We got to Maxfield early Friday morning to have one on one time with Bevaughn before going to the school for the presentation. The presentation was at the Basic School at 10:00. The guest speakers were two women from a government office there to do a lesson on Jamaican culture. We learned about a dance called the Dinki Mini that people do after someone dies. We also learned about an instrument called the Banta that is played in the “dead yard”. Mark and I also learned a song called “Hold em Joe” when the entire class sang, and danced, and played instruments. There is an amazing little boy named Daniel that really knows how to play the drum. It was VERY impressive. Bevaughn was very well behaved through the presentation and even participated at the board. Omar wanted to lay across my lap the entire time and get loved on. I encouraged him to raise his hand and volunteer to play the shakers and he did. He is SO cute! I am really praying for Lance and Cindy to be able to adopt Omar and sister. Lance and Cindy live in Wisconsin and it would be so great to meet up with them so that Bevaughn and Omar could spend some time together. After the presentation, we spent time with Bevaughn on the playground, blowing bubbles and looking at books. We walked around and sang “Hold em Joe” and held hands. He said “Momma bike, Momma two cars (actually it sounds more like cyaar)” When Mark would stop to play with the other children he would yell “Daddy come!” We are so attached to him and he seems to very attached to us. He is such a well behaved and loving boy. And I know that I have said it before, but he is the greatest gift that we have ever been given. Leaving him Friday night was just about the hardest thing that I have ever had to do in my life. We hung our first family picture above his crib and cried the whole way out of the building. As we stood outside hugging and crying, a woman came out and talked to us. She told us that Bevaughn has come such a long way since he was a baby and that she and the others all love him very much and that he will be taken care of while we are gone. She also thanked us for loving Jamaica and for coming. She and the other ladies always seemed so shocked every time we would ask them if we could help with anything. They really seemed to appreciate every bit of help that we were able to give. We tried to explain to Bevaughn that we would be back for him as soon as possible and that we love him very much. I’m just not sure how much he understands. I know that he has good care takers that will continue to explain to him that we are coming back. I miss him so much!!!!!!!!!!!!!!
We left our hotel Saturday morning at 8:00 to head to the airport. We both cried on and off that morning. We flew out of Kingston at about 11:30 after a fuel pump issue. We landed at JFK, had just an hour layover before we flew to Detroit. We landed in Detroit around 9:00 and then began our drive home. We ended up getting home around 1:30. Too much travel for one day! We ended up sleeping until 1:00 today :)
I can’t believe that we both go back to work tomorrow! What a trip it was. Kingston was far more than I ever expected. The people are amazing and spending the week at Maxfield has forever changed my life. I got up this afternoon and immediately starting going through the house looking for things that we can donate to them. Every time we get back from Jamaica, I look around and think “Man we just have WAY too much stuff!” It’s time to get pushy as far as the adoption goes and time to figure out what we can do to help the other children at Maxfield as well. We’ll just take it one day at a time and pray for God’s help and direction.
Because it takes SO long to upload pictures and video to Blogspot, we are just going to upload the album and videos to my facebook.
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