The Courts Family

Boyer Family Story

http://mynorthwest.com/11/2824086/Sammamish-mom-forced-to-move-to-Congo-to-be-with-her-sons

Sammamish mom forced to move to Congo to be with her sons
BY SARA LERNER, KIRO Radio Reporter | October 12, 2015 @ 9:24 am

For an agonizing three years, Jennefer and Jason Boyer had to resort to letters, phone calls, and Skype to communicate with their sons across the world in the Democratic Republic of Congo.

Adopted when they were 1 and 3, Luke and Andre are now 4 and 6 - and they're not allowed out of their home country.

About 1,300 families around the world, 400 of them American, have already adopted Congolese children and have the papers to prove it, but the DRC stopped issuing exit visas for them in 2013.

Eight months ago, everything changed for the Boyers of Sammamish, when Jennefer uprooted herself and left her husband and their 5 and 7-year-old daughters behind in order to be with their sons.

"We decided one of us had to move … If they couldn't come to us, then we would have to come to them," she explained from Kinshasa via Skype.

"I know that people don't understand adoption," she said. "But to us [adopted children] are every bit as real as a biological child."

And earlier this year, her youngest son Luke was very sick.

"If we hadn't taken him in, the doctor said he might not have made it," she said.

"He had less than half of the amount of blood he should in his body and that's when we realized he needed more care."

She said taking the boys out of foster care and providing them with nutritious meals, bottled water and lots of love was all it took to restore Luke back to health.

Now, she has to settle for Skype calls and biannual visits to see her husband and daughters. It's difficult, she said. And not having an end date makes it worse.

"The kids are missing their mother … and I wonder what effect that will have on them," she said. But that doesn't mean she'll come back — not yet.

"I'll not leave DRC without my boys," she said. "They've already lost a mother. They wouldn't understand me leaving."

Andre and Luke's mother died when they were babies. Boyer said if this goes on the whole family would have to move to the DRC - a country in turmoil. People die in political protests. Human rights groups charge government officials of corruption and crimes against citizens. She said she feels safe right now, but the political climate can change in a flash.

Boyer's concern for her son's health is grounded in data. Since the DRC stopped issuing exit visas, at least 25 adopted children have died of treatable disease while their legal parents clamored for help and pressed government officials, trying to get them out.

"It's an absolute outrage," said Kelly Dempsey, an attorney with the non-profit Both Ends Burning, which advocates for international adoption reform.

"Those families have not only been prevented from parenting their child in life but have had to coordinate the funerals for children after their death."

Dempsey said overcrowded and underfunded orphanages in Congo can't properly take care of the kids.

"They're dying from pretty simple stuff," she said. "Dehydration, Malaria, malnutrition: things that would have been entirely avoided had they been allowed to come home to their families.

"He's holding these children hostage," Dempsey said about the President of the Democratic of Congo, Joseph Kabila. "It's been a top priority for us in the U.S. to grow Democracy in that region in Africa and a free and fair Democratic election in Congo is very important to the United States," Dempsey continued.

She explained that's why there's speculation that Kabila is keeping the children to try to get the U.S. to back off of its insistence on a Democratic election.

"Right now, he's holding all the cards and getting their attention."

Throughout these long months, people like Jennefer and her husband have heard the word "soon" from government officials so many times that it's become a joke in this community of parents who've grown tight through the trauma. That's why the latest step from the U.S. Congress is helpful, but not exactly uplifting.

A new bill, approved by Congress, will ease their financial burden by waiving U.S. Visa renewal fees. While they wait, the Boyers have had to keep renewing their sons' visas every six months. Visas cost $325 per child.

"We're excited about [the bill] but at the same time we're hoping that that is a sign of Congress' commitment to us and is not something that will be checked off their list," Jennefer Boyer said.

She's afraid it means things won't keep progressing.

"That helps financially, but really this is about getting kids home. It's not about the money."

Dempsey describes parents like Jennefer Boyer as "battle-weary."

"It's hard for them to ride the wave at same level when they started," Dempsey said. "It's been … years and the whole time they're hearing ‘soon, soon,' They're all kind of numb."

The bill is sponsored by a number of legislators, including Washington Senators Murray and Cantwell and three Washington Representatives: Reichert, Delbene and Herrera-Beutler.

It passed Congress on Oct. 7 and is headed to President Obama's desk to be signed into law.


UPDATE

Family brings adopted sons home from Congo after 3-year delay
BY KARA KOSTANICH THURSDAY, NOVEMBER 12TH 2015

Jason and Jennefer Boyer began the adoption process in 2011 to adopt two orphaned boys from the Democratic Republic of Congo.

Thursday night the couple returned to SeaTac Airport with 6-year-old Andre and 4-year-old Luke.

"Just hearing the sounds of the kids playing in the house this morning was a dream come true," said Jennefer Boyer who is now the mother of four children.

The Boyer's have gone from being a family of four to become a family of six. They were matched with the orphaned boys in December 2012 when full adoption process was complete.

Trouble started when Congo's government wouldn't issue an exit letter for Andre and Luke or any other adopted children. A year and some months later, the boys were still stuck in the country and Luke feel deathly ill.

"What can we do for our children?" said Jennifer. "We can't protect them when we are living on the other side of the world. We realized that one of us had to stay (in Africa) and it made the most sense for it to be me."

The Boyer family made the decision that Jennefer would leave their young daughters 7-year-old Gaby and and 5-year-old Claire to care for the boys in the Congo until the government issued their exit letters.

"The separation was the hardest," said Jennifer Boyer.

After nine months of living in the Congo with the boys, the Boyers' became one of 69 adoptive families including 14 from the U.S. that were finally issued exit letters to leave the Congo.

Now, 1,500 adopted Congolese children are still waiting to join their new families in counties all over the world.

"It's a crack in the dam, we are hoping the dam is going break, then all 1,500 kids can get to where they are suppose to be," said Jason.

The boys homecoming is bittersweet for the Boyers who know so many other families are still waiting to bring their children home.

So they're making the most of every moment finally here at home.

"It's a happy ending and a new beginning," said Jennefer.

The U.S. State Department says out of the hundreds of families waiting for their adopted children, 440 are from the United States.


Miller Family Story

Posted: Friday, October 9, 2015 12:00 am

http://www.cdapress.com/news/local_news/article_010f111c-6e4f-11e5-942c-fb51776ee097.html#.VhfN3MchDdo.facebook

KEITH COUSINS/Staff Writer | 7 comments


COEUR d'ALENE — Whether it's bedtime or an illness, there is nothing more comforting to children than being embraced by a parent.
But providing that comfort is impossible for Coeur d'Alene residents Dave and Brooke Miller, whose 6-year-old son, Kado, is stuck in a foster home in Kinshasa, the capital city of Congo.
The Miller family is one of 400 in the United States, and more than 1,000 worldwide, attempting to bring their legally adopted children home from Congo. On Sept. 25, 2013, Congolese President Joseph Kabila banned all exit visas from the country for all adoptions on or before that date — leaving thousands of former orphans in limbo, continents away from loving arms.
"My son is 8,000 miles away and I can't reach through the screen and touch him," Dave said. "Kids just want that reassurance and want the last thing they see before they go to bed to be their parents. Knowing that, as a parent, I can't give that to him...that's not a very good feeling."
Adoption was always a part of the plan for the former high-school sweethearts. Brooke told The Press Thursday that, as soon as the couple began discussing marriage, they thought about having a couple biological children before adopting a couple more.
After having two daughters, the couple began looking into the adoption process without being too concerned whether it was a domestic or international one. Brooke said the $25,000 price tag required them to wait, until a girl from India she used to babysit contacted them and said she would like the Millers to adopt her son.
Cason, now 9, joined the family in 2006 and, after a few years and a surprise pregnancy that brought another daughter into the family, the Millers decided to look into international adoption.
"We had a few friends who had adopted," Brooke said. "What we learned is that a lot of them that don't get adopted end up dying. It's kind of not only adopting, but saving the life of a child as well."
Dave added that the couple knew they wanted to adopt a boy with darker skin so Cason could have a brother that looked similar to him in a predominately white region. They began their search in Ethiopia, but were taken to Congo when Brooke was browsing an adoption website in March of 2013.
"She sees these two little boys, both 3, and the first one was Kado," Dave said. "I called the number on the website at 10 p.m. and the next morning I had a call on my phone asking me if we were serious about it."
They communicated that they were, which was a relief to the woman on the other end of the conversation. She told the Millers that she had just returned from Congo, had even held Kado in her arms, and that the boy, who was found wandering a market with other orphans, needed a home.
"Adoptions were happening quickly then, only seven or eight months, and we were definitely thinking that everything would be done and he would be home by Christmas," Brooke said.
All the paperwork was completed and every document was in order that legally made Kado, Kado Miller. But then the Millers got word from the U.S. State Department about the ban.
"First they (the Congolese government) said it was because they don't believe in homosexuality or homosexual adoption," Dave said. "Then they said that people are coming and making the kids slaves or doing child porn with them. These are all excuses. You've got 1.5 million orphans in this city and they're dying."
Dave added that the family thought they would get Kado soon, a year at most according to the Congolese government, and decided he would travel to see his son for a week in January of 2014. Getting off the plane in Kinshasa, and seeing armed-military personal everywhere, was a culture shock, he said.
He was driven to a secure compound with 8-foot high walls, covered in razor wire at the top, with several other families. The next day, a small van arrived carrying Kado, and the other adopted children waiting to go home.
Kado was the first off the van and had never seen a white man before. Dave said the child was reluctant to hug him, and he did his best to maintain his composure despite the flood of emotions.
"Fifteen minutes later, there weren't any barriers," Dave said. "It was awesome. They had a pool there, and it was basically like playtime for a week. I realized that this is a kid who wants to be loved and I think he could genuinely tell that I love him and care for him."
During the trip Dave visited the orphanage Kado stayed in for three months before he was adopted and the Millers paid to place him in foster care. Leaving the capital city, driving on roads that Dave said looked as though they were plowed to cut through a city dump, and seeing the conditions at Calk Orphanage, left Dave stunned.
"I got in there and looked around and I had to leave and go to a corner," he said. "I was just sobbing because I didn't want my kid in this kind of environment for even five minutes."
Even though the ban was for a year, the adoption agency told the Millers that the Congolese government regularly made similar bans that were undone in a fraction of the time. So, when Dave left Kado to return to Coeur d'Alene, he promised the boy that "Papa is going to come back soon and take you on an airplane and we're going home."
However the ban wasn't lifted. In August, Brooke and Dave decided that they, and their oldest daughter Baylie, would go see Kado to prepare the boy for his transition to America. Seeing her son for the first time in person at the same compound was an emotional moment, Brooke said.
"They were telling him I was his mom and Baylie was his sister," she said. "He just gave us big hugs and seeing him and holding him just created an immediate bond. There was immediately love and tenderness there."
The family spent time reading books to Kado, snuggling, and learning what the boy liked to eat. Brooke said Kado formed a strong bond with his older sister along the way, and they were all hopeful they'd have him back in the Lake City the next month.
"When we had to leave, I told him Papa had to go on an airplane," Dave said through tears.
"He had learned enough English to say 'Kado go too?'" Brooke said.
The ban wasn't lifted, and it's been more than a year since the Millers have seen Kado in person. Baylie, who Brooke said Kado loved, has gained a lot of perspective on the world from the experience.
"They just had the best time and it's been such a hard year for her since that," Brooke said. "It's so hard to understand and explain to our kids that basically President Kabela has not said it's OK. That's literally what it boils down to."
A dozen adopted children have died while waiting to be allowed to go to their homes. The Millers, Brooke said, live day-to-day just trying to get through all of the emotions the distance brings.
"What does he think? Does he feel like he was rejected again? We finally started getting to Skype with him on an iPad they got at the home," Brooke said. "They figured out how to Skype all the families so that's been amazing. We show him our dog and cool toys he'll get to play with — he loves superheroes."
There's a new Congolese ambassador to the United States, Dave said, who recently was in America and said the issue would be resolved before the first of the year. Unfortunately, he added, it's a tune his family has heard before and there's a very real fear that new adoption laws, set to go into effect in Congo soon, will nullify the adoption documents.
"We have to also face the possibility that we could just be supporting our child for a long period of time over there," he added. "We're not giving up because he's our child."
The Millers encouraged residents to contact their national legislators and demand action for the 400 American families without their children. Words of encouragement and raising awareness are also appreciated, they added.
Proceeds from this Sunday's Hope 4.5K Run in Hayden will help the Millers, as well as another local family in a similar situation. Costs associated with Kado's adoption, and keeping the boy cared for at a foster home in Congo, have risen above $50,000 and the Millers said anything helps. For more information on the race, visit www.hope45k.com.


Strasbauch Family Story
To Congo, With Love: Send Us Your Lullabies
01/25/2016 12:34 pm ET

http://www.huffingtonpost.com/sabra-gertsch/to-congo-with-love-please_b_8948222.html

In the middle of the crisis, Krysta Strasbaugh sees the banana trees. Their flat, broad leaves flutter like flags of truce above the barbed wire over the protective wall. She watches them every evening from the front porch where she nestles head to toe with her son on a twin-sized mattress, her toddler daughter on the smaller bed next to her. She listens to Armand and Rose breathe in and out, in and out, as she watches the rise and fall of their bare bellies.

"You are my lullabies," she whispers. "A silent night indeed."

A cockroach twitches in their bed. Out there, beyond the cement rooms and the tall, steel gray gate of the orphanage, lies the sprawling capital of Democratic Republic of the Congo. Kinshasa. A rhythmic mass of 11 million people in burgeoning slums and high rises. Out there, the Kinois are quick to give a greeting and tell her what they need before selling her what they've got. And they've all got something.

"Bana no yo?" (Are they your children?) they ask. "You've taken those children!" they yell. They don't understand her, in the commotion out there.

Krysta marvels at them from the top step of the porch, Kinshasa's lights flickering different shapes and sizes. More lights than she's seen in months, in the sliver of twinkling city that hovers above the concrete barrier. It occurs to her she'd spent all that time at eye level with her small children.

She snuggles closer to Armand and Rose, cocooned in the mosquito net that hangs from the porch's ceiling and wraps under their mattresses on the floor. She swats the roach with her iPhone and then she prays.

This is limbo.

Krysta's husband, James, is 8,500 miles away in Seattle. To get there, to bring her family together, she waits for one signature. But Congo refuses to let its children go.

"It's at a critical point," Krysta says. "Children need to be with their families."

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The Strasbaughs were devastated when Congo finalized the adoption of Armand and Rose, and then informed them that the children couldn't leave. Neither could more than 1,000 other impoverished Congolese orphans, whose adoptive families were waiting for them around the world. The immigration minister wouldn't sign their exit papers. The central African nation brought a sudden stop to adopted children leaving the country, over concerns their new families may abuse or abandon them. The Congolese government later blamed allegedly falsified documents for the delay and told the U.S. State Department that corruption within Congo's adoption system needed reform.

"Okay. Fair enough. But then do something," Ambassador Susan Jacobs, U.S. State Department Special Advisor for Children's Issues, said in a recent telephone interview. "But don't punish children who aren't to blame and not let adoptions finalized by Congolese court go through."

In September of 2013, Congo's government informed the State Department the suspension would last up to one year while it considered a new adoption law. The issue devolved into diplomatic deadlock that dragged on for more than 2 years. Today, more than a thousand orphans remain stuck in the adoption pipeline.

"We have offered assistance," Jacobs says. "It makes no sense to us."

On January 19, Congo budged. The government rolled out new adoption legislation, saying every international adoption case had been reviewed. Every case. Adoptive parents, exhausted from dashed hope and outrage, whose cases were already approved by Congolese courts, want to believe their children are finally coming home.

"Parents are trying to temper their emotions, but you really can't contain this type of thing," Krysta says, as other adoptive families light up her phone. "Everything in us wants this to be it!"

The new adoption law goes to a vote in March. Adoptive families were informed that exit visas could be approved as early as the next few weeks. But until the government clarifies how many orphans will be allowed to leave the country, adoptive families remain at the mercy of a government that has not kept its word.

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Ben, Leseli, Elijah, Glodi, Titus, Josephine and Pal are children who will never meet their adoptive parents, according to Mama Bears on a Mission. The group of adoptive mothers worldwide believes they are among at least 26 Congolese orphans who died waiting for exit visas. Krysta has a picture of the most recent heartbreak, a toddler in a pink bowed blouse and hair in six curly braids, who the organization says died in December.

Joseph is the name Emma Clement-Wriede is fighting to keep off that list. Emma is a Mama Bear in the Middle East who, with her husband, adopted two children from Congo. Since the suspension was put in place, her son Joseph has been diagnosed with cerebral palsy and epilepsy. Doctors say even a mild case of Malaria, a rampant disease in Africa, could be fatal to the 3-year-old. The couple has specialists waiting for Joseph, and knows things would be different had he been with his family, receiving proper care over the past year.

"At times it's been more difficult than I can say," Emma says. I'm talking with her on Facebook. It's 1 p.m. on Thursday in Kuwait, another day Emma waits for Congo to approve the medical exit permits she requested 2 months ago for both Joseph and 4-year-old Evie-Grace. She's never met her children, but is determined to communicate with them as often as she can. "Those children are mine, and I am theirs. There is no ocean, mountain, or politician that will break a mother's love for her child."

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International law is in place to protect the best interests of children who, like Joseph and Evie-Grace, are being adopted across borders. Congo isn't party to the agreement.

"It's about all of the children." Ambassador Susan Jacobs says families in America are still waiting for 400 Congolese orphans. "We aren't giving up."

When Krysta and James were told to go back to Seattle without her kids, Krysta moved onto the front porch of Armand and Rose's foster home because the garage was being used as a kitchen.

"I just wanted to be with our kids," Krysta explains. "This was one thing we could control."

The foyer, 10-feet-wide by 20-feet-long, became her family's refuge. She stuffed towels into cracks to keep the cockroaches out, learned how to tuck the net snug and tight to keep Malaria-carrying mosquitoes at bay, draped a decorative scarf on the wall, and called it home. She was a sign-language interpreter in Seattle, but in Kinshasa she became a teacher to 40 children waiting for exit papers. Trading language lessons with the guards, she learned to speak Lingala fluently. She understood when orphans played with her skirt and asked, "Where's my mom?" and "When will my parents come from another place?" Mama Krysta, as they called her, didn't have answers. No one did.

Krysta teamed with Mama Bears on a Mission, other adoptive parents in Kinshasa and online, and with the advocacy group, Both Ends Burning, in an effort to shore up trust and move the process forward. In television interviews, petitions, blogs, tweets, and Facebook posts, the narrative remained firm and fused with love: let's work together to release the innocents.

"Many of us believed Congolese leadership wanted what's best for the children, that they were sincere in their efforts to protect them and put safeguards in place," Krysta says. "But as more time went by, it added to a layer of confusion. What is this about?"

The skepticism was mutual. The Kinois took pictures and questioned her at the bus stop when they saw Rose tied to Krysta's back in a liputa, the same way Congolese mothers carry their own children in rectangular pieces of patterned fabric. Establishing who she was, and why she was in Kinshasa, became a frequent and necessary conversation.

"Kitoko!" Beautiful, some said, and offered her a seat on a crowded bus. Sometimes the conversations led to friendship and prayers for her family, free transportation around town, a papaya on her doorstep, ice cream and nail polish on her birthday, and forgiveness for the steepness of her learning curve; speaking sentences in Lingala initially stumped her.

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Other times, heads turned away, shaking disapproval. Strangers, men lining paved roads in the center of town, spewed insults and animosity at her family. Her car couldn't dodge the words fast enough to keep Rose and Armand from hearing them through the cracked window. Krysta wanted to shield her children from the firestorm and to understand the misconceptions.

"It seemed hard for them to accept that a mother from the other side of the world could love an adopted child, especially the way they love a biological child," she says. "Why would a mother do that?"

She and James suffered when their adoption of a 12-year-old girl in China failed. They lost contact with the child, and never fully recovered. The Strasbaughs tried again. They asked Rainbow Kids, an international adoption network, to help them.

"We saw the picture of Armand, and that's all we needed," Krysta says.

Hours after the Strasbaughs sent in their adoption papers, Krysta learned that she was pregnant. She miscarried several weeks later, but emotionally settled on the idea of a family of four. She and James wanted Armand and his sibling to share race and heritage. Krysta was in Seattle, shopping for baby shoes, when she got the call about Rose. She remembers sitting on a bench and cupping the phone in her hand. On it was a picture of their 1-year-old daughter. Their new family seemed within reach.

But in Kinshasa, convincing Congolese leadership of her intentions, was a challenge.

"Love is what makes a family," Krysta says. "We want Congo to know that we love our children, and we love their home country immensely."

She brought Armand and Rose with her to the offices of politicians, whose names she won't divulge in exchange for their empathy and respect. Inevitably the conversation would pause when she needed to find a coloring book, provide a snack, or make a potty run. This time, diplomatic deadlock would do the waiting.

"You could see countenances change. It was real. I am a mom. My kids need me the same way their children need them," Krysta says of the politicians. "We saw each other, not just the layers of cross-cultural communication, systems, and red tape."

Krysta found allies in Congo's government. Politicians who supported adoptive families reassured her that messages of love and collaboration were helping to make the case for action.

Weeks went by. Months. A year.

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"Sometimes it feels like we're living a different iteration of the same day a million times," she wrote. Time was indifferent. Like the Congolese government, it stood by and watched while her children grew up on the front porch, and later in an apartment down the street. Rose's tiny halo of dark mahogany curls began to spiral sunward. And when she hugged Armand close one day, she realized he'd already grown another inch past her belly button. Her husband tried to mark the milestones with her through the computer screen. The kids blew kisses to James, "Papa," and their little dog, Sammy.

James works in Seattle as a project manager at World Vision. Their budget was already stretched, so the Strasbaughs spent just 10 days together in a year. Sending Papa back to Seattle alone, that goodbye, was painful for everyone. The looming wait, the unpredictability, became brutal over time. Other families had had enough. Some became so exasperated, they smuggled their children out of Congo, risking arrest and ultimately losing their kids.

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Congo had continued to quash adoptive families' hopes. The government canceled the opportunity to meet with adoptive families in Washington D.C., a welfare check on Congolese children living in the U.S. Adoption administrators granted some exit visas early on, but to only 62 orphans. They ignored the one-year suspension deadline and blocked any exceptions.

Desperate and divided over their support for hard line or citizen diplomacy, adoptive families became hopeful, again. Last spring, Congo opened the adoption files and began to consider the cases.

"Surrender All" was a hymn Krysta recognized. Music from a nearby church frequently floated over the foster home's wall. Krysta hummed along from the front porch, her emotional incubator, where joy and grief tugged at her. That's where she began to embrace the poetry of the place. Congo became her family's calm, their rocking chair. Back and forth, back and forth. Mama Feza was a regular visitor to the foster home. Her colorful skirt swayed with reassurance, rustling under her bright red shawl and the cassava leaves she carried on her head. On a good day, Mama Feza would slit and fry silver fish, and the kids would strip them of their tiniest bones. Back and forth, back and forth. The nannies swept with "kombos," brooms of bristles collected from the spines of fallen palm fronds and bundled by hollowed tomato paste cans. Scrub, wring, rinse, wring, hang, repeat. Krysta found rhythmic comfort in routine piles of laundry. On days when the home had water, she'd carry bucketfuls up the slanted yard to the steps and look for solace in the soapy bubbles. She'd bathe her children at night, in a corner of the yard where they used flashlights to play with their shadows on the wall.

"There is no place I'd rather be." Krysta wrote in a letter for her children to treasure. "Don't you ever believe them if you hear this was a sacrifice. I want you to remember Congo, not only in your minds but also in your hearts and bodies. Congo is a beautiful part of you, sweet child, and you are a magnificent part of it. Someday our family will live together in the U.S. And as amazing as together will be, please know you don't ever have to close the door on your beginning."

Krysta felt nauseous in the waiting room at the immigration office. She wasn't sure if was sickness or anxiety. Or both. The Congolese government had begun the review of adoption cases, as promised, but only 100 cases were considered and about 72 approved. It was such a small percentage. Krysta knew how many orphans were waiting, and her emotions were once again split between hurting and healing. Armand and Rose were among those going home.

"I just couldn't believe it all came down to one piece of paper!"

The office staff waved her out with a happy "Bon Voyage," and Krysta's driver congratulated her. She snapped a photo of the paper and sent it to her husband. He was just a few minutes away, past the plaza, over the small bridge, and left of the bread stand, at their apartment, waiting with the kids. She couldn't get there fast enough. She needed to arrange travel details and say goodbye to the many people who had helped her family. Overwhelmed with gratitude and disbelief, Krysta stopped packing to check the folder several times, making sure it was really there, the document that would deliver her family from limbo.

After they checked in at N'djil International Airport, James put his hand on Krysta's shoulder and held her close. They cleared security. All they had to do was walk their children to the gate and board the plane home.

"This is it?" James's voice cracked. No more separation. No more goodbyes.

When I first see Krysta, she's praying. There are small, sweaty hands holding balloon strings, and there are teardrops on cheeks. A mother's eyes closed, her husband's arm around her. Their children's eyes open, peering at the world around them. It's more space than they are accustomed to in this new place called home.

"Merci, Nzambe."

Krysta thanks God in the International Terminal at Sea-Tac Airport, suffused in the love of friends and family she's seeing for the first time in 21 months. Rose and Armand are 3 and 7 years old. They were released just in time to make the 22-hour journey to this Silent Night. Everyone is singing now. It's Christmas Eve and Grandma's house is waiting for them. "Nkoko," as the kids call her, kept all of her Christmas decorations up for an entire year, anticipating this homecoming.

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Krysta buckles her children into the backseat of their car before they leave the airport's parking garage. James, her strength, is by her side. Tomorrow is Christmas. There is a walk in the dog park with Sammy, a stop for frozen yogurt, and a visit to the Space Needle in the days ahead. They are home, and together, at last.

But out there, beyond continents and oceans, diplomatic deadlock, permits and promises, are spears of long grass still streaming against Congo's midnight blue sky. Out there, a thousand children are languishing in limbo under the banana trees, breathing in and out, Congo's precious lullabies.

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Photo credits: Strasbaugh Family and Asa Mathat