Meeting Asher

On Wednesday, March 6th, our driver drove us about 6 hours to Jinja which is where Asher's babies home is located. It was such a long drive that we decided we should wait until the next day to go and meet him. So we checked into the Arise Africa Guesthouse and had dinner at a restaurant within walking distance called "2 Friends". I later found out that we were only about 5 houses away from Katie Davis (author of "Kisses From Katie")! Wish I would have known that sooner! The girls were dying to meet her! :-/

So Thursday morning we woke up excited to meet our little guy. It was a little surreal that it was actually happening. I remember the day we were matched with him like it was yesterday. It was November 3rd, 2012 and we were on our annual vacation in Branson with all of Steve's family. I had a feeling it was going to be that weekend that we would receive notice of a referral so I woke up that morning and checked my e-mail "just in case". And what do you know, there were these pictures sent to us of a little guy waiting for a forever family...

Ah those eyes. That face. He was so tiny.

I was later sent these pics...

Be still my heart.

So the day was finally here to meet Asher (known as "Muhamad Twinomugisha" at the time. One day the name "Asher" came to me and I looked it up and it means "joyful" and "happy" in Hebrew so that name just kind of stuck. Steve chose his middle name to be "James" after James 1:27. And we are keeping "Twinomugisha" as his 3rd name because it signifies the tribe he is from and also means "a blessing from God".)

When we first pulled in to the babies home, all the little kids ran up to our car and greeted us with hugs and kisses. So very sweet. And then we saw him. We didn't want him to freak out at the sight of 4 Muzungos attacking him with kisses so we kept our distance at first. But then we gradually starting talking with him and before long we were all taking turns holding him. It was love at first site. He wasn't wearing a diaper, only a shirt, so I got peed on four times during that visit - lol. Someone said later that he was "marking his territory". ;-)

Here's pics from our visit that day...

Here are pics of his room at the babies home and his crib. It was so neat to see all the beds in person because our girls and their friends helped to buy nine of them. They are part of a ministry called "Girly Me Missions" where they make and sell crafts and the money they make goes back to orphan care ministries in Uganda. They actually won a contest back in October and made enough $ to buy 9 cribs for the home. You can read about that here. Pretty ironic since they didn't know at the time they were actually buying a bed for their future brother ;-)

Poor little guy was so solemn and straight-faced that day. But even from the very beginning, when he was sitting in my lap and another child would walk up and want to be held, he said "Mine!" ;-)  We spent several hours with him and he eventually fell asleep in my arms. I waited as long as I had to then laid him down in his crib and we left for the day. We were told later that when he woke up he was looking for us and crying because we weren't there. And from then on he wanted nothing else to do with the aunties that were taking care of him so we thought it would be best if he stayed with us the next day.

The next day we visited him at the home again for a few hours...

Abby made lots of instant friends ;-)

After we knew Asher felt comfortable staying with us, we were given temporary custody. It was still a long road ahead until he was "officially" ours but in our minds he already was. And here's a last pic from our 2nd day with him taken at our guesthouse. Finally got a smile ;-)  Yep, he's ours and we are his.