Family Picture

ebb & flow

Our family is going through the first year ebb & flow of being attached, of jiving, of loving, and of living in peace. At times it is hard, harder than I thought it would be. We are not attached yet - it is a process. To be honest I have been so maxed out that I have been drained. I have six amazing kids that graciously forgive me when I blow it. I’m sorry goes a long way at our house. We always have hope - we know that Christ is always with us, God is sovereign, and that all things work together for our good.

Update on the kids - Temesgen is in kindergarten for the first two hours of the day and first grade for the rest of the day, he loves it! He is wrestling and doing great, he has gotten first in every tournament that he has been in. Tesfanesh is doing dance and cute as can be! She helps me babysit during the day, but loves to have friends over to play and go to friends house. Rochelle is having a great senior year and trying to figure out what college to go to. Harrison’s year is going great, he is busy with sports, and hanging with friends. Emily is in middle school and her favorite thing is hanging out with friends - this year is her favorite year in m.s.. Hudson is in fourth grade and has had fun with friends, brother, and activities.

Reflections

Our journey has not been typical in most ways - our time at home has gone fast and yet it seems like we have been home a year. Our two newest members have had to be strong and independent - it has served them well.

Temesgen loves school and doing great there. He loves being around the kids and comes home excited about his day.

Tesfanesh is learning so fast and enjoys being home with me for the most part (she doesn’t like naps very well). Her favorite things include going to shirts house (shopko) and to injera’s house (Ethiopian restaurants).

My older kids are adjusting well & I am very proud of them and how well they are doing.

Moments

We have moments…

It is so good to be home - we have moments of joy, hilarity, discovery, grief, pain, anger and everything in between.

I don’t think we can even remember what life was like before these two amazing kids came into our hearts. We are so blessed!

Our plan on coming home was that I would home school Temesgen for the first year home. As he acquired more English he said during a struggle to do school “Mommy, no kids, no school!”. So, this week he started school going longer each day. He loves school - that is so great!

That is about all for now - Emily is home sick today and I am on call.

Whirlwind

First of all I would like to thank M, L, & J – there is no way we could be here if I hadn’t had your help.

Where to start… when we passed court we got a tentative travel date of August 12. It was the perfect date for our family; the kids would miss some of the camp activities for school and the first three days of school, it was before harvest for Paul and well, I didn’t have anything to do. We found out there could be a problem with the date about three weeks ago. We were missing one document and the kids had to have clear TB tests. Up until Monday those things weren’t in. We got a call on Monday saying that we needed to cancel our flight and our new travel date would be September 10^th. It seemed as though God was closing the door on our perfect date in spite of the many prayers lifted up on our behalf. M and I planned on being out of the house doing a little therapeutic shopping on Tuesday. That morning we got a call asking if we could travel tomorrow (Wednesday Aug 12^th). My response was “are you serious?” So, I jumped on the phone and called Elsa at Addistravel – she (by a miracle) got us tickets. Our family and friends were busy scurrying around getting us ready to go and by 10 pm the vehicle was all packed and we were pretty much ready to go.

We got to the airport for our 3 o’clock flight at noon, checked in and grabbed some lunch. Sometime between noon and 1:45 our flight was cancelled. We were at the ticket counter for the next four hours waiting for something to be worked out. The ticket agent rebooked our tickets several times (note to you – if this ever happens to you ask to speak to a supervisor) through many different connections; Amsterdam, London, Paris, Nairobi just to name a few. Finally at seven Wednesday night we got on a plane and left for DC. We arrived at Reagan airport and took a shuttle to Dulles where we checked for our bags. The luggage agent said that they should be coming or that there were there, so we waited for two hours. The next agent that came in for her shift took one look at the computer and said they had been sent on. We got our hotel voucher and meal voucher (that didn’t cover the full cost) and headed off to the hotel. We flopped into bed and Rochelle says to me “Mom, there are ants all over the night stand”. I looked and sure enough there were little creatures crawling all over, I called Paul and yep, theirs too. We agreed that at that point we were too tired to care and rolled over and went to sleep. We got up and got to Dulles at 7 for our 10 o’clock flight. Good thing we didn’t take the advice of the luggage agent and arrive 45 minutes prior. It took the staff two and a half hours to correct our tickets. Finally we are off. The only person to get airsick – me, otherwise our flight was flawless. We arrived in Addis Ababa at 10 on Friday morning and the altitude hit us like a ton of bricks. We hopped in the CHS bus and we were off. We were not prepared for the realities of poverty. A boy came up to the bus and wanted to sell us Kleenex, I gave him a burr and the bus took off and we left him behind. He came to the other side of the bus and Paul thought he was handing him the Kleenex, so he took it.  The boy wanted more money the boy hopped in the back of a pickup and chased down the bus and pulled us over – Paul handed him back the Kleenex and another burr and the boy had some very interesting American words to say to us. There were many other sights and sounds that shook us during our drive. We went straight to the care center to meet the kids, and at this point I don’t have words for how wonderful it was. They are beautiful, sweet, loving children and we are so blessed. The guest house is wonderful and we are traveling with some amazing families. This is the trip so far… an amazing journey. (p.s. M- you will want to bring some Vicks until your nose gets adjusted, I am so glad I did)

Day 2

We went to the Care Center and brought balloons and toys and a purse full of necklaces and a soccer ball.  All the kids loved the balloons and had fun hitting them around and blowing them up and making noises.  Tesfanesh loved her necklaces and put all of them on, but of course shared them with the rest of us.  Temesgen loved his soccer ball and played almost the whole time with it, using it as a volleyball also.  It was so much fun to play with all of the kids there, and we had a blast!  We got so many hugs and kisses, not just from our kids, but from others at the care center as well. 

We went shopping in the afternoon, and there were so many people!  There were begging children and adults, asking us for money or for just food.  There were people selling things on the streets, such as maps, belts, and gum.  We were able to barter there and in the shops as well.  The shops had wooden carvings of animals and traditional clothing and jewelry and instruments.  We noticed that all the people are outside during the day, not many inside.  There are little shops on every street, mostly made out of metal.  Clothing shops and beauty salons and all other kinds were lined up next to each other most of them were spaces of 8×8.  We also noticed that most of the scaffolding for building buildings are just large sticks..  They would have these 5 story buildings with stick scaffolding.  It didn’t look very supportive, but it must’ve been since it was used everywhere and you could see people just perched on it.  After the market where we could barter, we went to a nicer shop that sold silver and traditional Ethiopian figurines and clothing.  We got traditional outfits for our kids there.  While we were there, some other Americans came to check it out.  When we were almost done and most of us were on the bus, there was this angry man who had just bought some silver, yelling and making a scene about how it wasn’t real.  He said he’d bought silver all over the world and it doesn’t tarnish and that just did.  He came out to our bus and yelled, “The silver they’re selling isn’t real! It’s not real!”  I felt so sorry for those women in the shop that had to deal with them, and he was making a very bad impression on other Americans. 

The night is full of noises and new smells – I am very thankful for Vics otherwise I wouldn’t be able to sleep.

Day 3

We got up with the sunrise this morning in order to leave for Hosanna by 6.  This is the most amazing trip – really too much for words! If I would have stayed much longer I would have stayed forever! I am amazed at the children for the city – we had to walk about ¼ of a mile to use the bathroom. We got all kinds of giggles and hugs and stares from the many children. Rochelle gave her scarf to one of the girls and she just beamed.  Most of this story I will just treasure in my heart for the rest of my life – there just isn’t words!

Home!

We are well.

We are in the US.

We will post when we have rested.

Praise God!

Sooo much!!!!

I dream of them and us every night…

When I waking up I think I can hear their voices and laughter down the hall….

not yet.

How can you love someone so much before you lay eyes on them?

We hope to hear today if we get to travel in 14 days. Oh, how we pray and hope - it is out of our hands. We know that one day soon we will all be together - WE WILL REJOICE!!!!

We sooo much want to be together. We know that God is in the details, if leaving on the 12th it will be so perfect for our family. If not the next possible travel date is the 10th of Sept.

We want this sooo much!

Please ducks get in a row!!!

We want to soar like eagles very soon!!!!!

This post will be little bits of updates of our family!

We only had one child at home for most of the week - Rochelle was the only one home, that probably won’t happen again! However, we made the most of it by going on a college visit at St. Olaf (I went in very skeptical - how could any other college com pair to NWC?!?) I have to admit I was very impressed! A friend went with us on our adventure (it ended up being more of an adventure than we had planned on with my many wrong turns!) - then it was on to the real excitement of the day. RETAIL THERAPY!!! We went to IKEA and Albertville and had the best time! (Okay, maybe not the best, but we found some great deals. The down side to the adventure is that M may never ride with me again with my added wrong turns between the two shopping havens!) :p There is one outfit that stands above all of the others - if you see little miss T skipping around in a pink tutu and stripped tights you will know that is the one I am talking about.

The best news of that day came at the end when we got home - we got a copy of our birth certificates. My sweet little ones look so forlorn though

Wednesday we received our tentative travel date - the one thing that is holding us up is that some of our paperwork that the state has to process isn’t where it needs to go - we are praying that all of the details work out. I am continually amazed at how God works out the details! If it works out for our family to travel on the dates that we were given our kids would only miss three days of school and have the weekend to recover. One of the biggest blessings of this time table is that Paul would not miss any harvest time and that our kids would only have a couple of days to make up of work.

When talking to our specialist today I found out that T & T received our gift bags on June 17th! How exciting for me to know that they have been getting familiar with our faces for over a month now! Oh, how we can’t wait to meet face to face!!! Tomorrow I am going to pick up some big pictures that I had made to go on the wall - I am looking forward to seeing them up soon! (I’m sure I can talk M into helping with that

God willing we could be traveling in 20 days (a little sooner possibly) - please pray that we have peace to know that God is in the details, He is sovereign and in control (we don’t have to be), and that we would find comfort in knowing that He works all things out for our good.

Where we are at now

We are waiting again. We passed court on July 3rd and we are waiting for our children’s birth certificates. Once we receive the birth certificates we will be issued a travel date. We are excited to bring our children home and we are wishing this part of the process would go faster. We felt like we were waiting before, but now we know that this will happen soon, so our anticipation is growing quickly.

The drawers are full of cloths and the beds are made and we are ready for kids!

Blessings to you, and thanks for your prayers.

Petition

http://www.gopetition.com/petitions/face-act-of-2009.html

Please read the following or follow the link for more information, and sign if you feel led. THANKS!

The intercountry adoption process is a long, tedious process for American citizens seeking to adopt a foreign born child. Paperwork includes home studies, finger printing and criminal checks. The process can take up to three years to complete. At the completion of the adoption, the child must be approved for a U.S. immigrant visa in order to enter the U.S. and gain citizenship. The immigrant visa is required despite the fact that the “immigrant” is the child of a U.S. citizen. The U.S. is one of the few developed countries in the world that requires internationally adopted children of citizens to immigrate in order to join their new families.

Most countries recognize internationally adopted children as citizens upon the finalization of their adoption. The Foreign Adopted Children Equality Act (FACE Act) would recognize that internationally adopted children deserve to be treated as children of American citizens and accord to the same citizenship process as children born aboard to American citizens.

Under the FACE Act, Adoptive parents would apply for a U.S. passport and Consular Report of Birth instead of a visa. The documents provide adoptive parents with immediate proof of citizenship for their adopted child and they remedy this gap in the rights of U.S. citizenship.