10 hours... in the dirt.

My o my we've had a heck of a week. And as you may have guessed, this week ended with a bang [not a literal one of course]. For those of you that can't handle the anticipation, this story ends on a somewhat good note, so hang in there!

Today we arrived at the immigration office at 7:30, thinking that we would be issued our passports around 9:00. Our plan was to rush over to the U.S. Embassy and set an appointment for Monday. This seemed fine and dandy since that portion of the Embassy closes at 10:30 on Fridays. From there, we'd planned on taking the children to the park and watching them play while we proceeded to drink ourselves into oblivion [just kidding].

Around 9:30, we finally got a hold of the person who had been helping us. He took us to a waiting room where he said we should wait 20 minutes. With that, he left. As time went on, we became anxious since it was almost for sure that we would miss going to the Embassy. Around 11, we decided to take matters into our own hands and go to the commissioner's office and inquire about our case. To our surprise, the secretary said she'd been waiting for us and we were ushered in to see the commissioner!

The commissioner had very little to say. He asked us a few questions and then asked us to send in the man who'd been helping us. Of course, we could not find this man anywhere. He wasn't answering his phone either. In desperation, we reached out to another contact that we've made at the immigration office. This man is a lawyer and also a former classmate of our adoption case worker. He sent his assistant to retrieve the files from the commissioner, but he was unsuccessful.

Finally, a couple hours later, we found the person who'd been helping us and sent him to the commissioner. When he came back, he informed us that the commissioner wanted to review the files and that he would call him later. Once again, a couple hours passed and we had not heard from the man working on our case. Also once again, we finally got him on the phone. He said he was coming to meet us and that we should just wait for him. After 20 minutes, we went to where he said he was previously - still no sign of him [needless to say, we're quite frustrated with him]. Now, we're approaching 5:00 p.m. on a Friday afternoon, so we're pretty sure he has left and we've basically given up hope of getting anything done.

On one last walk around the premises, we ran into the lawyer that had tried to help us earlier in the day. He was upset that the commissioner held our file and told us to follow him. We went to the commissioner's office and he asked us for the case file numbers. We gave him a blank look, telling him that we were never given the case file numbers. At this, he walked into the commissioner's office and closed the door. After about ten minutes, he emerged with our files!

He told an assistant of his that he was to come in tomorrow [Saturday] and get the printing of the passports started. He also enlisted the help of the commissioner's secretary in helping us get where we need to be on Monday morning! Next, he gave us the personal contact of another assistant and told her [in front of us],

"These passports are my personal matter and they WILL be DONE no later than 10 a.m. Monday."

Lastly, he gave us all of his contact information and told us that he loves to help cases like these because it makes him happy to play a part in giving kids a second chance.

Needless to say, while we felt deflated most of the day, we were very happy by the time we left! All in all, we'd spent 10 hours at the immigration office that day and the kids were very irritable. To make matters worse, the waiting area is a courtyard outside. Its very dusty and dirty and it even rained on us at one point.

We didn't get done what we wanted, but we're feeling optimistic about next week. If we can get to the Embassy early enough, it's possible that they will give us an appointment on Monday as well. If this happens, we could maybe still make our flight on Tuesday night. AND even if it doesn't, we should be able to travel sometime next week!

Even with the current trials, we're feeling so blessed to have Viola and Gideon. It's been awesome to see the prayers be answered in big and little ways while we've been in Uganda.

Whew... hope to see you all soon. Happy weekend [and hopefully, our last one here].

Derek, Kristen, Viola, And Gideon