An update of sorts!

First let me say thank you to those that left kind comments on yesterday's post. They are incredibly inspiring to me to hear your support(you have no idea). I can be funny, no problem...but to step out and share somewhat personal details of our lives...well, I'm not as good at that. But what I do know is that it can certainly all be used for good to accomplish His purposes; and hey, that's definitley what it's all about.

There is so much more that God has laid on my heart to share as far as our adoption experience materialized/our marriage/our family so now just to figure out how to do that...

Moving on to a Joey update of sorts. Through his orphanage's yaho* group, our agency, and other people with kiddos they adopted out of his orphanage I have been able to piece together some info about where exactly homeboy is living and what his life looks like.

First up, it appears that when his file said he was "moved to the family home" that they were actually speaking of a simulated family enviornment that they have constructed inside the orphanage and not a traditional foster home. Joey actually lives in a SWI which is a Social Welfare Institute. Meaning half of the facility cares for orphans, and the other half cares for the elderly. This differs from a CWI which is a Child Welfare Institute, which houses only orphans.

So, many orphanages have actually made some positive strides over the last years in facilitating these "family homes". It's truly a remarkable idea really. They take in some of the elderly to act as grandparents to these kiddos and sometimes the nanny and her husband?(haven't exactly gotten clarity on who the "parents" are) act as the mom and dad. Typically there is a group of children living in each simulated family. In Joey's case. There are 8. 8 children, two adults and two what they describe as "very involved" grandparents.

It does exactly what it is intended to do, simulate a family. It brings them out of the crowds of the orphanage, gives them some more focused attention one-on-one, and models what a typical family should look like. Think about that. These kids that grow up in crowded orphanages with only female nanny's around for 16 years literally grow up having no idea about the existence of, much less the role of a mother and father. Does that blow your mind? It did mine.

So as I mentioned, it appears homeslice is living in one of these, so he still does live in and attend school in the orphanage. So many things make so much more sense to me now. Beyond that, an agency(not ours) just returned from facilitating a camp in his orphanage. And lookie-loo at these pictures of his SWI that they brought back.

Remember his update said he likes basketball? Well...I can imagine why! Check this out!

Our puny little hoop in the driveway is going to be such a disappointment! I think this is actually part of the park that is directly outside of his orphanage, but nonetheless. The agency said the kids are often brought out here to this park to play.

This one I thought was precious! I have been wanting to find him a super cute pair of Crocs once I find out how big his feet are. I just picture them lined up here everyday.


An outside closeup of part of the building



His school


So that's what I know. So comforting to this momma's heart to be able to have some type of visual and more information as to where our little Joseph is waiting for us. I mailed his package on Tuesday so hopefully sometime late next week we just may know and SEE more!

We're comin buddy!....you may not want to leave that awesome basketball court but we're comin!