Part one of this interview with Alby Zander can be found here.

Could you tell us about the logistics that needed to take place before you actually went to Liberia to meet your new children?

A lot of paperwork!!!! Probably the hardest part in the whole process is dealing with the frustration of all the hoops the different agencies (mostly government) make adoptive families go through. This was made much more bearable by the adoptive agency as they walk you through each step.
I hope this isn’t too personal of a question. I understand international adoption is quite expensive. Had you been saving for a while to make this happen?

As stated earlier, this reality took time to deal with mentally but we reached a point that we knew God was leading us to take the step of faith and he would provide for this reality as well. We had not saved up specifically to adopt, however, we did need to dip all the way into our savings and get creative to meet the financial obligations. One of the ways God confirmed his plan was having friends and family commit to helping us with some of the initial financial needs and we were overwhelmed with people’s generosity.

So how did it all go down? Tell us what it was like going to Liberia to meet your new sons?

Wow! This is an important part of the story. Our paperwork for the boys was rejected by the Chicago INS office for reasons that were not going to be “fixed” on the Liberia end. Therefore, this opened up the opportunity for me to travel to Liberia to escort them home and have the paperwork be processed by the American embassy in Liberia. This was a HUGE blessing as I got to experience where our boys are coming from.

Most importantly, I was able to meet both their foster families and part of their birth families. The details I was able to learn about their lives is going to be huge in helping them develop a healthy identity. We have developed long term relationships with several key people in Liberia. I could go on forever on this one but to summarize, the people of Liberia overwhelmed me with their perseverance, hope, and faith. The country still has a long way to go after 14 years of civil war but their hope and faith is very evident as numerous individuals take on a lot to help restore what once was. For example, both of our boys stayed with foster families that are taking care of at least 6 kids, besides their biological kids, who lost their families in the war.

Finally, one of my fondest memories was meeting Benjamins birth family– We had to drive out a ways to his tribe and his mother has severe epilepsy and is very challenged physically and mentally. His great aunt, who was his primary care giver while he struggled for life, told me details of his early life and how hard she was praying for us before she knew us. The visit culminated with her and his great uncle, the patriarch of the family, praying a passionate prayer in their native tongue. Simply a surreal experience. It has been impossible not to know Gods hand in all of this because of experiences like this that are hard to explain in words.

Part 3 on Friday.