Friday was another long day to Cape Coast. By the way, it is about 21/2 to 3 hours to this city that has
the court house so as you can imagine, between the two families we had 3 very tired kids who were
REALLY off their schedule. We started out just as early. Our little girl slept almost the entire way and
was awake for court. The judge was back… Praise the Lord! Our daughter was in melt down mode by
the time we entered the judge’s chamber (children’s cases are heard in private in the judge’s own
chamber). It was us, our agency associate, the judge, the district minister of social welfare and our
lawyer. The lawyer did the talking and we were in and out in about 5-10 minutes. Our little girl was amazingly calm and happy during that time. She officially became a Swenson at around 5:45 am EST (9:45 here). [We are going to continue not to give descriptive info on the web for a few more weeks as our agency suggested.] We stopped to eat on the way back and most of us took a nap after for the van ride. We
just relaxed this afternoon. I may have already written this, but our daughter is either off or on. She is either sleeping and sitting quietly or having fits (even when happy they sound like fits). Hopefully she will be more calm when she hasn’t been off her schedule. Can’t wait to get her home! She does respond well to our correction so that is a praise. I’m so glad she is so little and easy to direct. Aren’t you glad that two year old behavior is very rarely in teenage bodies??? HA! She played ball with Paul for a while this afternoon which was great as she continues to be stuck to me and quite afraid of him… it will take time.
Anyway, we feel like it has been a wonderful week. A wonderful country with beautiful people, people
who care so much about children that they work TOO MANY HOURS of the week while we are here- working as our hosts and encouraging us and teaching us how to communicate with our children. We are so blessed. As I look back, I see God’s hand all over this trip… from providing visas, to the judge being well today… to the comfort our little girl has expressed while with us (especially me)- she would actually go to me easily from her foster mother’s arms. She trusts us and I think she will remember us for the second trip. It was so neat to hear her try to say her brother’s names. When she looks at their pictures, they are now “wo unrEa BAma” (written using Ellen phonetics) which translates “my brother”…. wo unrEa BAma Sam, wo unrEa BAma Hazen and wo unrEa BAma Noah. Paul spoke with the boys today and while they were excited to have a sister, they were disappointed that we couldn’t bring her tonight as we fly home. On to the last leg of the journey… US immigration. Please pray the things go smoothly and that the two embassies and BCS can communicate quickly and effectively and that we do our paper work correctly. Also our BCS team is going to be meeting with this country’s head of social services next week. Please pray that it goes well. They have had a wonderful relationship so far, we pray that this continues so that our other waiting families will have a smooth road ahead. Thanks everyone! This week has not only been proof that God is living and active and pulls off miracles every day, but that we have so MANY friends who are praying for us. Facebook has really made me aware of that these last few weeks. PS- I have so many SUPER CUTE PICTURES!!!! See Paul (his phone) and I’ll be starting to post some soon. More when we have the adoption order in hand. We are so blessed!