I Am Leaving My Family in Congo

Much time has passed since my last blog entry. One thing has not changed since we moved here three months ago. Not a single adopted child has been permitted to leave DRC. We have heard rumors and announcements indicating these children would be freed soon but many months have passed without any truth to these statements. We have come to a point where we had to make a decision. This is what I shared on Facebook today: I'm leaving my family in Africa while I travel home to Dallas to work. I know God wants us to love, but what if it hurts us deeply to do so? When I considered moving my family to Africa earlier this year to be with our adopted son, Daniel, who has been kept from leaving his country, I knew there were many risks. One risk was that we would become attached and then would have to leave before they finally released our son. Unfortunately that fear has become reality. My wife, 3 daughters, and I had originally set a date of May 20th to move to Kinshasa. We decided to come on April 10th instead after a phone call from President Obama to President Kabila on March 30th and after positive news on April 2nd about the kids possibly coming home soon. After living here for 3 months during which no adopted children have been allowed to come home for the last 659 days (22 months), I thought about putting our Congolese son back in foster care at the end of the month and to move the rest of us back to Dallas so that our girls could start school. We have made so much progress in bonding with and raising our son, but taking him back to foster care would make it difficult for him to understand why we left him. Amy's mom has offered to come help Amy and the kids in Kinshasa so God answered our fervent prayers about what to do as this suspension continues on. We eagerly wait for exit letters from the Congolese government so that we can bring Daniel home to the USA to be a family of 6. Therefore, we will stretch further in response to DRC's unwillingness to release any of the remaining children (over 1,000) who they have already made the legally adopted children of families in America and several other countries for the past 1 or 2 years now. At this moment, canceling these adoptions would put children on the streets of Kinshasa since they cannot go back to orphanages. In the future, my family may be forced to consider going home without our son (but continuing to financially support him as we wait in Dallas) if Congo will not let him leave their country because eventually we may decide it is better for me, Amy, Ruth, Lucy, and Betty to be together in the United States where we love our church, jobs, and daughters' school. For now, we will do whatever we can to love all of our children to the best of our ability. We will continue to pray and seek out what God is calling us to do. God wants us to love despite the pain. He will be glorified, and the pain is worth it. Thank you for your continued prayers. In Christ, Andy, Amy, Ruth, Lucy, Betty, and Daniel