Alicia & Ryan: September 2015

First, we apologize for the lack of updates from our corner of the world. We had intended to update slightly more frequently, but to be honest, Alicia was waiting to make the announcement below, and it continued to be put off as we waited, and waited, and then waited some more, for it to be official.

So, this might come as a "not so surprising" surprise to many of you, but...

We have two new additions to the Shinska household! Two boys, brothers, Jamil & Grace. They are adorable, they are energetic, they are incredibly intelligent, and we love them dearly. We have stepped into the world of Foster Care and are pretty excited about it.

It has been an emotional roller coaster, and an unusual, or rather foreign ride for both of us. For those of you who have gone through the process of foster care or adoption, whether in North America, Asia, or, as in our case, Africa, you probably understand that it takes longer than you would like, and to some degree than you anticipated. The longer you live here the more you understand that nothing is ever simple, straightforward or quick. It took time to find an adequate social worker to take on the case, since it was a conflict of interest to use a social worker from Ekisa as Alicia was their supervisor. And due to the road Ekisa and ourselves decided to take, it took a while to gather, write and process all the paperwork, to attend various Alternative Care Panel meetings for our side of the case and the boys side of the case. It took time to hear back from people, and it took time once we were approved to get clarity on ways forward. Although the waiting was not easy, God used that time to allow us to develop a stronger bond with the boys, which has seemed to make their transition into our home a little bit easier.

Moving on, we are excited that we can now speak about this publicly since we have been approved on all sides and have officially had them home for a few nights.

If you are wondering how we got here, well, it depends on how you look at it. To sum it up, before we got married we had already spoken about foster care/adoption as something we both desired for our futures. Fast forward to a few months after we got married, and that is when we found out that the boys needed a home. These boys are no strangers to us, they have most recently been living at Ekisa Ministries, and both of us have had the opportunity to develop relationships with them as we committed to hanging out with some of the kids at Ekisa two times per week; this included time with these boys. In the end, it was an easy decision to come to when we found out these boys needed a family/home. Thus, the adventure to bring these boys into our home began.

We do not have a clear picture of the future, as we may or may not be their forever parents, but we do know that we are excited for the role we get to play in their lives, and hope they will grow to be well-adjusted, strong, confident, considerate, God-fearing men. We are their foster parents and we take that role with pride and humility. We're new parents of two (very handsome) boys. We realize we have a steep learning curve and major transition ahead of us - we understand that it's not going to be easy. That being said, we know it's going to be a lot of fun and will bring a lot of joy.

Because we are bringing in these two boys from a children's home, we felt it was necessary to build a firm foundation. They come from a solid and supportive children's home, and for that we are grateful, but Alicia has stepped out of her role at Ekisa and will be focusing on being a constant presence at home. We hope this will help provide a consistent supportive environment, and hopefully help them grow to know and depend on their new home and family. This will also allow Alicia to get things done around the home - we are learning the joys of washing clothes by hand and cooking all/most meals and snacks from scratch.

So, there you all go. That is the big news around here. That is how our future has changed.

In other news...

A lot as happened at Ekisa and Hope Smiles, but we feel those *somewhat* pale in comparison to what we get to share today. We both had stressful and busy months, but we did manage to get away for one week. We intended to have a "honeymoon" of sorts on our one-year anniversary, and that was no longer a realistic option once we decided to bring the boys into our home. Essentially, it was somewhat of a prerequisite that we go on our honeymoon before we bring the boys in. Taking time away from Hope Smiles is not very easy for Ryan, there is always so much to do, but we did manage to take off to the Seychelles for a week and had an incredibly relaxing and beautiful holiday. We also had a few visitors come, specifically, Alicia's brother, Jeff, and sister-in-law, Jolene, and their two girls, Noelle and Maike, as well as our good friend, Stephanie. It is always a lot of fun to share our home and Ugandan community with our visitors.

As mentioned before, you are all SO welcome to come for a visit. We don't have the ability to house you at our place anymore, but that does not mean we wouldn't love to host you! There are plenty of affordable places to stay, and I guarantee you will thoroughly enjoy and never forget your time in Uganda. Even though we have really tough days dealing with a lot of the corruption that still exists here, or the fact that things tend to break down easily, we do enjoy and value the culture that is Uganda, and treasure the relationships we have built. We promise to post updates a bit more frequently than we have ventured to do thus far.

Lastly, enjoy a few pictures of the past few months at Ekisa, Hope Smiles, with family, and of our new little additions, Jamil, 6, and Grace (Gray), 3!

New wheel chairs for Ekisa community and residential kids! (www.ekisa.org)

New playground at Ekisa Academy!

Ekisa Social worker busy counselling at an outreach with Ekisa families, 30 minutes away from Jinja.

Physiotherapy at the above mentioned outreach.

Ekisa Business Class field trip - visiting a former student's business. She is explaining how she has increased her profits by implementing what she learned in class, allowing her business to flourish, and therefore, enabling her to care for her family well.

Dr. Ryan and Dr. Ayub (eye-ube) of Hope Smiles Uganda working diligently at Heal Ministries Medical Day. (www.hopesmiles.org)

The rest of the Hope Smiles team hard at work at the outreach at Heal Ministries. They worked most of a Saturday in May on Heal Ministries' staff members as well as the families in the community that Heal Ministries serves.

(http://www.heal-ministries.org/)

Ryan taking notes...staying on track while they work on as many patients as possible.

Noelle and Maike (nieces) meet Dr. Ayub at clinic!

Noelle with the Hope Smiles team - missing a few members of the team.

Jeff and the girls with Gray.

Auntie Leeshie and Noelle.

Uncle Ryan and Maike.

At the River Nile...sunset cruise time!

Last minute honeymoon in the Seychelles. Hot and Humid, but gorgeous!

Hotel Restaurant on the water on the left and a look at the beach/coastline.

Stand up paddling was a daily adventure. Multiple times a day we spent time paddling around the bay.

Sunrise - the view we savored every morning from our hotel room!

Another beautiful sunrise!

Asked the Activities Manager at the hotel about hikes around the island and he took us on this beautiful one up and over the mountains. We were sweating profusely and he was hiking with ease in bare feet!