I know it has been a while but that is because since my last update, nothing has really happened. The only thing we really did do was garden and save money. Since we were relying on our agency to make the next move we couldn't exactly do anything to make progress.
As you may remember, a while back, we lost our US agency due to the adoption law change in Japan. The law basically states that Japanese couples and families get priority over international residents. Which is fine, but that just means that it makes things difficult for us. We have to stay in Japan for however long that will take. We cannot leave Japan until 2 years after we finalized the adoption with a child. It's scary, and we are taking a huge gamble by choosing to do it this way, but the way I see it is that we are already far too invested into the adoption process in Japan to just quit at this point and start from square one if and when we move back to the US. Doing the process after we have moved back home, after we have found jobs, and after we have found a place to live is taking too much time and money. It would take us a year if not more to save up again for the agency fees and homestudy fees and by that point we may as well not even try. Staying in Japan during this process is our best option. The scariest part of it all actually has nothing to do with the adoption. It has everything to do with visas. I recently got my visa renewed and it made me nervous the entire time. There were issues with getting it approved and I was so afraid they were going to deny my application. Thankfully, they accepted it and I was approved to stay in Japan. Being denied a visa scares me more than adopting a child in Japan. I keep fearing that I won't be approved to stay in Japan and something terrible will happen where we will have to leave without our child. That is horrible to think about but that is the fear I have. It's interesting that today I was reading a devotional about "fear" but all the verses were on anxiety and worrying about what others think of you, not exactly fear. I couldn't pay attention much to it this morning because it doesn't apply to me. I don't care what other people think about me or if others approve of my life choices. So reading those verses on not worrying about what others think of you was pointless and fell on deaf ears. It's not that I am actively afraid of this possibility happening, it is just something I think about from time to time. I am the type of person who will make a 5 year plan every 3 months or so with 1-3 different directions just incase, and with this one, there is only one option. It is out of my comfort zone but I know that God has it under control. We were finally informed of when our homestudy will take place. It took long enough to hear from them. They had a lot of documents to varify and to translate, but they don't like to communicate very often. This is something I find interesting. In the US, they over communicate. What I mean is that US companies will email you almost everyday and in some cases multiple times a day demanding responses for things that will not take place for a while. With our US agency they made it seem like if we didn't deliver certain documents timely they would drop us, when really they were just wanting to remind us, as if we are the type of people who readily forget things. Those emails always make me anxious and angry. Sometimes I will deliberately ignore them on purpose because what they say is urgent, isn't exactly urgent at all. Then we have Japan. Japanese are such laid back people. They are the kings of procrastination. You could actually need an answer within the next 24 hours, and they will wait until hour 23 and 59 minutes before they respond to you. It is maddening. Is there not a culture that meets in the middle?? Bottom line, US gives too much information and Japan gives too little. Our homestudy is scheduled for Friday, August 24th. It will be quite expensive too. They are always expensive. I am not allowed to disclose the full amount of the homestudy so I can only give you the ballpark range and it is around $4000. We also need to reimburse them for their travels. Hopefully, they don't take the shinkansen. That is just too much money, but I have a feeling that they will take it. Oh well. Our aparment complex is being painted this summer, and they are taking their sweet time with that too! Normally Japanese construction is so quick, it's over before it started. Our landlords must have hired the laziest people because they are a month behind schedule. It's ridiculous. I would hope that the painting would be finished by the time we have our homestudy, but with them moving at US construction worker pace, I highly doubt that. I am pretty sure we are going to have to yell to speak to each other because they workers are drilling something. What they are drilling I have no idea, but it certainly isn't what they are supposed to be doing. I am a little frustrated with the painters if you couldn't tell. Mostly because of my garden. My neighbor seems to believe that it is his responsibility to water and care for my plants without asking me. I hope he doesn't spontaneously take my vegetables. I have been working hard to grow them. Since the painters have started working, I have needed to move my plants. Originally they were going to move them onto the scafolding. I asked if I could water them and access them still because they are vegetable plants, and they said no. I couldn't bring them inside because there would be no sun with the scafolding put up. They had to be put outside. My landlords were kind enough to build me a little location to put all my pots. I set them all up outside and have been watering them and giving them fertilizer (on a schedule I might add) regularly. My neighbor saw me putting all my plants up and just gave me some plants to keep. Like, literally gave me some random plants. I guess that small gesture gave him the right to water and fertilize my plants. The only problem was, he never ever asked me if he could do that, nor did he make sure I wasn't already feeding my plants. I almost lost my cucumbers because he was over feeding them. Their leaves were turning yellow and shriveling up. I finally put up a sign that says in both English and Japanese to not water them and leave them be. He finally stopped. I let the plants dry outsome and remade my fertilizer schedule and they are doing fine now. A few days ago, we bought a new tomato plant and I transplanted my strawberry runners. I gave everything a deep watering, then we spent the day in Nagano ice skating. Now, that day we had record highs and that is why we gave everything a deep watering. I also rearranged plants so that they were not in direct sunlight all day unless they required that. So everything should have been fine. But then we came home, and my pots were all wet. Only the new ones were wet, like the new tomato plant and the strawberry runners. I was furious! What gave that person the right to believe they could just do as they pleased with my garden? I would totally be fine if the guy asked me if he could help care for my garden because he's retired and gardening is his hobby. I would have been 100% ok with it then. But to do voluntarily care for my plants without asking or leaving a note of some kind pisses me off. That is so rude. Who would do that??? So I had to make a new sign and post them AGAIN saying not to water my plants. The strawberry parent plants aren't looking so good right now and I think it was a combination of extreme heat, and lack of proper nutrients. I am a novis so figuring out what picky strawberry plants need has been difficult. I am getting new leaves that look healthy so I am guessing I have done something right. Anyway, I plan to make a gardening in Japan post someday but maybe after this season so I have some info to actually share. I have been taking pictures. So I will be ready. That is all I have to say now. The only thing I can really say is that this homestudy will be August 24th. Hopefully, I will have more news for you soon! Click here if you would like to read more about our story or make a donation.
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AuthorJeny B Archives
August 2021
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