Trying to understand me

"...you can't walk away from misery and do nothing."
~ Father Reiser

Yesterday Jason took my car in to get the tires changed. He got a break from the home stuff and sat at the dealership with his laptop. I got a text message from him while he was there. Since I've been to Haiti, I get messages like this all the time. It read, "Story on KARE11 on Haiti right now." I quickly grabbed the remote and hit 1-1. (Henry was NOT happy with me.) Too late. I missed the story. Jason told me to go to the website and look up Father Reiser.

You can see the article here: Father Reiser

I came back from Haiti on a mission - more than just my mission to adopt. I could not walk away from Haiti and do nothing. I saw poverty unlike anything I've seen in my life. I saw unimaginable suffering. I tried desperately to feed a severely malnourished little girl, and rejoiced with every drop she drank. A person cannot walk away from something like that unchanged.

Part of me feels as though I need to help people 'get' me. Why is Karen shipping stuff to Haiti every week? Why, when I talk to her, does Haiti always come up in the conversation? How come she cries when someone offers to ship items down? I want you all to come to Haiti with me. I want you to understand my motives. And I want you too to be moved to take action.

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We've been spending the weekend completing the home study paperwork. One of the questions is, "Why do you want to adopt?" Jason said, "It's just like Father Reiser said. You can't walk away from misery and do nothing."

Jason amazes me at times. For a while I felt like he was being forced into this adoption, just like he's forced to live with 4 cats right now. Once again he has confirmed just how 'into' this he really is. It also confirms how much he gets it.

We had another beautiful moment as he was filling out his passport application. We are required to have two forms of picture ID for the adoption process. Since he doesn't have a passport at this point it just made sense to get one now.

I was expecting to be the only one traveling to Haiti to pick up our daughter. We've talked about it before and we don't want to both be away from Henry and Sofia at the same time - especially when the destination is Haiti. As Jason was completing the application he asked, "What if we go together?" He wants to come to Haiti to pick up our daughter!! His next question, "Do you think we could find someone to watch the kids?" (We don't even have a daughter identified or a date yet and my three sisters have already offered to watch them.)

I'm really excited this weekend. We're deep into the adoption process and we're almost done with all of the paperwork. Of course, I'm sure we'll be surprised with a stack of forms we didn't realize we had to complete. As it stands right now, we're two weeks away from our completed home study. After that, we'll be fingerprinted for immigration and the dossier will be complete. Our paperwork will be ready long before we'll be able to afford it.

It's time to start working on some grants!