Home, Court Date #2, and Wrestling

We're home! We arrived home on Tuesday evening after an exhausting, but uneventful trip home. While we were all a bit sad to leave Ethiopia, we were glad to be home. I missed iced tea, salads, hot baths, and my bed. :) It felt good to come home and enjoy them all!

Now, though, I am missing something much more important....my kids. It was hard to leave them on the last day, and now that we are home it's hard to have them on a different continent. Our next court date is this Tuesday (January 4), and we would appreciate your prayers that our MOWA letter will be there so we can pass court!! The next step after that is for all of our paperwork to be submitted to the US Embassy and be assigned an embassy appointment...that is when we go get our kids!

I am currently sitting in that hard place of having just come home and seen some hard things with my own eyes. I felt the same way when we came home from Ethiopia the first time....and I know many others have experienced this after mission trips. It's hard to know exactly what to do with how I feel....I have seen children who need families - I have hugged them, spent time with them, and watched my kids interact with them. I have this overwhelming desire to make people aware - to make people want to take action and be part of the solution for them....to impart urgency on others so they will act. I want others to realize that these kids are real. However, I know that the risk in attempting this is to sound preachy, righteous, or judgmental, and that is not my heart - it does not bring glory to God, or move others to action (that is His job anyway). In the end, it does not help these kids. So, I wrestle. I will pray that God will use our story in His own way to move others and I will keep my eyes on my own journey.

Once we pass court, I will be able to publicly share pictures of our new kids - hopefully next week! We'll be sure to keep you posted as soon as we know anything!