SHE IS OURS!!

We heard on Monday that our daughter had finally made it through court and she is legally ours! Yippee! Our friends in Mekelle took her by car to Addis and sent us a couple photos from the trip, and said she is really easy to get along with...this was a nice thing to hear 2 weeks before becoming her full time mama. I have spent the week packing, finalizing travel plans, and feeling quite giddy as we make preparations to bring this new one home. Two days ago I heard that she was enjoying her new care home in Addis because they have lots of clothes. Great...all girl! I can handle that! I have been busy the past few days painting her dresser so she has a place for her "own" clothes. Apparently this will be important! I leave one week from today. A simply amazing thing has been seeing the gifts of money and encouragement coming in for my trip. I am blessed to be travelling over with one tiny bit of clothes for she and I, and two large duffels filled with cameras, voice recorders, laptops, software, clothes, audio books, braille books, items for friends who need things, etc. I am thrilled to get to be a pack mule for these projects. I am nearly giddy thinking about that first morning, Monday Feb 4th when I get to pick up my daughter in Addis and know that she is staying with me from that point forward. I wonder if she will be scared, or happy, or tearful, or just as excited about going to a new place. I'm preparing her backpack this week with coloring books and a journal for her to keep during our time there, and fun little surprises to make her smile. I hope I can blog from Addis or Mekelle, but if I remember right, it took 20 minutes to open up this site, so maybe not. Countdown to Eyerusalem...8 days! :)

LYDIA'S WISHES

I was busily rushing through a stack of Lydia's backpack papers...you know the huge piles that they bring home on weekends or in this situation, it was during her Christmas break. She had loads and loads of worksheets and coloring sheets, and as I sorted them into the save stack or trash can, I came across a litle star that said, "Lydia's Wishes" on the front. It was a booklet, so I turned the page and the first one said, "This year I wish for a doll for Christmas" ("check" I thought to myself, remembering the American Girl doll her Nana had given her just two weeks earlier). Turned to the second page, "This year I wish for my family to have a good life" (oh, how sweet, I thought, relishing in how thoughtful my 7 year old daughter was becoming). Turned to the final page, labeled, #3, which read, "This year, I wish for Ethiopian orphans to get homes." TEARS FLOWING, CAN'T HOLD BACK. Now I am really relishing the little lady this usually spunky, on-the-edge little gal is becoming. It made all that I have done for the past 8 months setting up aspects of this program worth it, in one little 2nd grade project page. How I wish I could make it come true, but of course, I cannot come close to the reality of the need: over 4 million orphans, in a country that is usually the sixth poorest country on the most lenient polls and the 2nd poorest on most. When we started this venture, we knew we couldn' begin to make a dent in the problem, and yet we also sensed that God was calling us to do what we could with what He put in front of us...one orphan at a time, one life at a time. I looked again at her wish: she didn't wish for ALL of them to have homes, just some. At year's end, we have 5 families committed to bringing home 8 children ranging in age from 2 to 13. One of these children is severely disabled from a train accident. The HIV positive child mentioned in an earlier blog engry also has a family, who is waiting for their court date to go bring her home to America where she will have a future and a hope. We are praying for our last sibling group from our care home, (see blog entry "Her name means Dignity") ages 5 and 11, to find a home so that I don't have to tell all but them that they have forever families in the US during my upcoming trip. I hope you will join me in praying for these families who are in process. I hope that other little children, like my Lydia, are wishing for orphans to have homes. I know that the children are wishing the same thing, in a different language, thousands of miles away, who are missing their parents and longing for a place to call "home". Many times Lydia wishes for things that I don't want to grant...another piece of candy, more time to watch TV, a trip to go sledding one more time in freezing weather. I am thankful that I found this wish, tucked away in her backpack and waiting to be discovered. I am praying that in small ways, one child at a time, we see this wish come true this year.

HOW MANY CHILDREN PRAY FOR THOSE WITH HIV?

Last night our family was eating dinner and since it is the second Sunday of Advent, we had lit the candle and were sharing some things to pray over before we left the table. I shared a few concerns of sick friends at church, and praying for our agency's registration, and our youngest shared about a child in his class who is sick, another shared about a child with a cold, and then our 9 yr old Cailyn shared, "I want to pray for the people who have HIV, who maybe its real hard because it's really hard to cure it or even there isn't a cure. Because that is really hard to deal with at the holidays." My heart swelled with pride and also sadness. The pride was in my daughter, and really all of our children who have learned and grown so much in the last year. What an amazing privilege to have seen what we've seen this past year. The sadness was over those very people she wanted to pray for...alone, scared, many who are fearing for their children and what will become of them. My thoughts went to our new daughter Yeru, whose mother passed just last April at the age of 27. So young, so full of hope for her daughter. I pray that she is able to see her outcome, see her get into our home, and that I will raise her in a way that will honor the mama who gave her life. Yes, Cailyn, let's pray for those people, the ones with HIV, the ones who may have lost hope. And thank you, Jesus, for opening our eyes to the many ways you are working in this world, not just in the lives of our sick friends at school, but in the lives of the terminally ill on the other side of the world. What a great prayer that was out of our sweet daughter's lips.

COURT DATE!!

We just learned from our partnering agency that Eyerusalem has a court date assigned for January 9th! This means if she clears court, I should be able to travel by the end of January to check on our other programs and pick up our new daughter. I am very excited, and also hopeful that God will open other doors for our ministry in Ethiopia while I am there. Thank you for all of your prayers on her behalf and on behalf of our ministry!

PREPARING FOR TRAVEL

We are still waiting on Eyerusalem's court date, but it should be within the month, so I will most likely travel in mid-January. As I begin to thinka about returning to Ethiopia, my heart skips a beat and my kids get so envious! They are already moaning about the foods I get to eat without them. I have sorted some donations of braille books and the rest of the Braille Bible I will take with me, and already I am almost to the baggage limit for one person! Ooops! Praying God will allow us to have some special waivers to take all that I am dreaming of for our kids. I hope to take each of our 34 blind students an mp3 voice recorder for their lectures, a couple of laptops with screen reader software for their resource room, and of course, I have to take something for all our friends! Anyone want to go with me to help me carry it all? It's been amazing as we talk with the kids about preparing our hearts for our Yeru (her nickname). We know this won't be easy, and she will have more adjustments as far as her schooling, adjusting to being the middle of five children, etc. Isn't it amazing how you see God grow your faith when you are doing what seems to make no sense from an outside perspective (or sometimes even from an inside one) and yet you have immeasurable peace in the process? God is good. He will hold our hands through this, just as He did during our last year. Thank you Lord for being our steady anchor that we can cling to when we know the wind is picking up....

WAITING FOR EYERUSALEM...

It's been awhile since I posted, but I guess that is no surprise considering I am completely swamped trying to keep up with life in the rat race...yikes! We are finally feeling like Americans again...sometimes we like this, and other times I am just dying to get back to our Ethiopia and take it all in slowly and in sips rather than gulps.

Our big news is that we decided to proceed with the adoption of our 5th child...an almost 9 year old daughter that we met just before we left Ethiopia. We are processing this adoption through our agency with the partnership of another licensed agency in Ethiopia, and we were Dossier to Ethiopia about the 5th of October. We are almost ready to open up a court case, which means once they assign a court date and she clears court, she is officially OURS! We are excited to embark on this exciting adventure of welcoming an older child into our family. She will become our middle child, and we are trusting that God will give us just what we need to handle the transition. She is living in the care home our organization is funding in Mekelle along with several other older children who also need loving families. We are praying that by the end of the year, all the kids will have families who are chasing paperwork to bring them home!

We'll keep you posted!

Pam

Safely Home

We arrived home on Tuesday, July 17 in the afternoon, after several long hours of sitting on airplanes and running through airports with all our bags and trying not to lose any of our children. For those of you who were wondering, NO, we didn't bring any extras home...just the same 4 we went to Ethiopia with. Leaving Mekelle was bittersweet. Of course we were looking forward to seeing friends and family. Our kids (unfortunately) already had a list of the foods they wanted to eat when they got home. But saying goodbye to our dear blind students as they reached out for us and hugged us and spoke blessings on us was really gut-wrenching. Saying goodbye to our houseworkers, knowing that there were no good job alternatives in sight and they really needed the salaries we'd been paying, was tough. And saying goodbye at the airport to our NGO partner's director, Getatchew, our dear friend Laura, an HIV outreach worker, and Steve's dean and boss, Dr. Gebrehiwot, were all really tearful. We were all undone, and it wasn't the same sadness as when we left America. When we left America, we knew that we would all be back (Lord Willing) and we knew that everyone would be okay while we were gone. They would eat, they would be healthy or at least have access to medical care, most of them would keep their jobs and their world was relatively stable. When we left Mekelle, we knew to what we were leaving them. Our wonderful, warm, slow-paced Mekelle was a great place to have spent a year. But for many of those we left behind, they were facing poverty, joblessness, sickness with no access to medical care, spiritual poverty for some (great richness for others!), and other hardships for which we had left no answers. Tough stuff.

Being home now for two weeks has been good and also tough. Today, for example, we are greatly missing the Mekelle weather...80 and no humidity, about 50 at night. The muggy summer days of Kansas are quite an adjustment. We have been blessed to see family and friends and be back at our home church, and that has been a treat. Still....I sometimes feel like a deer in the headlights when I'm in those crowds and having to talk to lots of folks. IT's overwhelming, and frankly, I don't always know what to say when asked about our year. "Amazing" is my best answer so far...and I just leave it at that. We struggle with not being judgemental or viewing everything around us as shallow and superficial. It isn't...but after some of the stuff we've seen this past year, life here seems so easy at first glance. We have friends here with REAL problems and hard situations, so we know that pain and suffering is not limited to only the less developed parts fo the world. Right now we are still trying to sort through the lessons that God really wants us take with us from our last year. It may take awhile.

One friend asked, "Top 3 things that are hard about being back in America...what do you see?" I said, The Pace (everyone is in a hurry, all the time, and doesnt want to slow down or doesnt know how); The Weather (I already mentioned this contrast); and Too Many Choices (too many options, at the grocery store, in deciding what to do with your time, etc). One great quote that has stuck with me as I tried to keep up with the Pace of US life was a week ago when we were heading to our neighbor's pool to swim with friends. When they got here, sodas in hand indicating they had picked up fast food, I realized, "oh yeah...I have to feed my kids...I have to feed them NOW...it is 1pm and we are going swimming!" (still getting used to not having our houseworker around to have lunch on the table at 1:00 every day, hot and ready!) I started through the kitchen in a flurry of activity, making sandwiches, barking out orders, yelling for what folks wanted on their sandwiches, etc. I announced to Curtis, age 10, "well Curtis...looks like we're back to life in the U.S., huh?" He said, "Yep...Welcome to the U.S.A....where you prepare for nothing, but DO EVERYTHING!" I was shocked, asked him where he heard it and he said he had just thought of it. Brilliant.

Another priceless moment was when we ventured to SuperWalmart Center for the first time on Friday. I was really afraid, knowing the level of stimulation in that store and fearing the effect it would have on us. But we needed a booster seat (new law went into effect) and other things and this was our best one-stop-shop. We walked in and all of our mouths fell open. I announced for everyone to look straight ahead, don't turn to the right or the left, and head for the car seat baby section. On the way, we were of course overcome by the large selection of movie candy in boxes for 88cents (who can resist that?), popsicles in superhero shapes, and then finally, we reached the booster seats. We bought the most basic one we could find, then on the way back, we had to walk by the toy section. Precious Curtis (maybe he really did learn something this last year?) said, "okay guys...I think maybe we better just come back here when we're a little bit more American....because don't you think mom, that we're still pretty Ethiopian and this is just WAY too much stuff to look at?" I agreed and we all headed for the checkout. It was a great moment, and another reminder that despite all of our wanderings over the past 13 months and our wonderings of where we belong....there is really only ONE HOME to which we should cling. Praying your clinging tightly that the right one, as we're seeking to do ourselves. More later.

Pam