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Back to School, Back to Jinja

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On the way home from Jinja on Sunday, Joline, the kids, and I stopped for the once-per-semester Visitation Day at Henry’s school.  The program started at 9:00 a.m., but Henry advised us to come at 11:00.  Good thing he did because the parents’ gathering in the main auditorium went until 2:00 p.m.  As does virtually everything in Uganda, it started late (an hour).  After sitting through three hours of speeches and audience reactions, we were able to sit and talk with Henry.  (During one of the speeches, Joline went for a walk and ran into Henry’s physics teacher and had a good chat with him).

Henry is doing quite well and enjoying his classes.  Our dear friend Amy Batchelor has been following Henry’s plight since it began and had given Henry his first backpack when he started at the Restore Leadership Academy two years ago.  After Henry was admitted to this new school, Amy sent Henry a note – “New School means New Backpack.”  Amy arranged for us to get him one with all the bells and whistles, and then had us stuff it with treats.  He was thrilled. “Please tell her I am loving her,” he said with a characteristically big smile.

I will confess to not hearing God’s voice audibly, and too often I struggle to ascertain his will for me.  Yet I am beginning to discern a call I didn’t expect to get and am not quite sure how to respond.  It seems as if everywhere I turn in Uganda, I encounter American families in the process of trying to navigate the legal guardianship/adoption process.  I have no background or experience in this area, and this is not an area on which I intended to focus during my six months here.  I am thinking, however, that this is one of the surprises God has for me here.

Last November, I came to Uganda with Bob Goff for Henry’s graduation from his “O” levels.  The night we arrived in Kampala, Bob informed me that he was having an early breakfast with a couple who had encountered some difficulty with their legal guardianship proceedings, and he invited me to join them.  Characteristically, I chose sleep over meeting strangers with a legal problem I knew nothing about.  God had other plans.  I woke up earlier than I had hoped and couldn’t fall back asleep so I wandered down to the restaurant.  It was then that I met Sara and Andy Ribbens.  Hearing their story and seeing the desperation in their eyes “had me at hello.”  Over time, it became clear that the key players (on the Ugandan side) in this arena were all friends of mine from prior their visits to Pepperdine (several of them before they were appointed to their current posts).

Since then, the “coincidences” have piled up so much that I cannot help but see God’s hand moving me in the direction of getting further involved.  This is a very complicated and emotional issue.  There are lots of challenges, problems, and seemingly corrupt people involved in the international adoption process.  But there are also lots of children desperate for the care and protection of a loving family, and lots of families desperate to shower these children with love and care.  Time will tell how this all plays out, but for now, I am trying to discern God’s leading and trying to faithfully respond.  There are two cases I am currently trying to assist with, and the opportunities to help keep presenting themselves.

Today, I traveled to Jinja to visit an adult prison with some judges and had my eyes further opened to the opportunities to provide access to justice for those so desperately in need of it.  The judges with whom I work are committed to finding a way to expedite the trials, which will open the door to the next initiative I will be pushing them to adopt.  I hope to have more to report on this in a few weeks.

But while in Jinja, I had the opportunity to spend a few minutes holding one of the babies I am trying to help unite with the American family who has been granted legal guardianship over her.  Unfortunately, the US Embassy has issued a letter notifying the family of its intent to deny the visa.  The frustrating thing is that the Embassy is only doing its job by applying the visa laws as they are written.  The challenge stems from the underdeveloped nature of Uganda’s mental health laws which are making it a challenge to get the right ruling from the court – the child’s mother has been mentally incompetent since she was a child and has never even attempted to care for the child.  There is no father in the picture because mother cannot even communicate enough to explain the circumstances of conception, though rape is suspected.

So, please pray that I can be useful in this area, and please pray for the families who are hanging in limbo right now, especially for the children hoping to have a family.

I am looking forward to Bob’s return visit to Uganda this weekend, and to Hero’s triumphant return home to Uganda after five months of getting rebuilt in the US.  If you don’t know who Hero is or why he needed to get rebuilt, click here.

New Order

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As I indicated in my previous post, Friday was an intense and suspenseful day.  Fortunately, it ended well.  As I have written about previously, the Ugandan court of appeals issued a landmark decision about ten days ago that affirms the power of the Family Division of the High Court to grant legal guardianship to non-citizens of Uganda over orphaned or abandoned Ugandan children.  This is important because Ugandan law does not permit non-Ugandan citizens to adopt Ugandan children unless the non-Ugandans have foster parented the child for at least three years in Uganda.

There had developed a split among High Court judges as to whether a grant of legal guardianship was permissible under Ugandan law because such a grant allows the child to immigrate with the family who was granted a legal guardianship over the child to a foreign country and then be adopted in that country, which effectively gets around the adoption preclusion.  The couple about whom I have been posting, Andy and Sara Ribbens, had been denied legal guardianship of an abandoned Ugandan baby based upon jurisdictional concerns of the High Court judge who had decided their case.

Ten days ago, the court of appeals granted the Ribbens legal guardianship of the young girl (Nya) and granted them permission to immigrate to the United States with her.  That gave rise to a huge celebration, as indicated in my prior post, and Sara’s post.  Unfortunately, the celebration was short-lived.  When we received a copy of the 26-page ruling a few days later, we discovered that it contained a provision that explicitly stated that if the Ribbens wanted to adopt the child, such adoption would have to occur in Uganda.  This mandate, in and of itself, was not a problem.  Adopting Nya in Uganda would be perfectly fine.  In fact, the Ribbens would have been thrilled to adopt Nya in Uganda.  But they are precluded from doing so for two more years (they have been here nearly a year).  The bigger problem, however, is the United States’ requirements for obtaining a visa to allow the Ribbens to bring Nya into the United States.

There are essentially two possible visas available for parents bringing children from other countries into the United States.  One type (IR-3) allows for a visa to be issued after the child is adopted in the child’s home country.  This is not available for Uganda unless the parents are willing to live three years in Uganda with the child.  The other type (IR-4) allows for a visa to be issued after the would-be parents are given legal guardianship over the child and permission to immigrate the child to the United States, so long as they are not precluded from adopting the child in the United States.  Herein lies the problem.  Because the court of appeals decision mandated that Nya be adopted in Uganda, the US Embassy was not empowered under its guidelines to issue a visa.

As you might imagine, it was heartbreaking when we learned that the court’s ruling, which was clearly and unmistakably intended to permit the Ribbens to take Nya to the United States and allow her to grow up as part of the Ribbens’ family, had exactly the opposite effect.

Lots of prayer and lots of strategizing ultimately resulted in a flurry of activity on Friday, including the fastest appellate brief I have ever written.  Late Friday afternoon, the Ribbens’ Ugandan lawyer was permitted to make a brief argument in chambers to the court of appeals (they allowed me to sit in and watch silently) seeking a revised ruling from the court that would omit the language that precluded the issuance of the visa by the US Embassy.  After deliberating, the court announced that it was granting the motion for reconsideration so that the purpose of its prior ruling could be fulfilled.  More tears.  There was a special moment when Sara and Nya (and the other family directly affected by this turn of events) were permitted to personally thank the court.

We are now praying that the final stages of the process will go smoothly this week with the US Embassy so that the Ribbens family can travel back to the United States.