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.