Thursday, September 16, 2010

Dossier to Rwanda... Now What?!

Dossier to Rwanda...
Our dossier was delivered  to the Prime Minister's office on Wednesday, September 15, 2010. We are officially waiting for our non-objections letter (which is their approval for us to adopt from Rwanda)! It's just now starting to sink in that we made the August 31st deadline. I don't know if we will get a "get-in-line number" or how they plan to process things at this point in time.  Considering all that has happened, I'm happy just to begin the wait. One thing I do know is that they (Rwanda) has already started hiring and training more staff as they develop their new Hauge process. However, I don't know what that means as far as processing dossiers like ours that are waiting under the old non Hauge system. I think we will all have a better idea of time frames in another month or two once things start moving along again. One cool thing is, I learned this week is our adoption agency, Gladney, was asked to help with some of their training! What a great opportunity! If you are looking into adoption, I highly recommend Gladney. They are a Hague agency. I have had great case workers that have always called or emailed me back within a day- they will talk with me on the phone and answer all my questions and concerns with professionalism and care.

Now What?!
I signed up for a class with TCU (Texas Christian University) Institute of Child Development. It's called Trust-Based Relational Intervention (TBRI) Professional Training Program. It taught by Dr. Purvis, who wrote The Connected Child, in fact, the book is part of our curriculum. I was researching upcoming conferences about parenting as it relates to international adoptions. When I told my friend that I was thinking of going to a particular one she asked me to think about going to the TBRI training. She and a few others from our church's orphan care ministry were planning on going and invited me to join them. After looking it over, I was thrilled to go! This is just what I was looking for! God is providing me with excellent parenting tools. I already have a great kiddo and I'm an excellent mom (with God's grace and guidance) and I trust I will have another great kiddo and be an excellent mom to him as well. However, I do know from others who have already walked this path that children from hard places need extra special care and a commitment to helping them overcome their challenges. I want to understand all I can now and risk being over prepared so that everything my family does to get ready for our son, he will be set up to succeed.

So for now I have homework to keep me busy! :)

2 comments:

  1. Congratulations:) Yes, I am feeling a bit kind of 'Now what?' too. All that flurry of activity and now it is just waiting. And waiting. That course sounds excellent-I wish they had that kind of stuff up here in Canada but I don't think there are nearly as many adoptive families as there are there. At least that will keep you occupied! I am busying myself by reading lots of books (Amazon LOVE me at the moment!). We will probably get a referral at the same time (we were DTR on Tuesday) so maybe we'll see you in Kigali!!

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  2. Hollie- I know you are in Canada and it would be hard to take a course down here with a week long on-site intensive portion. However, now that I've been doing the pre-homework it's mostly videos and reading specific chapters in the book The Connected Child (there's some other stuff but that's the bulk). If you read the book- better yet study the book- you will get so much rich, practical information on parenting our future children :) The DVDs look like they are available on the TCU site (linked above) for purchase. My husband watches them with me... he would rather watch than read. I would love to see you in Kigali!

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