Counting my Blessings.....

Jesus and his sacrifice for me, my wonderful husband, three great kids, my parents, my siblings, family, friends, church family and the freedom to worship, God's grace, peace, days at home with my family, dinners spent together, home, music, our school, health, purposeful employment, God's calling to Ethiopia, our child there and their family, lazy summer days, girlfriends and good conversation, chocolate, sunsets, walks on the beach, education, opportunities to serve, the kids in my class at school, godly co-workers and their friendships, a warm sweater on cold days, hot baths and hot cocoa, fires in the fireplace, cool fall days and the changing of the leaves, snow days, the freshness of spring, holidays to gather together, my Wednesday night Bible study, beauty of all God has created, His promises, my marriage, cookies, good smelling candles, cell phones, hearing my kids laugh and watching them grow, forgiveness and God's faithfulness......just to name a few.

Happy Thanksgiving!

Wondering What You Can Do To Help?

Traveling Families

This week is an exciting week as several families will be traveling to pick up their new little ones in Ethiopia! I only have blogs for a few of them, but if you'd like to check in on their journey next week, here they are:

Armstrongs
Gambles
Juvinalls
VanWettens
Pridemores

(Note: The Juvinalls are from Normal, Illinois for those of you who live close to us. The VanWettens just traveled a couple of weeks ago to get their 1 yr old daughter and are now going back for their older daughter!)

Enjoy!

Disappointing News

Today we got some disappointing news about our possible wait time. It may be longer. :(

We had been expecting that we might get a referral in May and travel sometime in July. While that is not completely out of the question, it is looking less likely that that will happen. Referral times have slowed down as of late. Let me see if I can explain it to you.....

Ethiopian courts close for 2 months from August - October. Families must pass court before they are able to go and get their children and bring them home. If they are not able to get court dates due to court closure, the transition home they send the kids to once they are referred stays full (because people aren't able to travel to go pick up their children). As long as the transition home is full, they cannot move any more children there to prepare them (paperwork, physicals,etc.) to refer to new families. So, there is a slow down in referrals. In a nutshell, this is what has happened. So, we are looking at a longer wait time because of this slow down.
Normally, this wouldn't be that big of a deal, except for the timing for us. It is likely that we may receive a referral too late to receive a court date before courts close next August, which means we would not travel until this time next year. Yikes!

Our agency is making some changes in the program and we are hopeful that this might help, but no one really knows.

Am I disappointed? Of course. Do I wish it were sooner? Yes.
Heres the thing: I have zero control. Nada. Zip. Zero. What are you going to do?
There really is no hurry except I want to know our baby - I want to hold them and have them here. I can't wait for that day. Until that day I'll just have to trust that it's all in God's timing....He'll work out the details and the day will in fact come!

Ways to Pray

Lately, several people have asked me about where we are in our adoption and how they can pray for us (I LOVE that question!). So, being ever so grateful that people want to pray for us, I have compiled a list of things that we would appreciate prayer for:

• For our baby's health (probably in utero....?) and for proper nutrition and provision for all it needs for healthy development
• For our baby's birth parents. I cannot imagine being in their shoes and wonder often what it is they are going through.....do they know they will have to give their baby up, are they living in extreme poverty, are they sick, will the mother die in childbirth? Adoption is a wonderful thing, but unfortunately it always begins with a loss.
• For peace and patience as we wait and anticipate the many changes that will be yet to come for our family.
• Financial provision for this adoption. God is so good, and so far we have always had the money we needed when the next payment came due. We are fully expecting that He will continue to take care of us in this way!
• That we will enjoy these last months as a family of five and not wish our time away!
• Lastly, pray for the orphans of this world and how God might use all of us to care for them.
  

As for the other question of where we are, the answer is: WAITING
We will not hear anything else or really have any new news until next spring - probably May at the earliest.
Thanks for your prayers - Have a great week!

One Month Down!

It has been one month today since we were officially DTE!! One down, six (+ or -) to go until we receive our referral!

Ethiopian Food!

Our family went today to try our first taste of Ethiopian food. I am both happy and relieved to report that we liked it - all of us! I was a bit nervous because I am not all that adventurous with my food tastes, especially with spicy food, but it was great. We tried different dishes with beef, chicken and lamb. Yum!

Ethiopian food is served on a sour flat bread called injera. You use the injera to grab or soak up the stews, meats and vegetables. Some of it is quite spicy, but we told them we were first-timers and I think they went a bit easy on us! It was a lot of fun to experience this little piece of the culture. There were some other Ethiopian men in there eating at the same time, so it was fun to try to listen as they spoke to one another in Amharic (one of the main languages in
Ethiopia). We told our server (I think also the owner?) that we would be traveling to Ethiopia, hopefully next summer. He said, "Oh, you must be getting a baby!" I told him that we were and he replied, "Well, I hope you'll get more than one!" We left promising to be back someday with the newest member of our family!