Going it Alone

Well court was good and bad today, good in that we think the judge is going to rule in our favor, bad in that it looks like our final court date will not be until Dec. 23rd!

We entered the court room with the three of us, Agim (our only representation from Bethany), the director from the orphanage a court appointed translator and the lawyer from the Albanian Adoption Committee. About two minutes into the hearing the judge asked that Mariada wait outside, so she and Agim got up and left, I thought they might be gone for a little bit but they never came back in. So Bob and I were on our own, with a translator that translated about 5% of the entire hearing. About 15 minutes in our translator was asking us per the judge for our exhibits, we had no idea what she was asking for. Then we could tell that she was getting annoyed and asking for something, the lawyer from the AAC left the court room and then the Judges assistant left, finally I asked our translator to translate. It seems that the judge had never seen our file and it wasn’t in the court room. So the lawyer and the asst. come back with a folder and we take the next hour going though it together. She asked us a few questions on why we wanted to adopt, could we not have our “own” children and what not. Then after all that she pulls out her daily planner and the lawyer and the translator start chatting, the translator turns to us and says that Mariada will have to see a physiatrist on Thursday the 16th (after court I reilized that the 16th is Wed. we still don't know which day it is) then we will have our final court date on the 23rd of December. Ah what?! Bob and I are asking our translator if we both have to be here? Is there any way we can move that up? Etc. out translator shakes her head no and that’s that! So Bob has to stay which is tough it’s the busiest time of year for him, thank goodness for e-mail and Skype.

Tomorrow we are going to see if there is any way we can get our two dates closer so that Bob can get home, so please say a prayer that the court will understand that a month is a long time to be away from work. Mariada seems OK with everything, she was very nervous going in but on the way out I asked her if she would be ready to talk to the Judge on the 23rd and she said this time it will be no problem.

Settling In

We are staring a bit of a routine here in Shkoder, Mariada goes to school at 8 then we pick her up at 1, have lunch and hang out or take her to practice. Yesterday was a practice day, so Bob and I dropped her off and went searching for a shower curtain, all we have is the cloth part and water is getting everywhere so we thought, how hard could this be. HA I had used Google translator and wrote it down before we left but still in every little shop we thought might have one we had Albanian’s running everywhere trying to find other Albanian’s that spoke some English. Needless to say we still do not have a shower curtain. We got back to practice early enough to watch the scrimmage which was fun and again dropped off two of her teammates.

This morning after dropping her off at school Bob and I went to visit Prenda at the baby orphanage, she wanted us to see the work that HFTW is doing there. It’s a very nice place and the babies where all out playing with exception of the two infants. After our tour, we went out to buy a Christmas tree to surprise Mariada with when she gets home from school. It’s just a little one but it is already helping to get me in the spirit.

Things are going great with Mariada, she is very loving and kind, and she is also a teen so we have our moments. She still isn’t speaking to much in English though we know she can, I think she is just too shy and afraid of saying something wrong, so we have staring pushing her a bit more and cheering when she says a whole sentence, which of course is followed by a very stern “Mom, dad, stop” like I said she’s a teen! Overall, we are feeling like God gave us the perfect fit and are so happy.

This evening is Bible study at church which Mariada enjoys so I think we will be attending that, then going to bed early so that we will be well rested for court tomorrow! I hope it’s all over in one hearing.


Meat market.
Merry Christmas !

Our produce department.

Household Goods .

Largest Catholic Church in the Balkans, right down the block.

Baby orphanage (sorry it's so blurry)

Soccer, Church, and More Soccer

Our weekend was pretty low key, on Saturday we took Mariada to her soccer practice. We meet teammates and her coaches all who love her very much. We got to the field first and when the coach pulled up in his Toyota pick-up he and another coach got out along with 10 other girls! He goes and picks them all up every week. The girls all shook our hands said hello and walked off giggling with Mariada it was very heartwarming. The one coach spoke good English while the other one spoke zero, so he asked to be translated. He wanted us to know how happy he was that Mariada has parents and that she is a very good kid, he thinks it’s wonderful that foreigners adopt Albanian orphans, especially the older children, (then the translator starts to laugh, and tells us that now he is joking) but he wishes that we would have waited two months because they have a cup match next month and Mariada is fifty percent of the team! HA funny guy. The practice was two hours long and I was the only mom present, there were a few dads that showed up and one grandpa. Girls have only been allowed to play organized soccer for two years so it’s great that Mariada is on a team at all. The English speaking coach pays for her fees and even sponsored her to travel to Norway for the World Cup games last summer; he made sure that we were going to keep her playing because he thinks she has a lot of talent. I don’t know too much about soccer but I do know that she LOVES it so yup, I think within a year I’ll know everything there is to know about soccer! On our way home she says, Mom, Dad I love soccer so much. I was so overjoyed to hear a full sentence I wanted to turn around a let her play some more :)

Sunday was church, and then Fredi and Prenda invited us to play a game of soccer with his team, so Mariada and Bob did that while I stayed back with Prenda and helped make diner. She made taco’s which were a bit different than ours but really very good. When we sat down and prayed Prenda was talking with Mariada, then she turned to me to fill me in and Mariada wasn’t sure what she was supposed to do with theses shells and what not, she had never seen taco’s before! She ate three of them!
It was after nine when we left so we came home made a few phone calls and went to bed, Mariada get’s up at 6:30AM for school. UGH

We just heard that the Judge is back at work and we should be able to have our hearing on the tenth, please continue to pray that this happens, we love being here in Albania but would very much like to have the stress of making her “ours” lifted off our shoulders.


Mariada'a Church, it was a full house this past Sunday and every single person came up to us and shook our hands, very nice Church.
Running drills.
Dad, showing her how it's done :)
The view from our penthouse! I keep warning Mariada that we don't have mountains in Michigan, she laughs kinda like I must be kidding, I'm gonna have to get goggle earth up to show her!

The Judge is Sick

Yup, the Judge is sick. We showed up to court this morning all ready to go and the girl working in our Judges office started speaking with Agim (our guy from BCS) and Bob and I knew right away something was up. The director from Mariada’s orphanage was there as well as the lawyer from the AAC. So we now have a new court date of December 10th. We all went out for a coffee to talk about what had happened and the Director and the lawyer do not want us to draw for a new Judge, they both say we have one of the better Judges for an international adoption and that we may end up with one of the ones that make it difficult. Mariada was really upset, even though she didn’t cry, she looked like she wanted to, I think she has learned not to, when I hugged her to let her know that it would be OK she pulled away a little which is so not like her. It’s so frustrating not being able to communicate the way we would like to. But other than this setback things are going well.

After lunch we went up to see Rozafa Castle. It was such a cool castle so fascinating to walk around something that has been here for 2500 years, we tried to explain to Mariada that a house that’s in America is considered really old if it’s 100 years old, she laughed and looked a little puzzled. I think the best part of the Castle trip was that Mariada got a chance to run around in the fresh air for a while, it really released some stress for her.

Tomorrow she has soccer practice and we are all looking forward to that, especially Mariada!

Standing on the edge of the castle.

This guy was watching us and I said what do you think he's thinking, Mariada says "Crazy Americans"!

She's a hugger!

Dad and Mariada working off some stress.

Skanderbeg's Grave we saw yesterday.

Teuta the head of the AAC.

The Birdge in the Middle.


We continue to ask for prayers that the Judge feels better soon so she can approve our adoption!

Hanging Out

Yesterday we took Mariada to school, we wanted to get some chores done but Roger Mullins from Hope for the World was in town for one day and we had never met him and really want to thank him first hand for the work he and his people do for the orphans of Albania. Hope for the World has been so truly wonderful to us and even more so to Mariada, they are the reason that every single child has a birthday party and receives a Christmas gift every year, and so much more. After meeting with him we picked Mariada up from school and went to lunch with the Hope for the World team, Mariada was so happy to see Roger it was great. We then went to Wednesday Church, Mariada always goes. We went to diner, came home and watched the beginning of Cheaper by the Dozen again, she loves that movie!

Today we took her out of school to drive down to Tirana; we had a meeting with the head of the Albanian Adoption Committee. Teuta is a very sweet woman and she had tears in her eyes when she hugged Mariada, she speaks just a little English so thankfully Agim from Bethany was with us to translate. The meeting went well and we drove back up to Shkoder, stopping in Lezha to see Skanderbeg’s grave. Skanderbeg is an Albanian hero. We then came home and warmed up some leftover’s and watched the rest of Cheaper by the Dozen!

Tomorrow is the BIG day, court, I think we are all a little nervous and praying that it all goes well. Again I am happy and shocked at how great we are being treated by Hope for the World, Fredi and Prenda are going to be at our hearing for support. They had a prayer last night at Church as well. We just love them. It's so nice to have the support in person, they treat us like family.

I got my USB cord today while in Tirana so here are the picks over the last few days!
I'll post more tomorrow, it takes a while to load them!



"The Bridge in the Middle" it's really cool I wish the weather had been pretty so you could see how blue the water is.
Mariada, that's the castle behind her on top of that mountain, still have to see it up close.
Our first day!
Just a few minutes after we met, the little one is Mariada's roommate and best friend Marinella.
Our first picture! Oh so happy!

Another Great Day!

Today we woke up and made breakfast in our little apartment, yummy cheese from the mountains, something resembling Rusk (if your Dutch you know what I’m talking about :) ) and yogurt. We need to go shopping again, but since grocery stores aren’t really grocery stores it took more time than we thought it would yesterday and Mariada was getting bored (typical teen). After breakfast we all got ready and drove around town a little, had lunch and decided what to do for the day, we decided on the castle, but as soon as we got up there it started to rain so another day. Another site we wanted to see was this very old bridge. It’s about a half hour drive north so we stayed dry. I have pictures and on Thursday when I get my cord I’ll post them! Yup I left my cord down in Tirana. We started back to Shkoder on a different road; I had the map out because we weren’t sure if it would take us back or not. Bob was sure it would and Mariada keep saying jo, jo (no, no) then after about ten minutes of staying on the same road she says in English “Dad, you are wrong way turn around now!” We laughed so hard she knows what she wants. After the bridge it was still raining so we went to the cinema. It was great, Mariada had told us yesterday that Michael Jackson was her favorite and the cinema was playing This is it! She loved it and best part it was in English. Today ends the five day Holiday so Mariada goes back to school in the morning; we will drop her off at 8 and pick her up at 1. The school day ends at one so that the kids can eat at home. While she’s in school hopefully we can get some of the boring shopping and laundry done.

We ended the day watching Cheaper by the Dozen on my laptop, Mariada was cracking up she really understand English so well. Now we just have to get her speaking it. We just gave her a little Nyquil, she been coughing, and put her in bed. I am sure the stress of all this is getting to her and having to think in English all day has got to be hard.

Friday is court, things are going so well and I try so hard to look at it positively but I’m still nervous. We know that Mariada will be in the court room with us and that the Judge will be asking her a series of questions but we don’t know if she has to stay the whole time. Please pray that things go smoothly, we are hoping that it only takes one court date but we have been told that the Judge we have is unpredictable so who knows.
Pictures on Thursday.

A Bit More..

OK we are back from diner and Mariada is in bed, so I can catch you up in more detail. The last few days have been a whirlwind and I would be lying if I didn’t tell you all we are tired. The flights went really well, an Angel at the United desk at O’Hare upgraded our Chicago to Munich flight to business class. This made our 35 minute layover much better and not only us but our luggage made it to Tirana at the same time. We stayed at Cydil’s place on Friday and Saturday night. They have a great place in Tirana and it was so great to get to not only catch up but get to know Cydil and her father better, they both have years of experience in Albania.

Saturday was the big day and it was perfect I can’t tell you how sweet Mariada is she is really, really loving to both Bob and I. Every single caregiver at the orphanage including the nurse and teacher has told us that we are the lucky ones to be adopting Mariada and Bob and I could not agree more. She has a very close relationship with Fredi and Prenda from Hope for the World and they have been so wonderful to us. Fredi was there for our first lunch with Mariada and they had us to dinner last night at their home, where Mariada played with their two children 5 and 2 years old. She loves kids, every time we see a baby out she says “Momma look at the cute baby” it’s adorable.
Usually the rules say that the kids have to stay in the orphanage until after the 15 day waiting period that doesn’t start until after all court dates have finished so 20-25 days. So the fact that she is staying with us already is such a blessing. She begged the director, she does not want to go back, and every time we have to go there, for check-ins she tenses up and asks when we are leaving. It’s hard. It’s also hard to see the other kids, they all know what’s up and it pulls at your heart that you can’t help them all.

So it’s late for me, we need to get a good night’s sleep. I’ll fill you in on a few other things later!

I still can not find my camera bag so here are a few shots taken by Cydil on Sunday.

Thank You so Much Cydil, the shots are great!

Taken at lunch, behind Bob's head, on top of that mountain is a 2500 year old castle!

Taken in front of the school age orphanage, she's such a cutie!

I’m going to bed.