Lazzara Life

**Update, we will not be adopting from Amani Baby Cottage after all.  We were still hoping for Uganda, but after much prayer, we are changing direction.  We are sticking with Africa, but have decided to pursue Ethiopia.  They have a very well established program that will suit our family much better.  We love Uganda and will travel there for missions work, but at this time, we are not pursuing Uganda for adoption.  Please keep us in your prayers as God guides us through our adoption journey!!

As most of you know, Rich & I are in the baby stages of adoption!  If you didn’t know before, now you do…  We are hoping for a baby boy from Africa in the next 12-24 months.

Rich & I have talked about adoption since we got married.  We knew we wanted to adopt one day, but we were sort of waiting for the best time.  We were so busy with Haley & Lorin when they were first born, another child wasn’t even on our radar…  4 years later we welcomed Avery.   About 2 years ago, God started stirring my heart for another child.   Our lives got busy and time had passed, then God started stirring again, this time with Rich.  Last spring after a mission trip to Brazil, Rich came home and told me that God had layed it on his heart to now start praying about another child.  We knew adoption was the route that we were going, but we had not done any research on it.  After many hours, days online researching, several trips to the library & bookstores reading everything we could get our hands on, we knew we wanted to adopt internationally.  We learned about many different countries & their requirements for adoption and quickly began crossing off the ones we did not fit with.  We have several friends at church who have just adopted or are in the process, so after speaking to several different families, and learning more and more, we were pointed (through many different avenues) to Amani Baby Cottage, an orphanage in Jinja, Uganda.  Rich and I had the amazing opportunity to go on a mission trip to Uganda this summer.  We already had all of our information regarding our trip in place, Visas, Passports, travel shots, plane tickets and money sent in BEFORE we learned about Amani Baby Cottage.  God had orchestrated everything so beautifully, that we were able to visit Amani while on our trip…  Our hotel was 10 minutes away.  After our visit we knew for certain that this is the place that God would have us adopt from.  (Here are a few pix of me with the babies from our trip  )

We are hoping to send off our application to Amani Baby cottage by the end of next week & start this amazing journey.  So it is our prayer that you, family and friends will join us in the celebration of our newest family member!

With adoption, there are great costs.  We have estimated that it will cost us approximately $30,000 to bring our son home.  We are planning fund raisers through out our journey & will keep you posted as we plan for each one.  If you would like to make a donation, please do so by clicking the  ”Donations” tab at the top of our page.

Thank you so much for your love & support,
~Melissa & Rich

Part 1

Part 2

Haley and Lorin celebrated thier 9th birthday. Notice the H on the cake as the candles are burning.

When Melissa and I visited the ABC orphanage the second time we witnessed an unusual site.  As we were walking up one of the ladies (mama’s) was holding a tiny baby and talking on the cellphone.  She quickly dropped her cellphone, handed the baby to another lady and started screaming.  She gathered her stuff and ran down the road.  Melissa and I never knew exactly what had happened until we recently came across this post from another lady at the orphanage.

“Quick little prayer request! Last Saturday, mama Katie’s little boy was electrocuted by a fence the neighbors had put up to keep thieves out….ohh Uganda! The little two year old boy died instantly. Mama Katie works with the newborns in baby A here at Amani and she still hasn’t returned from work. Mama Katie adopted her little boy from Amani not to long ago but I cant imagine how hard it will be once she returns to see 58 little children the same age as him running around playing. It’s not like America where we can take all the time off we need to get over things like this. Please pray that God will comfort her while she is still mourning her son. When odd things happen like this its hard not to question what God was thinking…but He has a purpose for everything and good will come soon enough.”

**UPDATE!!  There is a couple from Nashville who have applied and been approved to adopt Bobby!!!  He will have his very own family very soon.  God is SO GOOD!

I took this picture of Bobby when Melissa and I were at Amani Baby Cottage.  Melissa recently found a blog post from one of the ladies at the orphanage, where it talks about Bobby having Aids.  At the time we did not know this about Bobby.  This is type of stuff that is very hard for me to mentally process. It breaks my heart.

” Bobby is five and is now in preschool. He wants to know everyone’s name and loves meeting strangers. He is kind to his friends and always smiles. Bobby has aids…and is old enough to know it. He is also old enough to realize that while his 4 best friends get adopted to families in Nashville, he will remain at the cottage until it’s time to move to another orphanage and will probably never have a family of his own.“

My Journal entries for Uganda Mission July 16-28, 2009

On the plane ride from Tampa to Detroit, I was reading a book called “Do Hard Things”. It’s written by twin teenage boys regarding the low expectations put on today’s teenagers. I found many of their entries encouraging, as they had to do with going out of your comfort zone, something I was on my way to do. As most of my friends and family know, I am a giver. I will do anything for anyone, no questions asked. But when God layed it on my heart to go to Uganda, I was excited, yet very intimidated by the things I might encounter. I knew I would have to do a lot of things out of my comfort zone and these were people who needed my help most. I’m a creature of habit, I don’t like change. Change makes me nervous. My life was about to change forever.
God works through our weaknesses to accomplish HIS Big Plans… Obey God even when you’re afraid… If I allow fear to keep me from doing hard things, I will miss out on the most exciting adventure life offers- obeying God.
Traveling Thursday & Friday, July 16 & 17, 2009
Ephesians 4:1-6
“As a prisoner for the Lord, then, I urge you to live a life worthy of the calling you have received. Be completely humble and gentle; be patient, bearing with one another in love. Make every effort to keep the unity of the Spirit through the bond of peace. There is one body and one Spirit—just as you were called to one hope when you were called— one Lord, one faith, one baptism; one God and Father of all, who is over all and through all and in all.”
11 am, Mike & Jennifer picked us up to go to the airport
11:30 am, arrive at TIA
3:30 pm, depart for Detroit
7:10 pm, depart for Amsterdam flight is 8 hours, we had really bad turbulence on the way in & I got really sick, puked twice. Becky gave me some Dramamine for the next flight…
Amsterdam to Entebbe is another 8 hours, thank goodness for TV on the plane. I watched a lot of movies! We were fed really often on this last flight, 2 meals and about 3 snacks. I had no idea that Dramamine would knock me out, but it was awesome, I got about 4 hours of sleep! We landed in Entebbe, Uganda 8 pm local time, we are 7 hours ahead of home, and so it was 1 pm Tampa time. We loaded up the buses & truck with all of our luggage and supplies, and then headed to Jinja. It was a 2 ½-3-hour drive into Jinja, but it was nice to be off the plane and the weather was great. It was very cool outside, very dusty, lots of people in the streets, motorcycles, bikes, cars, trucks and buses. We had a few police stops along the way, but it was a nice ride in. We finally arrived at our hotel, Hotel Paradise on the Nile. The Nile is approximately 100 yards out in our back yard. The staff is very nice. Lots of guards (with guns), I feel very safe. We had a very nice welcome reception with fruit & pizza. We then got our room assignments, luggage and went to our room. The room is cute. No AC, but there is a fan, mosquito net over the bed, the bed is hard, not a real mattress, it’s just hard foam. The bathroom is okay; we have a toilet, small shower stall & sink. It’s roomy. Now it’s time for bed! 7pm Tampa time, 2am Uganda time. I took some medicine to help me sleep and changed my watch to Uganda time. Tomorrow we have breakfast between 7 & 10 am, and then leave at 10 for Ms. Agnes’ orphanage to paint.

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