2015: Anguish, separation and ultimately jubilation for Sammamish family

For one Sammamish family, 2015 was full of anguish, separation and fear. But it ended with jubilation when Jennefer and Jason Boyer were able to bring their two adopted sons home from the Democratic Republic of Congo after a three-year wait.

I first met Jennefer Boyer and 4-year-old Luke and 6-year-old Andre on Skype in October.

They spoke to me from Kinshasa – Jennefer made the excruciatingly difficult decision to move to Congo to be with them. It meant she had to leave her 5- and 7-year-old daughters at home.

She felt she had no other choice because 4-year-old Luke could have died.

“If we hadn’t taken him in, the doctor said he may not have made it,” she said. “He had less than half the amount of blood than he should have in his body. That’s when we realized he needed more care than he was getting.”

More than 1,000 kids are already legally adopted to international families, about 400 to American families. But Congo stopped issuing exit visas for them two years ago. It was a period of intense and painful emotional roller coasters for the Boyers.

But just one month after our Skype call, nine months after Jennefer moved to Kinshasa, it finally happened. A return.

Outside an exit gate at Sea-Tac airport, welcome balloons and screaming friends and relatives greeted Jennefer and her sons. They finally made it home. Congo let about 70 children go and Luke and Andre were on the list.

And now the family is complete, together in Sammamish. “There are still so many times that just driving down the road or walking down the hall in my house … that I think, ‘I can’t believe I’m home,” Jennefer says. “Because there were times that I wondered, ‘Will I ever be back? When will this end? Is this the right decision?”

Jennefer and her husband Jason’s house is a lot noisier. And the transition doesn’t come without serious adjustments for everyone. The boys have a history of trauma.

“They’ve lost multiple caregivers, because their mother passed away, they had a grandmother that then sent them to orphanages,” she says. “They’ve had multiple stages of caregivers which causes trauma each time and so they have trouble trusting.”

So they learned survival skills.

“… not becoming attached, fighting for themselves, trying to get as much food as they can- that type of thing. We are now trying to teach them family skills which are very different and they’re coming along, but Andre, especially, he has tantrums.”

But he’s already improved dramatically. When Jennefer first moved to Kinshasa, he had a tantrum every day, which Jennefer says is common for internationally adopted children. Now it’s a once a month.

Now, the boys go to a French immersion school with their sisters and they love it. They play basketball, they ride their new bikes &#8211 a gift from Santa.

The Boyers sent a particularly special Christmas card out this year. All four kids together and it reads, “Rejoice: from our newly completed family to yours.” But Jennefer and Jason have become close friends with other parents whose adopted kids are also stuck in Congo. Jennefer hesitated before she sent the Christmas card, with her boys right here in Washington.

“We expected them home three years ago for Christmas. This year, we weren’t hanging ornaments on the tree wondering when they would join us. They were here to see those ornaments,” she says. “So we were obviously overjoyed that they were here with us for Christmas but it was also heartbreaking to have all of our friends still separated from their children.”

There’s no crystal clear reason why Congo won’t let the kids go. Officials in the DRC say it has to do with trusting the adoption laws but these kids were already legally adopted. It already happened.

Jennefer would like to see President Obama call President Kabila about the adopted kids. She’d like to see Secretary of State John Kerry visit Congo and talk about it.

She is somewhat hopeful because there’s a delegation to the Congo in January. Maybe that will be the final big moment when the kids can finally come home.