...:::Diving In:::...

For the past two weeks, while Jamesdon was in the US, the boys and I have been getting settled into our new home. When I say home, I do not mean a physical home (we still don’t have one of those), I mean the place where we are going to be doing ministry. I have been spending the past two weeks investing in the people that we are going to serve alongside. The boys have started school and while Nehemiah is still adjusting to the whole idea of school, Daniel is thriving! Everyone already knows Daniel ( I think it helps that he has a “funny” accent, wears glasses, and has a “mzungu” family!). Daniel loves going to class, taking porridge, playing with his new friends, and sharing all of his snacks with other kids. 

Nehemiah has become the focus for most of the students. They love to touch his hair and face, but unfortunately Nemo doesn’t like it and had a hard time adjusting to all the attention, but it is getting better each day that we are here. It didn’t help that Nemo ended up getting really sick this past week. 

It was so tough to see my little guy in so much pain. We are staying about an hour outside of Kampala, but made the trek into town and spent half of the day at the hospital trying to rehydrate and medicate him. The doctors found an amoeba in his digestive tract, which caused an infection in his colon. He refused to eat anything for a few days and was vomiting anytime I gave him medicine (even with anti-vomiting medication). But he is now back to his old self.  It helps that his daddy is back!

I have had such a great time the past two weeks. It is always hard to adjust to no running water, which means pit latrines and bucket baths, but the family that we have been staying with have been amazing. We have been so blessed to have a place to stay where we are just an extension of the family. 

It was hard not having Jamesdon here, but it has allowed me to dive in and get working. I have started teaching Chemistry and Biology to Donela’s secondary students. I am also teaching science lessons to the higher primary classes. This is a bit of a new element for me, but I love that it allows to meet many of the students and work with a lot of the staff at the school.

 I have also had an awesome time learning how to greet each of the staff in their mother tongue. Because there are people from all over Uganda in Bombo, mostly because of the military barracks, most of the staff speak different languages. This has been a way for me to get to know the staff on a more personal basis (So far I know how to greet in Luganda, Swahili, Ateso, Luo, and Acholi, not bad!). Nemo and Daniel have even learned how to greet and respond, but only in Luganda.

It has been such a blessing to not only get to be involved at the school, but to get to learn so much more about the different ministries that Align ministries is partnering with here. Jamesdon will be serving as a Project Supervisor and I will be doing teaching/communications/staff development. If you are interested in learning more about the organization we are working with please visit their website www.alignministries.org. 

In the last month, God continues to confirm that Uganda is where we are meant to be… for now! We are currently committed to stay here until August, even if we receive Daniel’s paperwork before that, due to the clear path that God has created for us to stay here and work with people and an organization that we love and respect beyond words. We have been so blessed throughout this entire process and God just continues to rain down His blessings on our family!

The last time I updated our blog, we were beside ourselves about what we're doing next. Jamesdon and I felt like we had two choices and we were divided on which one was the right one. I felt an overwhelming sense that I needed to come back home to start work, and Jamesdon had an incredible peace with me staying here with our family and allowing God to continue to provide for our family. After taking time to really seek God and talking with family and friends at home, I was reminded of our very first reaction to this situation when it first arose last summer…

we are going to do this as a family! 

So Jamesdon and I went to work, making phone calls, writing our Congress woman, writing letters to expedite the process, and began trying to “fix” what was happening. The potential financial burden on our family was weighing heavy on me, but Jamesdon remained confident that God would provide. I figured that I would just continue to extend my leave of absence on a month to month basis and hope that we could finalize this whole thing quickly...

…because God is totally capable of doing that, right?!

It was very soon after  brought to my attention that , me taking a leave of absence on a month to month basis is preventing the school from hiring a teacher to take over my position, and finding a long-term sub for a high school Chemistry class  is not easy to come by. At this point, I definitely knew I was not ready to come home immediately, and really had no idea how much longer this process was going to take, so I made a professional decision to put in my leave of absence for the remainder of the year. Talk about a LEAP OF FAITH! 

Immediately after making this decision, God started to “show-off”! We literally woke up the next morning to a message saying that we had a received a very generous  anonymous cashier’s check to support our family. CRAZY!

What I realized then was that God was just waiting for us to stop trying to “fix” this and to trust in Him to provide what we need. That first check wasn't the start of God’s provisions for our family and was definitely not the end. Since making that decision, I no longer feel torn between going home and staying here, but have put both feet in allowing Jamesdon and I to focus on being present here. 

Once we made the decision to stay, options seemed to open up left and right, from ministry work to paying job opportunities. After a lot of prayer and continued encouragement and financial provision, we felt that God was definitely calling us to do ministry here.

When it was all said and done, we felt like we were being called to serve beside Pastor Alex and Millie Ojera, a couple that has become our family here in Uganda. They have a network of churches in Luwero District and many other projects/ministries, one of which is a very quickly growing school. We have said many times how much we would love to work with them, but I up until now, they only had a Primary School, and weren't really in need of our particular skill sets. But guess what… they have a secondary school that began last year! Looks like I am going to teach Chemistry again!

Jamesdon, along with his role with align, has made a commitment to become more active in worship for our church in Kampala, which many people here are VERY excited about! 

It is amazing how many doors God has opened to us now that we have decided to stay, but really when I look back I realize that all of these doors have been open, we just finally decided to walk through them! So it looks like we are going to be here awhile!

If you’d like to unite with us in this undertaking you may send your financial blessings to: C/O Andrew Galbreath 354 Avocado Street #16 Costa Mesa, CA 92627 Please make checks payable to "Jamesdon and/or Coryn Kissling"

..::I Swear We're Coming Home One Day::..

I am going to start with the good news because it outweighs the bad news! The good news is that God has blessed us with an amazing little guy, Daniel, that after almost 4 years, we can now officially call our son. Daniel is a “God send” and has changed our lives in awesome and crazy ways. The other piece of good news is that God has blessed us with a community of family and friends in the US and Uganda that have surpassed any expectations we could ever have hoped for by supporting us financially, praying for us daily, giving us free places to stay, allowing us to borrow cars for months on end, and throwing enormous garage sales in order to support our transition back to the US, just to list a few!!

Now for the bad news…

As many of you know, today we had an appointment at the Embassy to file for Daniel’s immigrant visa and unfortunately found out that we will not be getting it anytime soon.

I am going to back up a little and explain a few minor details about our situation. When we initially decided to adopt Daniel, we were planning on doing an “in-country adoption” which requires us to reside in Uganda for 3 years or more with Daniel so our legal guardianship order, which allowed us to immigrate with Daniel to the US did not allow us to adopt in the US. After our petition for a green card earlier this year was denied we needed to come back to Uganda to finalize the adoption.

Four months after arriving we finally had our court date and our adoption was finalized. We were so blessed by God’s perfect timing with this because we received our official adoption decree from the courts a day before the courts went on their month long holiday! We were so excited that we had passed all of the hassle dealing with the Ugandan court system and we were confident that we were only weeks away from coming home. We knew that dealing with the US Embassy would be much more straight forward. We just needed to get an appointment, file our paperwork and then wait the 2-3 weeks that it normally takes to receive Daniel’s visa.

In our blog post earlier this month I wrote, “The one good thing is that the remaining paperwork will all be filed through the US Embassy and if they say it will take 2 weeks…it will take 2 weeks!” Well, this week we found out that the form we need to file for Daniel can no longer be adjudicated on outside of the US and all cases must be submitted directly to USCIS (United States Citizenship and Immigration Services) with a money order or check from an American institution (which we don’t have here) in order to process the paperwork. The really bad news… Since last year, the processing time for this service, has been 10 months! To think that we were so close, only to find out that we could potentially be here another 10 months has been a bit overwhelming.

Let me tell you…this has been a week full of tears. And when I say tears, I mean the uncontrollable, can’t catch your breath, feel like you are going to be sick, kind of tears. You know, the really good ones! So what is next…we have no idea! We have been so amazingly blessed through this entire process and we are confident that God is not going to just stop blessing us because we have to extend our trip. We are also confident that God’s timing is perfect and whatever He is planning for our family’s future must be pretty big, because He is pruning us like crazy right now. We are reminded every day when we look at Daniel that there is nothing we would not do for our little guy (who is not so little anymore!) and as long as we are faithful to our call to be his parents, we know that God will continue to bless our family. Our biggest prayer right now is that God would be incredibly clear as to what path we should take as a family as we move forward and that God would speak to both  Jamesdon and me in the same way so that we are united in whatever decision is made.

Our choices as of now look something like this…

A). We continue to allow God to bless our family financially through our friends and family and church community.
B). Coryn returns to the US by herself, leaving the boys behind, (even typing that makes me feel sick to my stomach) and return to the job that God has blessed us with at home.

As you can imagine, it is an incredibly difficult decision to make! I am sure any parent could relate, just take a second and think about it!

As of now, Jamesdon and I are on two different sides of the fence. I have an overwhelming sense that I need to go home to work in order to provide for our family, which makes me feel like a horrible mother (tears again, ahh, because what mother would choose to leave her children behind). Although I feel like I should be fighting to stay with my family, I feel like my job at home is a blessing from God and it gives us the ability to provide for our family. Jamesdon has a completely different mindset and it is that God has blessed us so much (we were literally praising Him with happy tears a week ago for all that He continues to do) and that we should not limit what He is capable of doing, both financially, and with the process as a whole. Jamesdon has also had an overwhelming peace about this whole situation, definitely standing firm in God’s word and  reminding me of how big God is in the middle of my meltdowns! Let me say that although we are on opposite sides of the fence, it is not dividing us! We have had some awesomely honest (and emotional) conversations the past week and if anything it is bringing us closer together. We just know that this is not a decision that we can agree to disagree on because what follows will have its challenges and we need to be united when it comes time to face those challenges.

As for now, we have to get our visas renewed to stay in Uganda, which may involve a trip to Kenya! My parents have offered to fly Jamesdon out for his sister’s wedding the second week in February (they also offered to fly me home for my mom’s 60^th birthday cruise, but I declined for the simple fact that I cannot leave my boys for a week or two knowing that I may have to turn around and leave them for an unknown period of time soon after.)  After a few days of fasting and praying, we still do not have any answers on how to proceed beyond that time, but God has given me much more peace with the situation. 

As you may expect, we earnestly ask that you continue to pray alongside us as we seek what God would have us do next and for increasing peace during this time!

If you’d like to unite with us in this undertaking you may send your financial blessings to: C/O Andrew Galbreath 354 Avocado Street #16 Costa Mesa, CA 92627 Please make checks payable to "Jamesdon and/or Coryn Kissling"

...:::Blessed Beyond Words:::...

So the other day on Facebook, we saw a handful of posts mentioning a yardsale being organized to support our family's return to the the US. It came as a bit of a surprise to us and, to be honest, we have been so consumed with getting into the Embassy this week for Daniel's immigrant visa, it kinda slipped our minds!

Well this morning, as we were making our day's game plan and trying to further sort out the immigration process, we received this little gem...

To say that we're overwhelmed with joy today would be an understatement!

This, combined with the great Christmas package that our community sent over have truly made us feel so loved and missed in this new year! To top off all of that, we're currently back in Kampala for a few days and have been put up for FREE in a house atop the highest hill in the city! What a view!
THANK YOU GOD!!! You never cease to find new ways to impress us!!!

In other news...

We did get to the Embassy today to pick up a form required for our immigration interview and, to our disappointment, we found out that our interview  would have to get bumped from Wednesday of this week to Monday of next week. Although we felt a little discouraged, Coryn and I looked at each other and decided that we wouldn't let it steal our joy!

We hope you're all having a blessed new year! We miss and love you all dearly!!!

If you’d like to unite with us in this undertaking you may send your financial blessings to: C/O Andrew Galbreath 354 Avocado Street #16 Costa Mesa, CA 92627 Please make checks payable to "Jamesdon and/or Coryn Kissling"