a piece of rwanda

there was 1 thing i knew i wanted to bring home with us from rwanda.

an authentic outfit for their kids to wear from their birth country?
gifts - even 1 for each birthday until they turn 18?
all cool ideas, just not right for us.

none of those were "us." i'm too practical and those things didn't feel right for us.

plus. all they knew of rwanda was that orphanage. those concrete walls and floors and high gates. we most likely saw more of their country in the 3 weeks we were there than they had in their lives up to that point!


but we DO have memories and pictures of us and almost all of their siblings THERE in rwanda meeting them, fighting for them, playing with them, loving them.


but i did want to bring a piece of their home back with us.

and i did.

it was the last day we went to the orphanage. we went to let lincoln and levi say goodbye to the nuns at Home of Hope. and we went to tell them "thank you" for taking care of our boys and giving them the love that they did.

as we got in the van to leave, i asked our POA to tell our driver (he didn't speak a word of english-so we couldn't really talk to him) to stop when we got outside of the blue gates so i could hop out. i wanted some of the dirt from that road. some of the dirt where our boys spent most of their lives until we met them. inside the blue gates was mostly concrete. nothing to take away. but right outside the gates?

remember...

the blue gates are between those 2 wood poles on the right side of the picture... (that's a crack in the windshield of the van we were riding in :-))

right there.
right outside those blue gates, i hopped out of the van with a little plastic container in my hand.

i bent down to scoop up the dirt. but it was so HARD. i scraped and scraped. with all my might. i got lots of pebbles. but also some dirt.

it has sat in that container inside of a ziploc baggie for 4 months.

i finally bought a set of salt and pepper shakers at walmart of $.98. not because it wasn't worth something more extravagant, it just wasn't necessary.

as i took the container out of the bag. and opened it up, i almost couldn't breathe.
this was a BIG deal. all we have from the place we met them.

i let rebekah help me.

and i placed them up HIGH on a shelf in their room.
i sat and thought for a WHILE what to write on the tag. nothing seemed quite right. i still might change it - the words will probably come to me at 2 am one night - that's when i get my clearest thoughts :-)

but this works for now.

one for each of them.
as i look at that shelf, it's so special - the shelf made by ali when i had rebekah, the cars that decorated the christmas presents for lincoln and levi from my mom this past christmas as we waited expectantly for news of who they were, the sign rebekah put on their bed as we prepared to go bring them home, and the monitor that we use to watch all their "fun" behavior :-)