African Children's Choir

At the beginning of April, we found out that the African Children’s Choir was going to be in town. We got to see them a few years ago before we had even considered adopting, and we loved their story and performance. To see them now that Moses was home with us seemed to have even more significance.

My only problem was that Justin was in Palestine for two weeks, we had just put our house up for sale and I was feeling the stress of keeping it spotless for showings. Every spare minute outside of my college classes, I was spending at our church getting ready for our Easter play (I got to play a crotchety old beggar woman). Oh, and my purse was stolen a couple of days before. It had been a long week. The kids and I were exhausted and the thought of taking them all to an evening performance where we would all have to be still and quiet seemed like more than I could handle. Beth, my mother-in-law heard about the concert and how much I wanted to go so she volunteered to go with me. (By the way, kudos to all the single parents out there. The way you juggle everything is amazing!)

If you don’t know about the African Children’s Choir, you should really go to their website www.africanchildrenschoir.com and check them out. It was started in 1984 by Ray Barnett with orphaned and underprivileged children from Uganda. Since that time, they’ve branched out to involving children from 6 East African countries, including Rwanda. Nearly all the children are single or double orphans (meaning they’ve lost one or both parents), and they range in age from 7 to 11 years old. The money they raise while on tour in North America and Europe goes directly back into social and educational programs for children of these countries. Mr. Barnett’s vision is to mold the future of Africa by pouring into its children, and he encourages others to do the same.

Maybe it was my stressed emotional state, but as soon as the lights went down and the choir came running out dressed in traditional African outfits and dancing to African drums, I was fighting back tears. I just kept looking at their beautiful faces and thinking that one of those faces could have belonged to my son in just a few short years. But instead, he was sitting on my lap, grooving to the African rhythms with my hands trying to keep his ever-moving feet from kicking the poor man in front of us. I was filled with such overwhelming emotion; thankfulness that he would never again know the pain of being without his parents, gratitude that God had seen fit to pluck him from the old life of loneliness and placed him with us, and a tremendous sense of awe that Moses is indeed my son.

At the very same time, I was experiencing grief that he would never truly know and experience the beauty of his native culture and homeland. I can’t sing to him in Kinyarwandan or explain all the intricacies of what it means to be a son of Rwanda. I can’t even tell him one thing about his birth parents (that’s another post for another time). All of these feelings were swirling around inside of me during the performance and I spent a good deal of time sniffling and wiping my eyes. One of the last songs before the intermission was “He Knows My Name” and the lyrics say, “He (God) knows my name. He knows my every thought. He knows my name, and He hears me when I call.” It was like God was speaking directly to my heart, “I knew Moses from the very beginning. I revealed his name to Asia before you ever knew him, I designed him to be a Limmer, and my plan for him is good.” [Sidenote: When we first started the adoption process, Asia (then 3 years old) told us her baby brother’s name was Moses. Nearly a year later when we got our referral, his name really was Moses!]

Every orphan has a name. Every orphan has significance, and God hears their cries. I want to be willing to hear them too.

Our Day in Court

April 29, 2010 was a big day in the Limmer household. We all got spiffed up and trudged off to the courthouse for a hearing to finalize our readoption. After about 2 minutes of questions from the judge, it was all over and Moses was officially a Limmer.

For those of you who aren't familiar with this process, readoption in the U.S. was necessary for us because of the type of visa that Moses came home on. He traveled on an IR-4 visa which essentially made us his permanent guardians. He still legally went by his Rwandese name on all official documents. Every state has different laws and procedures for readoption, and because international adoption is fairly infrequent in Wyoming there are no international adoption laws. You just have to follow the same procedure as a domestic adoption. So, we had to run a notice in the newspaper, informing Moses' birth parents in Rwanda of the impending hearing (makes a lot of sense, doesn't it?), fill out the appropriate paperwork with our attorney, and wait until we had Moses in our custody for 6 months. Then came the final hearing with the judge.

Judge Park was very kind and I think we were a pleasant diversion for him. I'm sure he has very little occasion for "happy" hearings. He gave Moses a teddy bear that Asia promptly named Mike. When we were leaving, he said, "Come back and see me again, Moses!" I laughed and actually turned back around and said, "No! It won't be a good thing if he comes back here to see you!" If Moses ends up back in that courtroom, he is going to have more to worry about then just going to jail; he's going to have to deal with one upset mama! :)

The day was best summed up by Asia when she said, "Moses turned Limmer today." Yes, he did, sweetie. Yes he did.

Happy Birthday, Trinity!

Dear Trinity Grace,
I hope that you will forgive me for being over a month late in writing your birthday post. It seems that your mother is incapable of maintaining a blog and going to college at the same time. So even though your birthday was April 3rd, I still want you to know how happy I am that you are 3 years old!
The day before you were born, I went to see my doctor and she said that Mommy’s blood pressure was so high that they had to deliver you right away. You actually weren’t supposed to be born for another 3 weeks! I didn’t have anything ready for you to come home yet; all your clothes and your car seat were still in the attic. Thankfully, Daddy and Grandma Beth came and took care of all of it. We hadn’t even decided on your name yet. Daddy had his favorite name and I had my favorite. About an hour before you were born, I felt like God was whispering to my heart that your Daddy needed to be the one to name you, that it would be important to you later. So you became Trinity Grace, and I am so glad! Now it doesn’t seem like any other name would fit you. You were so very tiny at 5 lbs. 11 oz. and I don’t think you were quite ready to be here, but you were a fighter. You had quite a bit of hair (which was a surprise because your big sister hardly had any hair at all!) with very blond streaks in it. It was like you had already been to the hair salon for highlights.

You’re still my petite little girl, but you are definitely not a baby anymore! I love your silly, sassy, sweet, and stubborn personality (most of the time. I could definitely use a little less of the stubbornness at mealtimes, though). You like to make people laugh, and you think your big sister, Asia is the coolest person in the world.

I know adding your little brother, Moses to our family has not been easy for you, but I am so proud of you for being willing to let him in your life. Even though he is going to be bigger than you very soon (he already wears bigger shoes and weighs the same as you, but you are still taller), you’ll always be his big sister. I know that you and Moses will have a special bond as you get older.

Happy Birthday, sweet Trina Grace!