Day 16

So today was a relaxing day. We went to the local church here this morning and then came home and waited for lunch. We went to a local favorite restaurant today. It was a beautiful place where you sat outside overlooking Lake Victoria. It was really peaceful just sitting on the edge of the lake without a care in the world. You either ordered chicken or fish. So since it was both Tiffany and I, we ordered one of each. The chicken came out first, it was a single piece of fried chicken, the wing attached to the breast, and some fries. Then they brought out the fish, the entire fish head to tail. They actually fry the entire fish after gutting it and serve it that way. I think this is why the local missionaries say it is a local favorite. The fish was actually really tasty and between the two of us we ate the whole thing. It was seasoned really well.After dinner we came home, and relaxed and took a nap. We then packed everything up since tomorrow we will be out to the town where the baby cottage is to stay there till we get the baby boy’s visa. I will be staying there till Wednesday when we are going to try to meet with the lawyer and then I will come back to where we are staying currently prior to leaving to the airport to fly out. Tiffany will stay there to allow her to be with baby Ryder as much as possible. We are so excited, but a little more nervous now then we were before as we have been hurt. We just are praying that we will not hold anything back and love as though we have not been hurt. We know that God has protected our hearts through this and believe he will continue to do so. Now the information that you all want to know, as far as we know Ryder is about 2 years old. He is actually small for age due to malnourishment. When the baby house took him in only 2 months ago his hair was actually orange, which is a big sign of malnourishment. We will most likely shave his head to allow for health hair to grow back strong. He is barely able to walk, which is not uncommon because the kids typically are carried on the back or placed in one central location while the parents go off to work. He has no parents as he was completely abandon at a local hospital. The main reason they are guessing that he around 2 is that he has a full set of teeth. Based on his size we cannot tell from the malnourishment. Although once he is on a regular healthy diet he should catch up, but will always be a little bit smaller then he should have been due to lack of nutrients during the critical time of growth.He will get to come home with Tiffany when she does come home. We are not sure when that will be. At this point the process is on Monday we will meet with the local social worker here and then he/she will sign off saying that we are fit to be parents of this child. Then on Wednesday, we will meet with the lawyer, who will draft all our paperwork and we will hopefully sign that day. The lawyer will then also have to pull all the information that he has together to get a birth certificate for Ryder, since he was abandoned and he doesn’t have one. Once the birth certificate is done we can then submit for a court hearing. Tiffany will go to that which will most likely be on a Monday from what I understand, so our goal would be the 13th, but may be the 20th. Once we have the court date and meet with the judge we then have to get a Ugandan passport and health check for Ryder, along with taking all the paperwork minus passport and court orders to the US Embassy to get started on the visa. The court ruling and order can take a week to two weeks so we are praying for a quick turn around on that. Then we take that with the passport to the Embassy and get his visa. Tiffany and Ryder will then fly back to the states to be with me. So we are thinking that they will be back in the states by Halloween, or a week earlier, the sooner the better because I will be going crazy without them. I know that this is longer than normal, but we are moving out the baby house and are not sure if internet will be available there. If not the next update will probably be Friday when I can get access to a computer in the states. We will still try to update everyone on a regular interval from that point forward as I will be calling Tiffany probably daily and then updating everyone. Please keep us in your prayers. You can see more pictures of Ryder and us together at http://picasaweb.google.com/askulp/Ryder.