New Blog

I have decided to start a new blog, for our trip to Africa, and return to this one when we get home. So if you're interested, feel free to follow our Africa Adventure.

Grabbing a bit of me time...

Well, we've got just 4 days before we'll be on the plane on our way to Africa. Andy had his last day at work today. The bags are packed. Passports etc are all organised. Andy is out at the pub with friends and I'm grabbing a bit of me time. Just chilling out by myself. I find I need to do that sometimes to stay sane.

Andy came home today with a broken tooth. Damaged whilst eating crisps. Crisps of all things!! You wouldn't think a crisp would break a tooth, would you? Not good timing, however. We've literally only got Monday for him to get it sorted out before we go. Luckily, a friend of our is a dentist and has agreed to look at it for him.

We eventually got a reply to my complaint to Birmingham adoption agency. They promised to take my comments into account, apologised for some things and gave lengthy and rambling explanations for others. Not quite sure what I expected from writing really. I did it thinking, "at least I will have raised the issues. What they do with it is up to them." So I've got what I set out to. But it doesn't change anything for us. Oh well...

More replies from Birmingham...

Much to my amusement, I have now had a total of three, yes three, letters from Birmingham social services acknowledging my letter of complaint.

The first letter said that they had received my letter, apologies for any distress, and they would get back to me within 1o working days.

Two days later I had another letter saying much the same thing and promising to get back to me within 8 working days.

Now I've had a third letter which explains that as this is all rather complicated and the person they really want to talk to about it is on annual leave, they plan to get back to me on the 23rd June and I should contact them if this is not acceptable.

Staffordshire are still processing our medicals. Which were done in February. The system grinds slowly on...

Reply from Birmingham

I had an acknowledgement of my letter of complaint to Birmingham adoption service today. Only one of those brief 'we'll be dealing with your concerns just as soon as we can' letters. Made me feel a bit awkward really. Being British to the core, I don't really like being a complainant. Began thinking about how horrible it would be to be complained about.

Then took a deep breath and reminded myself why I wrote to them.

Modelling Balloons and other trifles

I have just been buying modelling balloons on the internet for our trip. I am not exactly an accomplished balloon artist, but I can produce an elephant, a hat, a sword and a dog. Thankfully most small children are excited by balloons and not particularly discerning.

My most memorable balloon modelling experience was in Kosovo. We were there with a bunch of other Christians on a mission for two weeks. One evening, the local teenagers, to whom we'd been teaching English, were 'entertaining' us with Kosovan dancing. The missionary we were working with had been waxing lyrical about this evening of authentic local dancing since the moment we arrived. Despite the good press, it was truly dreadful. Appallingly turkish music and interminable shuffling sideways in a long line, following someone holding a white handkerchief. I'm not good with boredom or loud noise, so after about 20 minutes I felt that death would be a welcome distraction.

Then I spied a small number of younger children were hanging around the mission house, obviously feeling very left out. Not only did I really feel sorry for these kids, who (for reasons best known to themselves) were very disappointed to be missing out on the dancing, but I also spied an opportunity to legitimately escape the local entertainment. But what do you do to engage with children whose language you don't speak? Bad balloon modelling of course!! So me and the kids sat on the porch and I made balloon models.

And then the most bizarre thing happened. News spread! Suddenly, more and more children began to appear, requesting mishapen orange and green balloon dogs. We were suddenly the hottest gig in town. Grandparents were bringing their grandchildren to get balloon models. I had a string of people blowing ballooons up, so I could produce models faster in order to meet the demand. At one point, a family drew up in a car, sent their child out to get a balloon model and then drove off again. It was the most surreal evening of the whole trip.

Anyway, to cut a long story short, I'm taking modelling balloons to Africa. You never know when you might need to have a conversation without words with a small person.

29 Days to Go!

Well, it's 29 days and counting until we leave for Africa. And so much to do! All manageable, I'm sure...

Our schedule is now sorted. We're doing 4 weeks in Mpumalanga, South Africa, working with Youth for Christ, in schools and with orphans and vulnerable children for a local church. Then we're going to Pemba in Mozambique, to spend 3 weeks with Iris Ministries (they do simply amazing work with street kids and lots of other stuff besides), followed by 4 weeks in Entebbe, Uganda, working with a little charity called the Kabanda Trust. And finally, we're spending a week with friends in Cape Town. Just relaxing. Excitingly, I caught up with another old friend on Facebook the other week. He and his family used to live in Stoke on Trent and have now moved to South Africa, to a place called Mosel Bay. He's invited us to go and see them whilst we're in Cape Town. It would be a bit of a drive, but so lovely to meet up. And we'd get to see Mosel Bay...

There's quite a bit of stuff to do in order to leave my business in good order before we go. And it feels a bit of a wrench to leave Nightchurch, our clubbers ministry, just at the moment. We're shut for refurbishments, which I've been working quite hard to keep reasonably on track. I would like to see those finished before we go. And to be there for the week we re-open. Short of divine intervention, that's looking increasingly unlikely.

Doesn't look like anything else is going to happen on the adoption front before we go, either. We STILL haven't heard back about the medical exams we did for Staffordshire back in February. To be honest, I'm happy to leave that be until we come back from Africa. It would have been really nice to know before we went. Or not, I guess, depending what they say!!!

I wrote to Birmingham Social Services last week, to make an official complaint. It was long enough since it all happened for me to feel relatively sane about doing so. If they could avoid putting other people through what we went through, it would be good. At least having written, they have the information.

29 days to go! How exciting! How unnerving!!

Let's raise a toast to the kids!

There have been some fabulous documentaries on Channel 4 the last few weeks. They were called "Find me a Family" and have followed the journeys of a number of potential adopters. An adoption campaigner, David Akansanya, has been persuading potential adopters to consider some of the more difficult to place children. Although it's been a bit obviously edited for TV and for the "Aah" factor, it's been really interesting.

The frustrating bit is the clips of kids waiting to be adopted. I have to shout at the telly.
"Chantelle, Mary and John are waiting because they can't find a family who are willing to adopt all three of them together."
"WE WILL! WE WILL! CHOOSE US!"
"David and John are 5 and 3. No one will adopt them together so they have been waiting for 2 years."
"WHAT A COINCIDENCE. SO HAVE WE."

The inspiring thing is the kids.

The one I watched today followed a gay couple who keep horses and dogs. They were questioned by a panel of teenagers who have been adopted. The kids were brilliant! Although they asked questions about how they would support a child if the 'having two dads' thing became an issue amongst their peers, none of them were concerned about the gay issue at all. "It wouldn't bother me. So long as you're kind. And you both seem very nice," was the unanimous verdict. But they were searingly insightful about the fact that here was a couple who hadn't really considered how a child would fit into their very busy lives (they were much more realistic by the end). "They've got a very fixed idea about what the child needs to be like. They need to broaden their thinking," was the consensus, "because we can be difficult because of the stuff we've been through." They should have adopted kids on adoption panels for sure. In fact, why don't they?

The social worker kept asking what they would do if they were matched with a child who didn't like horses. Give me strength! I'd have said "Well don't match us with a child that doesn't like horses. Match us with one that likes animals. Match us with someone for whom being with horses will be therapeutic."

They also went to visit a young lad who was adopted age nine and has been with his parents for 2 years. He was able to talk really coherently about how it had taken time to build up trust in his parents and the difficulties he had controlling his anger to begin with. I know adults who couldn't speak as insightfully about their experiences and feelings as this lad.

Here's to the kids!