The Harberts

Just to let everyone know – we made it home last Friday night at 7:00 pm.  On Saturday, Marvella was so exhausted she was sick (thank you Marlene and Ang for helping us out that day!).  I was also messed up with the jet lag – in fact Britta and I were up at 6:00 am on Sunday eating egg rolls and sticky rice(thanks Feldkamps they were good!) for breakfast.  We made it to the 11:00 service at church.  Aysha made it through two songs before she pooped from her socks to her shoulders – of course we didn’t bring a change of clothing for just one hour at church.  So off to home and back to church we went!

We had a Dr. appoint.  for a check-up for the twins on Monday.  Both of them are healthy.  Aysha weighed 13 lbs. and was 23 inches long and Ahbea weighed 12 lbs. 13 ozs. and was 25 inches long.

We are working on adjusting their sleep schedule but so far I’ve been going to bed @ 7:00 pm and getting up @ midnight while Marvella takes the shift until midnight – it seems to be working great!

These two are such a blessing to us!  Thank you all for your prayers and support!  Thank you, Lennis

Hello everyone–this is Keshia i only have a few minutes to write because we just got electricity back but I am suppose to tell everyone that we are about to leave for the airport!!  I think we leave around 10 and we fly to Sudan then to Amsterdam (should take like 8 hours) where we have a 4 hour layover.  From there we will fly to Minneapolis   The time of arrival into Minneapolis is around 1 I think–please pray that all our flights go well and we don’t have any problems getting home–thanks!!  well we’re about to leave so we’ll see you when we get home!! -Keshia

Last night i didn’t sleep very well.. chelsea kept hoggin all the blankets.. ): so i got up this morning at 7 (even though nothing really important was going on today) but i got up.. and walked down to mom and keshia’s room where the twins were.. I got down there, mom and dad were feeding them.  Keshia was up to i was like “what time is it?”  But we were all up when Aysha went number 2.. you could tell because she smells up the whole room when mom changed her diaper she tooted.. and we had to change her diaper 3 times (: haha.. Ahbea is a lil kicker.. he jumps and squeaks (: they are both so adorable!! (: i can’t wait for everyone to see them! they cant wait to see you all either!! (:

Thanks,

Jurnea! <3

Hello everyone!!  Sorry this is the first time I have written.  Thank you SO much for all of the birthday wishes!!  It has been wonderful.  We got up this morning a little later (very wonderful:)) and then went to the care center.  They had a closing cerimonies for us, which was very beautiful, but also sad because the nannies had to say good bye to the kids.  They had cake for us, and a couple of the people in our group said it was my birthday cake – not going to complain about that!!

Afterwards, we came back to the guest house and quickly got changed.  Then we went to the U.S. Embassy.  I must say that this time going to an embassy we A LOT more positive experience then the last time I went to one of those!  It really didn’t take that long.  We waited outside for a little bit, then were brought through security.  After which we waited again in a room with some toys for the kids.  Ahbea and Aysha slept most of the time.  (I don’t know if anyone mentioned it yet, but Ahbea is TOTALLY a thumb-sucker!)  Mom, Dad, Ahbea, and Aysha were called up, and went to a different room for about 5 minutes.  All the questions went well (from what I hear) and they are able to come-on-over!!  PRETTY EXCITING!

We are planning on having pizza tonight from the pizzeria close by.  For those of you who know my family well, we usually have “twilight tacos” whenever we travel…guess we are going to have pizza instead .  I was especially excited the first time we went for pizza there because it reminded me very much of the Pizza Planet in Lupeni, Romania. 

Looking forward to talking to you all soon!  Crazy how it snowed back home – today was the first day it hasn’t really rained here. 

Grandma Stubbe, we are talking about you as well as other family members with the twins .  They DEFINITELY know they are loved!!  They have their picture here from their book.  They are beautiful, guys!!  Anywho…

Love,

Chelsea

Thank you for all of the notes!  It is great to hear from all of you!  I don’t miss the snow!  It’s been cool and wet here with the temps in the 50’s at night and 70’s in the daytime.  Everyday it rains at some time.

Yesterday we had the twins in the morning at the guest house – great time – we got to feed them from bottles – at the care center they feed the babies from cups.  The cups hold about 3 0z. of milk and the nannies just kind of pour the milk in their mouth as they suck the milk in – it’s cool to watch.  We can’t video or take pictures at the care center but we receive a video of our twins when we leave here – we asked to make sure the drinking from the cup is on the video.

We had lunch with the kids at the guest house then brought them back to the care center @ 1:30.  At 2:00 we went to A-Hope which is a school and Care Center for HIV-positive children.  From there we went to the hospital and toured that – not quite the same as a hospital in the U.S.  It reminded me of the old clinic and hospital that was along old Hwy. 60 in Sibley.  After that we went to a school.  It was pretty neat for Marvella to see this.  We visited a 6th grade class and they are studying the same exact material that the 6th grade class in Sibley is studying.  All of the students wore uniforms (which I believe in) and were very friendly.  From the school we went to the National Museum.  This was very interesting.  On our way home from there we stopped at a “Super Market” for some of the families to buy some formula and cereal for their kids.  This “Super Market was no bigger than our living room – no Walmarts here!

At 7:00 we went to an authentic Ethiopian restaurant.  The food was great and they had live music with dancing.  Jurnea and Britta both got up and danced with them.  It was a lot of fun!

Today we get our twins @ 9:30 am.  At 12:30 we go to  the Embassy and get our legal documents for the adoption.  There are strict guidlines for this procedure.  We have to take our twins with us so we hope they are not to restless.  I will let you know tommorrow how things went.

Have a great day!  Lennis

It is Sunday morning here – we had thunderstorms with a lot of rain during the night.

Our bad news on Friday was that the mother of our children can not be found.  CHSFS has tried to locate her but no one knows where she is.  That is why I am posting this morning and not on the road to Hosanna.  Marvella and Britta went just to see and take pictures in the country.  The rest of us are going to do more shopping and maybe take in a museum.

We were very saddened when we received the news of Misgana and Sara’s mother.  But after we thought about this we realized that what we are doing is all the more important for these precious children – God is great and has certainly blessed us!

When we were at the Care Center yesterday, we had the oppurtunity to play with many of the orphans during their play time.  Many of the children sat on my lap just yearning to be held and loved.  Many of them gave me kisses on the cheek and hugged me.  Believe me that the nannies here are just awesome at the Care Center but can not hold and love all of them as much as they all need.  And yes – I wanted to take them all home! 

Thank you again to all of you for praying for us.  Lennis

Hello everyone.. this is just jurnea hear to tell you what we all did today..

This morning we woke up and had scrambled eggs and good banana bread.. delicious! then we went to go see Misgana and Sara.. they still looked super cute! (: we found out sara was born about 45 minutes before misgana.. we have the oldest in the family is a boy and the youngest in the family is a boy! (: so the circle is complete! (: ha.  When we came back from seeing them we had amazing ethiopian food! and then we went SHOPPING.. except this shopping was not the normal shopping we had lots of little boys  come up and ask us if we wanted to buy little gum packets from them because they wanted money.. it was really hard to say no thank you but there were way to many of them to give them all money.. we bought lots of great stuff.. and bartered a lot today.. pre exiting! (: after that we came back and had some american food.. burger and fries.. nummy!! (:

everyone in my family says hi and hugs from everyone.. we all miss you! and thank you so much for the post! it means a lot to us to have friends and family back home to be there when we come back! we all miss you!! thanks a bunch- Jurnea <3 (:

Just a quick update–we got to spend the morning with the twins! They’re doing great and looking cute We just had lunch and now we’re off to spend the afternoon shopping!  Hope you all are having a great weekend! -Harberts

Hey everyone – we made it to Ethiopia!  Thank you to all of you who have helped us in any way – especially your prayers!   We met Misgana and Sara this morning.  They are beautiful!!  We got to hold them and play with them for several hours.  It was such a blessing.  I will post more later.  Thank you, Lennis

Hello everybody!! This is Keshia now! Well after 16 hours of being on a plane we finally made it! We got to the guest house around 10 last night and managed to get a couple hours of sleep! This morning we had breakfast, then went to the main office building for Children’s Home and had a meeting that kinda gave us the bare minimum of what we needed to know before we went over to the care center.  Around 10 this morning we got to meet little Misgana and Sara!  They are the most adorable babies in the entire world and probably the most well-behaved babies as well.  Misgana just loves to look around and take everything in..he also is a little more active than Sara and likes to kick his legs.  Sara is more of a cuddler and loves to smile!  Lisa–Mom says to make an appointment for Misgana with Jenny for a side trim–he’s got some long curls goin on on the sides It was the most beautiful thing today they both started to make noise and they were so happy–it was amazing!  Thats all I have for now–I’m sure I’ll have something to say later –Keshia

Hey this is jurnea now… Life is great in the high altitude mountians of Addis Ababa! My room is nice.. my mom and dads room is huge!! they have a deck on the outside and you walk out there especially a in the morning with the sunrise or the sunset.. oh man it’s gorgeous!!! (: my day was kinda long but it’s all good.. misgana and sara are amazing…  tonight i usually just got to hold sara because chelsea was hogging misgana. They were out for most of the time but when they were up they laughed and smiled!  When we sang to Sara and she would sing back and laugh!! it was beautiful! hmm… The flight.. so many things i could say… heres a couple.. Long, boring, non-entertaining.. cept  they had tvs on the back of every seat and they had some pre good movies.. the hangover.. LOL! (: i slept most of the way to Sudan, and pre much the whole way to addis.. it was okay.. but this is all i can say now.. britta wants to write.. talk to you later!!! <3 Jurnea

From Britta

The twins are adorable.  Sara loves to smile and Misgana loves to stare.  I got to burp Sara and she spit on my shoulder – oh well!  They are so precious.     B-dawg – Jurnea and I say hi.  You are going to love kissing Misgana and Sara.  They are very kissable – actually they like to lick!! HaHaHa   Jurnea loves and misses you.    Later   Britta

Today was an amazing day.  We have waited a long time for today.  Our traveling group is great.  It was fun to see how each of the children were matched perfectly with each set of parents.  Of course the cutiest ones were matched with the best looking family!!  I’ll let you guess who I’m talking about.   Tomorrow we will get to do some shopping, so I better make sure my list is ready.  Clark the twins already have a plan for your gift!

Marvella