Thanksgiving Haircuts- November 2016

When we first picked up the boys and got them back to our guest house our translator wanted to send his good friend over to give them a haircut so that they would look for the week.    They were so pleased with their haircuts and watching them made me smile.

Before haircuts-

 During haircuts-

After haircuts-

They looked sharp.   After a couple of days of coconut oil to their scalp it was looking good and they were so happy. 

Our next blog will be baking and eating with the boys.

Beach Day - 11/21/16

As far as we know this is the first beach trip for the boys and we had a great time.   We were about 45 minutes outside of Port-au-Prince and we had a blast.  I can honestly say that I have never been to the beach over Thanksgiving but when you are on a Caribbean island go to the beach.  Here are my kids.

Here are some videos of the beach.

What a great day.  We had so much fun. 

"The Best Thanksgiving Ever" - 2016

That is what my children said after our last trip to Haiti over Thanksgiving.   We made the decision to take the whole family to visit with the boys for an entire week of bonding, and it was amazing.    My daughter stated that they actually became part of us on this trip and she is right.  It has been 4 1/2 years now in this adoption process and we have Skyped every other week and had short visits but never all together.  I do not know how much longer we can take of this but we continue to wait.  For those who are interested we are still working on changing the wording from simple to plenary (complete) in our paperwork and are not sure how much longer this will take.  This has been really tough on us because we are missing valuable bonding time but we hope that we will be able to make up time after we get them home.

The best way to show you just how much fun we had is to let you look at this video.   Darby, my oldest made it out of all of our little video clips and it is just the best.  There are a lot of our emotions in this video.

I am going to post some pictures and videos in the next few posts that are themed so be watching for them.

Day 3 - Last day

June 20, 2016

Before we traveled to Haiti, I bought children's scrubs for our boys and had their names embroidered on them.  They were called little doctors all day at the clinic and they loved their clothes.   I asked Davidson the other day if he still had his scrubs and he told me that he did.   They had Spider-man and Ninja Turtle shoes also.   They even had their on medical bags with a play doctor set that Christy had bought them and packed for them.  They were little doctors at the medical clinic.  

Getting packed to go to the clinic

Dressed and ready for the day in their scrubs.

Davidson handed out candy to our patients and was very helpful.  He made sure my interpreter had candy, too.

Dr. Davidson Miskelly

Dr. Cherdinor Miskelly

You must get your immunizations before going to Haiti!!!

The boys were so helpful and even helped me with my big medical bag that was bigger then the both of them.  Wanted to hide them in the bag and take them home but thought I better not.

Both boys exhausted on the way back to the guest house and zonked.  

Cherdinor did cry on the way back to the orphanage and that was the first time that either had cried when we left them.  It literally broke my heart.  All I could do was take them by to get some ice cream to dry the tears.  

I had told Davidson that he needed to stop eating candy because he was going to get sick and he was staying out of the candy bag for the other kids.   He was playing beside me and I saw he had some gummies he was putting in this mouth.  I asked him where he got them and he told me the "blan fe" had given it to him.   That means white woman.    I went behind the curtain and the lunch lady told me that she could not resist those eyes especially when he asked so nicely.  I laughed at the both of them.

I will post again when I have some news.   Nothing really since the middle of July.   Fingerprinting again will be coming up next month.

We sure do miss these boys.

R. Scott Miskelly

Day 2 - First Father's Day with our boys

This is day 2 of our photo diary of our medical campaign in Haiti with our boys June, 19, 2016.   This was actually Father's Day, so it was the first time I got to spend Father's Day with our boys.  What a blessing..   I will let the pictures tells our story.

The first thing Sunday morning I woke up early to get my lessons ready for the day.  I was preaching at a small church in Port-au-Prince, and I needed to go over my lesson.   It was not long before our boys woke up and decided to help me with my studies.  Could not do much studying with my buddies helping me but I did not care at all.  Loved the bonding time.

They thought my reading glasses were the best so they had to try them out.

They showed me how well they could write their names in English and I thought they did an excellent job.

Finally, all ready for church.  We were so hot, but they were so proud of their clothes.  Their shoes, their belts and those smiles.  I think they looked extremely handsome.

They were so good in church.   They went to Bible class and they sat through the lesson that I preached like little troopers.  Our reward was Father's Day lunch at the guest house with Oreo cookies.   They also wanted to eat the center out first.  A little difficult when you don't have front teeth.  

The rest of pictures are either on the roof of the guest house playing soccer, having devotional and playing in the hammock.   We had a great afternoon and evening worship.   You could tell that they had a great time.

Davidson liked tape from some reason.   That roll of tape kept showing up in his pocket all day and even the next day in his scrubs.  he loved that roll of tape.

Video of Davidson showing of his skills doing pull-ups.  He may have weak legs but his upper body is strong.  Cherdinor also showed off his soccer skills as the play on the roof of the guest house.

I absolutely love the hammock video below with them laughing.   It makes me smile every time I listen to it.       I will post day 3 soon.

R. Scott Miskelly

Day 1 - Visit with Our Boys

First, apologies for not posting in some time.  Our paperwork is still being converted from a simple adoption to a complete adoption to satisfy the requirements of the U.S. Government.  We have been trying to correct this since last October/2015 and still working on it.  We had some trouble with ID card for Cherdinor's mother and it is just taking longer than our lawyer thought it would.  Our hearts are literally aching to have our boys home, but there is nothing we can do to make this go faster.  We still Skype every first and third Sunday's of every month and laugh and fall in love with them more, but we still long to have them in our arms to hug and hold as soon as possible.  The ironic part of this is that if we had gotten them home a few months earlier we would not have had to go back into the Haitian court system to redo their paperwork.  Oh, well, nothing we can do about all of this.

I did get to lead a medical campaign to Haiti with the Estes Church of Christ in Henderson, TN.  The only sad part was I was the only one of our family who got to go this time.  We went to Santo which is a suburb of port-au-prince.   I was able to go pick the boys up and spend three days of absolute joy with them at our guest house.  I want to make three posts of the trip and do it in pictures.  They became part of the medical team and they helped with the clinic and were just wonderful.   They were well-behaved and polite, and we had a blast.  So here we go....

June 18, 2016...

 

When I picked up the boys they were all smiles.  They were so excited!!!!  This is us in the back of the truck going back to the guest house.  Notice Davidson has lost his front teeth making him so much cuter.  At the time of this visit Cherdinor is 9 and Davidson is 6.

After playing most of the evening we started getting ready for bed and they saw their clothes and shoes for the first time.  Their eyes glowed, and they were so excited a friend had to take a picture for me.  They loved their shoes and church clothes.  Davidson found his belt and gave me a sad face because his pants did not have belt loops.  I quickly showed him his church pants for tomorrow with belt loops and he was back to smiles. 

Shower that night was cold water and you would have thought they were in a water park. They played for almost thirty minutes in the water. 

These are two videos of our night of playing in that hot Haitian guest house.  No air conditioning, but Cherdinor has long sleeves on???    We had a great time.  We slept on the floor on a mattress but they did not complain because they were by my side and loved.

I will post day two soon with more pictures and wonderful stories.

R. Scott Miskelly

The Wait Continues

First, it has been three months since I posted, so let me give you an update.   We were told in October that we needed to change or adoption paperwork from a simple adoption to a plenary or complete adoption.   We were told at that time we were looking at least 6 months.    It has now been 8 months, almost 9, and we are slowly moving.  We have been waiting since April for an ID card for Cherdinor's mother and I was told two weeks ago that she had this and they were supposed to be in court last week.   I have messaged them today and hope this week to hear whether they were able to get her in court.  If that took place then we will start the process of getting all of the paperwork legalized again and through MOI so it can get finally to the American Embassy.  This will still take a good bit of time, but we are making progress and that is all we want, progress.  It has been 4 years this summer that our paperwork was sent to Haiti for the adoption of these boys and it is time for them to come home.

I was able to go on a Medical Mission trip with the Estes Church of Christ in Henderson, TN to Santo - Port-au-Prince, Haiti last week.    We were there from the 17th to the 24th of June and I have pictures and videos that I am downloading and getting ready for a long post with lots of information about the trip.  They were able to spend two days with me at the guest house.  My family was not able to travel this time to Haiti. It will be posted hopefully this next week.  Hopefully I will have heard from the orphanage by next week and come update the status of the adoption.

Keep us all, especially our boys in your prayers.

Miskelly Family