Hanging with the boys

Some of our favorites

Not sure how these will show...but here goes: Our little friend, David who was in most of our pics from the orphanage always standing, the girls who take care of the babies, Gilbert & Shitowa with Meg & Josie, and two cuties from Mother Teresa's.

Christmas Day 2008

Christmas morning! Maybe a little overwhelming, but thanks to family and friends, Josie has a wonderful first Christmas :)

HALLOWEEN 2008

Little did this little lady know that she would be home with us just in time for Halloween. The Biehl Boys had decided on a Star Wars halloween (again)...and thanks to a couple of wigs from Ned's sister, Princess Leia and Darth had mini-me's!

Welcome to San Diego! 10-29-2008

Tucker is instantly in love with Miss Josie Alliette. Ned's parents met us at the airport with all three boys - decked in adorable "I love my little sister" shirts from the Boucher family. We were thrilled to see family and SO THANKFUL to be back in the USA!

One final bright spot as we prepared to leave Ethiopia...the Ethiopian Olympic men's gold and women's silver medal winners in the 5000 and 10,000 meter races were married at our hotel. Olympians in Ethiopia are superstars and millionaires. The ceremony was beautiful...it started at another hotel for breakfast and brunch and then came to our hotel for dinner and the final celebration with a mini-Bellagio style water display.

Haves and Have Nots

The hotel we stayed in was gorgeous and ridiculous against the poverty that surrounded it.

Just outside the wall of our hotel was the water and waste facility...there were people living in the tire dump that bumped up against the outbuildings. Very sad and surreal.

Addis Ababa, Ethiopia

After a week in Kigali, Rwanda, we arrive in Addis Ababa, Ethiopia. It would be an understatement to say that there is a stark difference between the two cities. The entire population of Rwanda is about 10 million people; the city of Addis Ababa alone has 3 million people.

There's no doubt that Ethiopia has an incredible history...but it's honestly the dirtiest, smelliest and most void of humanity place we've ever seen.

Signs of polio and other diseases run rampant on the streets - people with twisted limbs, dragging body parts on the rock plagued sidewalks...we actually saw a man with a hole in his thigh the size of a grapefruit. No one even noticed this man and I could only imagine that at home dozens of people would be calling 911 or offering to help him. The disparity between the "haves" and "have nots" was unimaginable.

While stopped outside a tin-roofed shack that was an average grocery store, a woman was emptying buckets onto the edge of the street. It was on the third bucket that I realized she was dumping human waste - and this seemed pretty commonplace even in the city.

Every taxi ride began with a crazy set of arguing over the price of the ride and everyone knew someone that could take us somewhere, show us something, sell us something - egad.

We found a few shiny spots in some compassionate folks at the US Embassy, a pediatrician from Poland who examined Alliette on the spot and lovely man at our hotel who offered to drive us around the city to find some gifts.

Goodbye Home of Hope

Literally at the gate - leaving!!!

Wednesday, Oct 22nd - Alliette leaves orphanage

This is a surreal day. Our paperwork is complete and we were able to take Alliette out of the orphange as our daughter today. One would think that the sisters or especially the young women that care for these babies would be sad to see a child leave. But these women have the purest of intentions and they were so happy to see Alliette go into the arms of a mother and father. We've never experienced anything like this!

On the left of the picture is Sister Graciase (like the Mother Superior) and on the right is Sister Allison who has worked with us since meeting Ned on day one.

Dr. Agnes Binagwaho

There are a few moments in life when you know you've been in the presence of greatness...Ned and I were immediately struck with the incredible Dr. Agnes Binagwaho. Ned had the fortune of meeting Dr. Agnes while in Rwanda earlier in the year. She agreed to act as our pediatrician (at that time she was the Rwandese appointee to the World Health Organization on AIDS).

As we meet her on our last night in Kigali, she has now been appointed to the highest non-political post in the Ministry of Health in Rwanda - wow! Her energy and quick-as-a-fox humor are contagious! Lucky for us she was between jobs and had three hours to spend sipping wine and eating samosas (my new favorite - shredded lamb and herbs neatly packed in a triangular dough).

Dr. Agnes completed Alliette's medical exam before we even arrived in Rwanda and would not accept payment. We told her we would be happy to pay her usual rate. In her true honorable style, she accepted the payment and then handed it back and asked us to donate it to Mother Teresa's Orphanage...

Goodbye to Agnes

With our lawyer, Agnes on Tuesday night. She was leaving with her son for South Africa the next day...

Agnes is an amazing woman. She's a senator here and also sits on the Kigali Bar Association. Her schedule is frantic and we even had occasion to pass her on the road zooming around town! Her son is heading to NY University and you can tell she is so proud. Later, her son joined us for some appetizers and drinks - what a lovely young man!

Passport!

We have to admit that Monday & Tuesday are a blur already...We were given some incorrect info about paperwork needed by the passport office here (consider your worst DMV experience ever - and it might match up). Basically it came to needing a signed original of the Minister's adoption approval, but she was in a meeting with another Minister. During that time, the notarization office (our worst enemy) had closed - so there wouldn't be a copy of the adoption approval left for us. After 3 trips driving back and forth to the passport office, the Minister finished her meeting. She was EXTREMELY gracious, signed three originals for us to avoid notarizations and then invited us to stay and talk for almost 25 minutes! This is a VERY busy woman and we felt so honored to talk candidly about the adoption process in Rwanda and our personal experience. In the end she asked us to act as ambassadors for adoptions in Rwanda...to try to create an email network of children so that her office could send updated information and eventually create a post-adoptive survey system! WOW!!!

Civil Court & Notarization

All court rulings are done! Looks like it was easy, but Oh My Goodness! After two hours at the District Office, Ned managed to interrupt the Notary in a meeting with the Mayor of Kigali. She had disappeared without completing our paperwork even though we had paid (typical here we're finding). There is ONE notary in the entire Kigali district here. Can you imagine? There are lines of people waiting every day for notarizations and most sit and wait all day only to come back again the next day.

Kigali Civil Court Ruling

This is Ned at the Civil Court ruling in Kigali. The picture in the background is President Kagame (amazing man!). The lawyer (Jean-Pierre) next to Ned is a friend of our lawyer - he set his case aside to allow us to appear as the first case of the day. The graciousness of the Rwandese people is really humbling...Oh - they ruled in our favor!

cliff springer

Hippos

Jack, Tuck & Max...there are three hippos here - just like the three of you guys...one is just coming up on the left. We were so close to them that at one point one jumped out of the water (still out deep) and Mom jumped in the truck!!!

Akagera National Park

Sundays are family days in Rwanda - much like our own. The President has encouraged families to clean their homes, yards, drives and then visit with friends and family. People line the streets walking to make visits and going to church.

We took the opportunity on Sunday morning to drive to Akagera National Park in the easternmost part of Rwanda near Tanzania. The park is a nature reserve of about 1500 sqkm. We saw some fantastic wildlife - giraffes, hippos, cape buffalo, topi (cool animal -google it), baboons, cliff springers and many more - oh and PUMBA! These are just a few of our favorite pics...

Josie & Meg

After a quick game of pattie-cake, Josie takes a liking to my hair! I'm not sure how many blondes she's seen...

Finally - The Gate Opens!!!

Ned & Josie Alliette

Meg in Rwanda

Hello All! I've landed safe and sound in the lovely Rwanda. After a day and a half of travel, I have no idea what time it is, but I know I stopped in Denver, DC (Thanks for the paperwork Sparks Family!), Rome, Addis Ababa (Ethiopia) and finally in Kigali, Rwanda around noon on Saturday.

Ned met me at the airport and after a quick pit-stop at our hotel, we went straight to the orphanage to see Josie and take a quick tour. OVERWHELMING is the only word I can come up with at this hour. Josie instantly picked Ned out of a group of volunteers, several sisters and me. It was amazing to see that she already had a connection with Ned and tried to play pattie-cake with him as he had done with her the day before. Smart little lady!

Her room was hot, although a quick toad-strangler (that's a super-hard, super-fast passing rainstorm for you city slickers!) had cooled the air a bit. Josie shared a crib with three other babies close to her age. But there must have been at least 25 babies under the age of one in her room - including a preemie that was about 4 lbs.

Sister Gratias took us from room to room after that and we were able to see the different age groups of children. One room was marked - no visitors - as it was the infirmary. The kitchen was purely base essentials; a couple huge, inground boiling pots and wood-fueled fires. If the orphanage has enough donations, then the children are able to eat meat on Sundays and Wednesdays. Preparations were being made of a side of beef - literally a volunteer was using an axe to chop apart half a cow on the concrete floor.

The most difficult area was the toddler area. We could tell by the looks on their faces that they had an idea of why we were there. At first they stayed seated on their little cement bench...but then one-by-one they got brave and came toward us for hugs. Sister Allison had one especially cute little girl holding her leg...she explained that this little one had been born in a toilet - the mother had cut the umbilical cord and left her there. How the heck are we supposed to get our brains and our hearts around that kind of information?!?!

With that, a small sprinkle started falling and Miss Josie was rubbing her eyes and yawning - nap time. So we took her back to her room and we'll go again tomorrow...

Sector Court

Court Date and "Alliette"

Ned was able to attend one of the court dates with our lawyer, Agnes, and baby Josie today. Of all the crazy things, he and our lawyer were at the wrong court and were 3/4 of the way through the proceedings before everyone realized that fact. Sister Graciase from Mother Teresa's Orphanage was waiting at the right court. Thank goodness Ned and Agnes made it to the correct court in time for the hearing to still be held today - egad.

Another neat piece of info that's come to light is in regards to Josie's given name. We've been confused and have heard everything from Alliette to Arriette and Harriet to Henriette. We now have clarification that her name in French is Henriette...but in Kinyarwanda (native language in Rwanda), her name is Alliette after all!!! We've been hoping to use a Kinyarwanda name as her middle name. So Josie Alliette Biehl it is!

The first time Ned heard her name, he thought one of the sisters from the orphanage said "Alliette." We couldn't believe our ears...pretty darn close to the female version of "Elliot" to us. Of all the names in the world - really?!? We've decided to take that as a small sign from our sweet Elliot that he's had a hand in all of this.

Josie & Shitowa

This is Josie with Ned's friend, Shitowa. He was Ned's driver when Ned was in Rwanda with HMX.

We were given a beautiful, hand-carved, traditional statue of a mother and child by Shitowa back in February. He is so incredibly kind and will help us with driving in Kigali again this visit.

Josie's Room

Can you see the picture on the back wall? Nice to have Mother Teresa watching over the children...

Josie

Daddy & Josie

Ned, Josie & Sister Allison

Ned arrived at Mother Teresa's on Tuesday and was able to spend some time with little Miss Josie and Sister Allison.

Agnes & Josie

Sister Allison & Josie

I'm sure this blog will seem random at first. It would be nice to think that I could have kept a running blog from day one. There's no way! Between Ned's schedule with HMX over the past year, moving home to Ohio for the summer, moving to California, getting kids in school and managing a deployment, it would have been impossible to keep up with this. So I hope I can keep up for the next couple weeks until we have a new daughter for you all to meet here on US soil!

In this picture you will see the true heroines of our story...on the left, Anges Mukabaranga - lawyer and Biehl Family advocate extraordinaire!...and on the right, a woman walking as a saint - Sister Allison from Mother Teresa's orphanage. The cutie patootie in the middle is Josie!

For a bit of history...

Ned was traveling with HMX-1 to Rwanda in January and February of 2008. When he arrived, he was struck by the hope, joy and purity of the people of Rwanda (who not so long ago suffered the worst genocide in recent world history).

The children Ned saw all over the country had very little but had such happiness on their little faces. It was after Ned's first phone call to me from Rwanda that I realized that we had found a path that I had long been searching for. Since losing our sweet Elliot 6 1/2 years ago, I've been trying to find what it is that I'm supposed to do...that is, what I'm supposed to do in Elliot's memory, to honor him, to make him proud, to live life as we would have with him, to share the love we still have in our hearts for him that has no where to go but tears. So there it was; my answer, my path - all the way in Rwanda - adoption!

That being said, please meet Josie Biehl! She is 8-9 months old and lives at Mother Teresa's Home of Hope in Kigali, Rwanda. This little one was abandoned on the side of a road when she was 1 1/2 months old. By some grace she was found and taken to Mother Teresa's. Now, we have the unbelievable fortune to have been found by her!