A Visit to Gracie's Biological family

Hello Everyone,
We have survived 6 long, HOT days in Liberia!! We are starting to get homesick but are still enjoying the Liberian people. They are incredible servants and we love to here their individual stories. Yesterday was a rude awakening for us. We visited a refugee camp where thousands of Liberians fled during the war. The purpose of the visit was to meet some of the adopted children’s birth families. Their villages were destroyed during the war so they can’t return to what they call home. Therefore they are living in poverty with no electricity or running water. Most of the “houses” were made out of old, oil cans, which is pretty resourceful, we thought. As we walked around, we were approached several times by mothers wanting us to take their babies with us. They were so desperate they thought the only way for their little children to survive would be to give them to total strangers who would take them to America. It broke our hearts every time we had to say, “No we can’t.”

Just outside of that camp, we visited Gracie’s biological family. This was difficult because we found out after we left, that her mom has malaria. She was sick and did not respond to us. She didn’t say a word. Gracie had fallen asleep upon our arrival. So when we first got there her mom took her from me and held her for a minute (long enough for us to get a picture) and gave her back to me. Her grandmother was there also, and was a little more responsive. Although we didn’t communicate much, before we left, we hugged them and to our surprise, Zenah (Gracie’s birth mom), hugged me back and gave a small smile. We felt that was her way of saying, “I know you are going to take care of her.” Sad to say malaria will probably take her life, because she is not seeking medical attention.

It is amazing how God continues to show us His will for Gracie’s life. We are so thankful to have received such an amazing, priceless gift. She is such a joy to be around! Don’t worry you will get to experience her very soon! We can’t wait to show her off! We love her more than we could’ve imagined!
Hopefully you will be able to enjoy some pictures. Thanks for praying, we definitely feel covered. Please continue, as there is sickness going around some of the families we are here with.

We love and miss you!
Rob, Kim, and Gracie

Happy Birthday Gracie

Hello All,

We are sorry we haven’t e-mailed earlier. Our Internet has been up and down and I became the IT guy to fix it (not good for them). We arrived safely after only 26 hours of travel. Praise Jesus we had no problems with any flights or connections and everything went well. We got in to the guesthouse late around 9:45 Liberia time so we did not get the children the first night. Sister Maria said it would be best to have one more night of sleep before we got the children. We did get a tour of the new house, which we are staying in with 8 other families. It is really nice. They do have running water and AC in the evening so even though we prepared to rough it is really not that rough.
The second day around 7:45 sister Maria knocked on our door with the most beautiful little African girl I have ever seen (some pictures will follow). As we suspected at first she was not sure of us and what we were all about but Prasie Jesus he answers prayers and within a few hours she started to get comfortable with us and within 24 hours she was laughing lots and by day 3 it’s like she has always been our little girl. She is so beautiful and sweet. She loves to snuggle and bats her eyes to flirt I can tell she is mine because she likes to eat and has a strong will.
Overt the last 72 hours with her I have taken over 300 pics don’t worry I only attached 10. We can’t wait to share the rest of them with you soon. Please continue your prayers for the paperwork as we met our US consoler yesterday and he is not planning to meet with us until next week. Also please continue to pray that we can make an impact on these people they are so sweet and so giving we know that God is working here.
I am sorry I can’t write more now however I got the internet working and there are 8 families who want to send e-mails. We Love you all and we will try to write again soon. If you would e-mail this to the people that you know are praying for us that would be great.

Love,

Rob, Kim, Gracie

Leavin' on a jet plane !!!!!

Dear Friends and Family,
We leave for Liberia in a week!! It is hard to believe that we will have our little girl in our arms soon. We are so ready! It seems like we have been waiting forever, when in reality it has only been 9 months. How ironic!! We would appreciate it if you would continue to pray for us.

1. Smooth & Safe travel.
2. Tristen & Clay to do well while we are gone.
3. The Lord's favor- if He wants us to come home earlier than 14 days.
4. Gracie's health.
5. Rob & Kim's health while traveling.
6. That we would be able to serve and love on the people in Liberia.
7. A strong bond between Gracie and us.

We leave Knoxville on Sat. May 12th at 2:50 and go through Brussels and arrive in Liberia on May 13th. Yes that is Gracie's 1st birthday and Mother's day!! Unless the Lord has other plans we are supposed to come home on Monday night the 28th at 10:35.

We will try and e-mail from Liberia.
Thanks again for all of your support during this emotional process.
We love all of you!

The time is near!!! We're going to get Gracie!!!

Hello Everyone,

It is finally time to go get our new little girl. We got the go ahead last week and will be traveling May 13th – May 27th. That’s right 14 days in Africa. It is amazing how God’s timing works. We had to get our little girl by her first birthday, which just happens to be May 13th. This also happens to be mother’s day (what a great gift for my beautiful wife).
Please pray for:
· Traveling mercies
· Safety while in Africa from disease and what ever else.
· For my company to continue to run smoothly for the 2 weeks while I am gone.
· For the transition of Gracie into the Waite family (even though we have prepared for months she has no idea what a change is getting ready to happen in her life).
· For Kim and I to parent well with our new little addition

Thank you Thank you Thank you for all of the prayers and support that all of you have given us. God answers prayers and has prepared the way for Gracie. Without your prayers and gifts this would not have been possible. All of you have helped give us one of the greatest gifts possible; a daughter. We love you all and can’t wait to have you meet our little girl.


With Love,


Rob, Kim, Tristen, Clay, and Gracie

UPDATE- March 12th 2007 Praise God!

Hello Friends,
Because of our awesome and amazing God, we are getting very close to traveling to Liberia. On Feb. 7th our homestudy was complete, so we were ready for the fingerprint process. We went the next day to Nashville (which is a two and a half hour trip) to get fingerprinted, that part only took about ten minutes. They sent the prints to Mephis where we would then wait on Homeland Security. We were told this could be a long wait, which it was, but sooner than must cases, we got an approval letter on Fri. March 9th. In the mean time we have gotten Gracie's room all ready for her! How much fun a little girl is going to be! So now that her crib is set up she needs to be in it!!
We are now waiting on Liberia to finish Gracie's passport which she has to have before they will let us travel. Don't worry we got all of our immunizations, 5 for me and 6 for Rob. That was another exciting day. $500.00 later and with God's protection we better not get any kind of illness while we are there. We are excited to go and see an entirely different part of the world, but most of all we just want to hold our baby girl!
Please pray for an urgency to get the passport completed, and for us to get a travel date soon!!We love you guys and are so thankful for so much prayer support, these things wouldn't have happened so quickly without you.
Love,
Rob, Kim, Tristen and Clay

UPDATE- January 26th 2007

Hi Everyone,
I know your all wondering the latest on our little girl and I am sorry the updates haven't come faster. The social worker has finally completed all the interviews associated with the home study and we are just waiting for her to write it (a 2 week process). After the home study is finished Kim and I will travel to Nashville TN to have our fingerprints taken. The home study and fingerprints will then be sent to The Department Of Homeland Security (because Gracie may be a Terrorist) for them to sign off on. This part takes between 2 to 15 weeks. Between know and then Kim and I will be applying for a Visa to travel to Liberia aswell as getting a series of vaccinations required to enter the country.We want to thank everyone who is supporting us both financially and with prayer. God has blessed us with a circle of friends and family who love us dearly and I can't wait to introduce our little daughter to you so she can feel a love that she has not know before.
Please continue to pray for:
1. For the Social Worker to stop delaying and finish the home study
2. For The Department Of Homeland Security to finish they're investigation promptly.
3. For the approval on the visa's to travel to Liberia
4. For patients for Kim and me. We know all of this is in God's amazing hands and thankfully he is in control, we are just anxious.
5. For Gracie. Pray that she stays nourished and healthy and pray that everything goes well with her physicals and blood work.
6. For Tristen and Clay. Every time I go out of town they ask if Iam going to get Gracie and every time I tell them no they look dejected.They can't wait for their little sister to get her, and they don't understand why we can't just go pick her up. I guess I don't understand either. We love all of you and we can't wait to share that love with Gracie.

Love,
Rob, Kim, Tristen, and Clay

Grace,Grace---God's Grace

Birth Name:

Princess Seh

Birthday:

May 13, 2006

UPDATE----November 8,2006

Dear friends and family,

We wanted to keep everyone up to date with our adoption process. We are very close to finishing our home study. We had an eventful day yesterday, and God orchestrated it beautifully. Little did we know last week we got a picture of our little daughter. We have been receiving a lot of pictures of children, which have been different ages and both boys and girls. This has been emotional for us but we were confident that God would show us who our daughter was. We received two pictures last week of two little girls and both felt like our daughter could be either one of these precious babies. So after praying for a week, we received more emails of pictures. The last two emails were the same exact picture. She was one of the babies we have been praying about for a week! In my heart I thought she is the one. After a restless night of sleep, I emailed and asked if we could adopt her. WELL long story short, someone else wanted to adopt her. God directed my email to the right person at the right time. So this means we had to move quickly if we wanted her. It was a very exciting afternoon and it just so happened to be our anniversary and Rob’s birthday. We got a gift for our anniversary from my amazing parents that allowed us to wire the money today to Africa!! God is faithful and has provided what we need so far. Thank you so much for praying and supporting us during this exciting, but emotional time. Please continue to pray that the paper work gets finished and finalized. Her name is Princess Seh and her birthday is May 13, 2006. There will probably be some changes made to her name but we are not sure what that is yet. We had to expedite her adoption because she is under a year old, which means they say it will be 3 months until we get her. But we will wait on God’s perfect timing to travel to Liberia to bring her home. This is such an incredible journey and we are honored to share it with you.

Love,
The Waite Family