Life at Bembereke and the Beginning Paper Chase

Life settled into a routine for us. Milton found a young Fulani man--Delphine's younger brother and he worked on learning Fulfulde with him. Gooda would eventually move to Niger to study nursing and would re-enter our life there. Alicia was growing and becoming very expressive. She loved wrinkling her nose at everyone!
She had a few friends her age that she hung out with either at our house or theirs! She was growing and was quite a charmer!

I loved fiddling with Alicia's hair. It was so soft and so easy to take care of

We found a young Fulani girl, Susanne, who came every morning to help with Alicia while I tried to do some language study.

I got involved with an outreach ministry to a nearby Fulani village and went each week with Vreni. She was really good in the language and I wondered if I would ever be able to communicate like her! We also visited different Fulani villages with a group from the local church. While at Bembereke we rotated between the French church pastored by Pastor Djima and the Fulani outreach in one of the local villages nearby. It was a time of solidifying relationships, rest and ministry.

We had asked the UEEB leaders to help us with Alicia's adoption. Only one missionary family had recently adopted but they weren't Americans so we wanted to make sure that we followed all the steps in the process in order for Alicia to immigrate to the U.S. We actually tried to contact a couple of adoption agencies in the States--Bethany Christian Services where I had worked before becoming a missionary had turned us down in 1992 because we did not meet their age requirements, so we crossed them off our list! It was difficult communicating from Africa with anyone in the States. I had worked with Lutheran Social Services in Illinois so I contacted my former supervisor and she put us in contact with the adoption specialist. She would be the one to guide us through the maze of paper work once we arrived in the U.S. We had little or not contact with her while in Benin. We focused on the paper work for the Benin adoption. We wanted to make sure that the right language was used, that we would have a full adoption and that the parents rights were irrevocably severed. That was about the extent of the guidelines we had. It seemed impossible at times to get everything completed on time.

We began the paper chase--the process of completing the dossier for her adoption. We had to track down the death certificate for the birth mother. We were given clear instructions wher to go--the hospital she had died in, then to get it legalized. We went to the Catholic Hospital--St. John de Dieu outside of Parakou and got a copy of the death certificate but it had to be legalized by the local magistrate. Our pastor's brother just happened to be the magistrate so we tracked him down at his farm and explained what we needed. We did not have cell phones back then and could not call ahead. We found him in his field planting yams and brought him back to his house where he completed the paper work. We noticed an error before leaving and got it corrected. Off we went with that piece of paper.

We had a list of the necessary documentation for the dossier. By this time our pastor had taken us to meet with an attorney who would give us assignments and we would get the necessary documents and bring them back to complete the dossier that eventually would be filed as a petition for adoption! It was a good thing I had worked as a social worker because this was totally unfamiliar territory for all of us! At times we weren't sure what we needed to do, but we kept at it and we had the Lord on our side. He was our guide when all seemed dark and uncertain.