American Citizenship----Finally!

Finally the long awaited day arrived and we made our way to the Daly Center in downtown Chicago.  Alicia was dressed in very appropriate red white and blue!  The INS interviewer was from India.  Here he is presenting Alicia with her certificate of citizenship!

We made our way back to Wheeling where we had prepared for the occasion.  Chuck who had been a part of the whole process was invited plus one or two other friends from the apartment building.  I made a cake with strawberries and blueberries to represent an American flag.  We made a banner for her!

 This was a very international gathering of friends--Japanese, Indian and African  to represent our multicultural friendships.  All that was left for us to do now was to get Alicia's social security number and her passport.  Then we would be ready to travel back to Benin with her. Our adoption journey was now complete.  But challenges were just beginning.  There was so much to learn about--Alicia's hair, teaching her about her culture--certainly not African American but how would we teach her about her culture?  How would we connect with her birth family?  How would we handle the many questions we would asked over and over again? Who is her mom? Who is her dad? What happened? Is she your real daughter? What about John is he your real son?  Is he adopted too?  We will share some of these stories with you!

Once John was born we moved to Wheeling, IL because Milton had enrolled in the Masters of Theology program at Trinity Seminary.  We had no furniture--bought all our stuff at garage sales.  "This World is Not our Home" seemed to be our motto as we knew we would be here for one year and then back to Benin, or so we thought.  We found an apartment where other Trinity students were living and moved our stuff over in early June.  I believe Milton had an intensive class he was taking in the summer session.  My life centered around taking care of the kids, Trinity Wives fellowship, and trying to fit in an internship for my Masters at Moody.

 We celebrated Alicia's birthday with a Barney themed party.  She loved purple and she loved Barney.  A Japanese friend whose husband was at Trinity decorated this beautiful cake for us.  We invited several kids in the apartment building --even though they were older and they helped us celebrate!

During this time I was also working on getting Alicia's citizenship. We were getting close to a year into the process and still no interview with INS scheduled. Someone advised us to contact our congressman.  Little did I realize that our congressman would have an entire department devoted to immigration issues.  Within two weeks after contact his office we heard from INS and had an interview scheduled.