Little Brothers!

Nathanael and Luke first met Isaac on Thursday morning, June 19.  Since our Wednesday flight was delayed, they stayed with the Cooks one more night, and Jessi brought them to us Thursday morning. All smiles, all of them!

Sunday, June 22

This is our first Sunday as a family of six!

Derrick is wearing the barong that Pastor John gave him.  My dress is one I bought at the market at Tiengge - Tiengge.  The boys all have on Manila or Philippines shirts.

HOME!

We finally made it home!  We calculated our total hours of travel from waking up at 2am to get to the airport until the moment we arrived home:  34 hours and a few minutes!  Welcome Home becomes the best friend of Welcome Jet Lag.... Ugh!

Surprise!  Our friends, Brian and Marti Harriss and Kids who live near St. Louis, greeted us at the airport (Marti took pics that she will forward to us later).  They have five awesome girls and just adopted siblings, Lyza and Ezra, in April.  Isaac, Lyza and Ezra became friends when they were on the same hosting trip last summer.  What a fun surprise to see them all! They even became our personal shuttle service to long term parking!  Thank you, Harriss family, for welcoming us home - which was no easy task since you had to constantly track our delayed flight - and for encouraging Isaac by seeing his friends.

Surprise!  We walked into our house to see that it had been sprinkled with signs from friends at church welcoming Isaac!  I am sure I noticed some groceries on the counter, too!  What a thoughtful and loving gesture from our friends and the youth at church!

Now that we are home, we are far from saying "whew, we are finally done."  This is more like "alright, here we go.  Let's get started!"  We are so blessed by our family and friends who are already playing an important role in Isaac's life!  

Thank you all!  

(The big yellow banner is what people signed at our adoption fundraiser in March.)

Oh so close to home - but stuck in Detroit

Our flight has been delayed several times... Now we are at 7:10.  It was supposed to be 3:20.  Oh well.  I wouldn't want to be flying in the middle of these storms anyway.  I'm sure we will take a few joy rides on the tram to kill time.

Our flight from Manila had several episodes of turbulence so I wasn't feeling so good when we arrived in Detroit.  Then we had to wait awhile in the immigration area to get Isaac officially admitted into the country- that was an interesting experience, listening to the officers interview other immigrants (and observing that we probably didn't want to interrupt them to ask a question (GROUCHY!), and having to go to the bathroom with nowhere to go, and wondering where our checked bags would be once we got done in immigration, and hoping we would make it to the gate in time for our flight...

DELAYED due to weather!!

Let's see.. Barely slept during 16 hours of flying (4 to Nagoya and 12 to Detroit), not feeling so good, have to wait wait wait some more... An airport floor looks pretty comfy right now!

Oh, such sleepy boys!

Look who else is sleeping!  I guess that leaves ONE responsible one to watch all our things and to listen for the call to board...

**NOTE:  Sorry for the confusion.  This picture is actually a set-up.  Isaac is really sleeping, and the other two think they are funny!!

Waiting at NAIA - Manila Airport...

Isaac is comfortably sleeping during our wait to board.  I guess he is sleeping now so that he can watch 16 hours of non-stop movies on the plane!

Heading Home!

Thank you for your prayers!  We are going to sleep for a few hours, then leave at 2 am for the airport.  Our flight leaves at 6:40am.  We should be back home Wednesday evening.... Can't wait!

Halo-halo and Tiangge-Tiangge

We were treated to a favorite Filipino treat, Halo-halo.  It's shaved ice, milk, jelly beans, fruit, jello, and purple ice cream!  It was a nice cool treat after spending a couple hours at the outdoor market Tiangge-Tiangge!  

She also brought us puto and bought some siapao from a shop on the way.  Those are shown in the top picture with the halo-halo.

No, we don't know him!

More Random Pics

Derrick was so amazed at the story of Pastor John being bitten by a cobra and having to be flighted to a hospital off of the island that when he saw these dried pods on the ground, he was inspired to reenact the drama with Josiah!  The cobra ( a.k.a. Pod) is about to strike!

POOR GUY!  We felt so bad that he was sick!  What a blessing that Ate Virgie and Pastor Marlon were there to help and to talk with him about how he was feeling.  They told us several times that he said he was happy with his family, that he was not scared or upset, just that he was feeling sick and tired (he barely slept the night before we came.)

Hot Japanese corn from roadside vendors!  Also from roadside vendors:  buko - which is coconut juice we drank straight from a coconut with straws ... And also fresh beef for the next day's soup!

Random Pics with Little or No Explanation!

Isaac Jazhel Ritchie

6.13.2013

(Thank you, Lindsey Kerby for making his dog tag!!  He loves it!)

This paper we signed at ICAB will be left in a file so that Isaac can come back someday to research his adoption story.  We both wrote a message to him on this form.  A very emotional message for me to write!

Church on Sunday

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Church at Fishport with Pastor John And Virgie and their children, Israel and Hannah.

Children at Fishport waiting for Sunday School

Church at Sunrise with Pastor Marlon, who is also our driver.  This church is a daughter church of Fishport.

We had Dinner after the two church services at pastor John and Virgies home.  It was all amazing, and our Isaac especially appreciated the large spread of traditional food.  Have I told you how amazing our guides have been?  

Pastor John asked a neighbor to borrow their tricycle for the boys to try.  As soon as he pushed it over, a bunch of children hopped aboard!  So fun.  He also got a motorized tricycle to come by, so Derrick, Josiah, Isaac and Pastor John took a tricycle ride around town and came back very sweaty!

Friday After Picking Up Isaac

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We drove 2 hours to get to Ma-ma's Hope to get Isaac, so since it was only one hour further to go to Tagaytay, we decided to go for it.  First, the boys did the zip line.  The first trip over all three went together.  On the return trip, Josiah and Isaac went together superman style.  Then Derrick returned solo, also quite the superman.

We bought a jeepney ride up to the top of People's Park where we could look out over Lake Taal and the Taal Volcano.  We also paid 5 pesos to use the restroom before we went up...They had a special way to take care of flushing, therefore the fee!  The boys all bought hats because we weren't prepared for the excursion.

This picture is so funny... Ate Virgie had us doing the popular Asian thing with our hands to our faces for photos.  Derrick and Josiah are showing "handsome boy" and Karen is showing "beautiful girl" and Isaac is... Wait a minute!  Isaac isn't doing anything!  The Americans are doing the Asian thing, and our Asian is not!   (Taal Volcano is in the background.)

Email and Blog

We have not been able to email like we hoped, and blogging is, so far, a hassle too.  We will try to post more later, but I guess the Philippines doesn't like our consolidated server... We are receiving messages buy cannot send messages, and we can't login to the consolidated website either!

If you want to send a message that we can reply to, send it to 

ritchies.1997@yahoo.com.

We also have to pay for wifi here at the hotel so we aren't logging on very often.  It's crazy expensive!  I just paid for 1hour at 3:20 am since I am wide awake, so I'm about out of time for now.  We will try to find free wifi at the mall next door so we can email and blog some more soon.

Until...SICK! :(

Ohhhh, poor guy!  Isaac, while he got to enjoy the adventure for an hour or so, started feeling bad!  It was probably a combination of being TIRED (his houseparents said he was so excited that didn't sleep well the night before we came), being CAR SICK (yes, traffic here is crazy and our route to Matabungkay Bay was curvy and hilly AND he is not used to so much travel, especially travel in a vehicle with AC, which can make people sick) and being SEASICK from playing in the waves then resting on a floating hut being bounced around by the waves!

He got sick twice during the day and slept a lot.  We got back to our hotel at 5 pm and he took a bath, put on a hoodie and sweatpants (the AC is a big change for him), got chicken noodle soup and breadsticks from the mall, and was in bed by 9 pm.  He felt much better!

What a memorable Saturday!  The floating huts at the beach were a unique, once in a lifetime experience, but our Isaac getting sick is not what we wished for!!  For sure, in more ways than one, will never forget our adventure at Matabungkay Bay, Batangas, Philippines!!

Saturday-OCEAN!

We got up to leave at 6:30 am for a day at Matabungkay Beach.  We didn't know exactly what we were in for...

It was almost a 4 hour drive!  Who would think, looking at the map, that we would have to drive that far to find a beach.  There ocean is closer than that, but nowhere with clean beaches to enjoy.

Notice the floating houses in the bay.  We rented one for the day!  The locals make a living from renting these by swimming out to pull it to shore, helping us board, then physically pulling it out into the bay and anchoring it.  They then made several trips back to shore to haul all of our picnic supplies that Ate Virgie brought for us and we're very skilled at holding it up over their heads out of the waves to get it to us.  Our local helper grilled the pork chops for us....masarap!   (Tagalog for delicious!). Ate Virgie brought rice and hot water for tea or coffee.  What an amazing experience!

Derrick and the boys swam and played in the SALTY waves.  Isaac had never been there before wasn't too sure about the waves, but Derrick offered for him to ride on his back and he did so without hesitation.  They had SSSOOO much fun until...

Gotcha Day!

We finally made it to Mama's Hope Haven of Norway to "fetch" our Isaac, as they say here in the Philippines!  Most of the children were at school, so he had already said goodbye to his friends the night before.

We took a tour of his home and met many of the people who have loved, nurtured, guided and encouraged him for most of his 12 years.  We had fun unloading the suitcase full of gifts for the children at the orphanage - gifts from our family and also from our church family at THCC ( they gave us a donation to buy medicine, vitamins, socks etc. for Mama's Hope.)