documents were issued.  If we headed to Florida and that happened, we might find ourselves living in a hotel for a week or more.  We did receive some news on Friday or Saturday that helped make our decision easier.  The umbrella organization that is over Haiti Children's Home has housing available for missionaries on furlough.  They agreed to let us use their apartments for a very cheap fee, like $25 a day.  Knowing we had somewhere to stay sealed the deal.  By Saturday, D and I had decided we would fly to Florida on Monday, with no real plan other than staying in those apartments and hoping Conleigh was out soon. 

So Sunday we showed up at church, told our church body that we had no plan other than that, and planned to fly on Monday.  We were blessed by a church body who prayed with us and shoved a few $20 bills into our pockets.  Bright and early Monday, we flew to Orlando as that was the airport Melinda felt they would be flying into. 

We rented a car at the airport and started our drive to the missionary apartments, about 2 hours or so north of Orlando.  We had no map and no plan but thankfully we did have GPS.  We arrived at the apartments, got checked in, and decided to go find a grocery store to buy a few supplies since we might be there for a few days. 

No sooner had we gotten back in the car when the phone rang.  Another family had called to tell us they thought the kids might be flying out at that moment.  So we turned the car around, packed up our stuff out of the apartment, and headed back south. 

(More to come...)