Luke’s birthday was Sunday. Like any kid, he was excited from the moment he woke up until when he finally fell alseep, long after he was supposed to be sleeping. After the Sunday school & the worship service in the morning, he chose ClickNet as the place for lunch and ordered his favorite item–pizza.
After the mandatory rest time (”but, I don’t need to rest!” “Yes, but we do!”), four of his friends arrived for the party. Are all 6- and 7-year-old boys so easy to entertain? Just let them loose with some toy cars, feed them some cake, and let them run around. Our friend Brenda Naatz and her son Jacob helped us with some outdoor games.
As we enter Luke’s eighth year there are two main challenges. First, working on his adoption. Current Nigerian law does not allow international adoptions at all, but we are hopeful that an amendment to that law will be passed this year. For now, we’re in a kind of limbo very similar to what was described on a recent NPR report about an American woman, Maisha Strozier, trying to adopt here. Unlike Ms. Strozier, we do not even have temporary custody and that’s the step we’re working on now.
The second challenge is school. Luke has really enjoyed his two years of kindergarten and needs to move on. Choices of schools are very limited. The cooperative mission school, Hillcrest, is where most MKs attend. It runs on the American system and in many ways would be the best choice but we’re not sure Luke will pass their first grade “entrance exam” or be able to handle the competitive academics of that school. Still, that’s our current first choice and we’ll see what happens in the next few weeks as he’s tested and we discuss with his teachers.