Kirill's story

This is such a horrible miscarriage of justice and an outrage toward special needs children everywhere.

Kirill's story (click to read)

I'll be praying for this family. I encourage you to read their story and join me.

The family far away

Long before we had ever actually contemplated adopting children, I can remember thinking that international adoption must be so much easier than a domestic one because you would never have to deal with the child's birth family. Boy, does that seem dumb now. Or maybe just extremely naive... anyway, I was wrong. Birth family matters a lot, as we discovered along the way, and by time we actually brought our daughters home, I was in quite a turmoil over the lack of information we had regarding their history and their family. You could say I was obsessed. Luckily, through the grace of God and the help of some lovely new friends, we were able to find the birth family, culminating in this day:

We were able to meet with the twins' birth mother, their great aunt, aunt, little cousin, various neighbors and dogs for lunch and coffee in the house where the twins spent most of their baby and toddler years. We were so amazed at how accurate their memories of this place are, despite the young age at which they left. I feel so much peace after conversing with all of these women and sharing with them how Candace Selam and Sarah Fikir have grown and how much we love them.

Through our current agency, we were also able to meet with Feyissa Thomas' birth father after our court hearing. He was a very quiet and unassuming person, and the meeting was very emotional for everyone. We could see how much he loves his son, and we did our best to express how much we would love him too, and that we would always make sure that he stayed in his son's heart.

These people aren't strangers who we hope to never see again... they are part of our family; just a part that lives far away. Although they won't be involved in the day to day aspects of our children's lives, we want our children to treasure them, love them and respect them. We plan to take them back to Ethiopia to visit and hope to keep their birth land and families alive in their hearts.

There is not enough thanks in the world for the Stutzman family, the Meyer family and dear, dear sweet and wonderful Yosi for making this a reality for us.

A silly but special gift

If you have kids, you probably know what I have on my wrist:

They're Silly Bands, of course. Why is a 47 year old woman wearing these with pride? Because her new little son in Ethiopia took them off of his own little wrist and put them on hers. Very sweet, because he had just gotten them not long before, and children in orphanages don't get very many things to call their own. I plan to wear them until he is in my arms again. With the slow down in processing of Ethiopian adoptions, I don't know when that will be... it makes me very sad and very anxious.

Birthday girl

Our beautiful Emily is 20 years old today.
Happy birthday, sweetheart!

Here we go again

During our first adoption process, in 2008 and 2009, we agonized through three court dates. And then anxiously waited some more when our case was left open after the third one, while MOWA finished their recommendation and then finally submitted it to the court.

Guess what? We get to do it again. Since the paperwork wasn't submitted this week as MOWA stated it would be, the judge had to reschedule our case to be heard again another day. April 16. No, we don't have to travel to Ethiopia and appear at the hearing. We will just be waiting again. In an unfortunately familiar way.

Yes, more waiting

International adoption is an exercise in waiting. After waiting for months for our court date, we were thrilled to sit before the judge last Friday, March 4. We were happy to hear that we are approved as parents for our new son, who we met last Tuesday. But... we are still waiting for MOWA to issue their letter of recommendation to the court, so we are still waiting to officially pass court, and waiting to share pictures of our beautiful new son with the world.

Social report!

Our agency, CHSFS, sends out a detailed description of your child's behavior and personality a couple of weeks before your court date. We just got ours today and we're so happy that it finally arrived. It is very informative and best of all, it contains pictures! Lots of pictures! We can't share them until after we pass court, but let me just tell you that this dear little boy appears to be thriving under the nannies' care. He looks much healthier and look at the twinkle in his eyes! He is beautiful and we can't wait to meet him... in just a few days!

Butterflies

In just a few days, we will be hopping on a plane and making the trip to Ethiopia... we will be meeting our little boy! And the judge will be handing down her decision. I have butterflies of nervousness and excitement. Prayers from all would be greatly appreciated. :)

Pictures I love

This is my mom with me and my siblings sometime in the late sixties. There are just so many things about this picture that make me smile... the hilarious clothing, the treasured bride dolls with dresses handmade by my grandma, my bangs, the fact that we are all crammed into that corner with Mom, the way my mom is waving that cigarette around... I just love it. I wish my dad was in it too, but he was the photographer.

Travel group

Today we got an email from our agency with our room assignments at the guest house and the names of the other families in our travel group. Last time we adopted, we didn't have anyone else from our agency traveling when we did. I am so excited this time to have other families to share the experience with. I can't wait to get to Ethiopia and meet them!

Eagle party

This is why we live where we do...
we get to look out our back windows and see this.
Isn't that beautiful?

Where is my supersuit?

I seem to know a lot of women who have supersuits in their closet... they run marathons, organize charitable benefits, drop everything to pack up and move to third world countries, start non-governmental organizations to help the impoverished, maintain actual real full-time jobs, have homey welcoming houses, renew themselves spiritually with Bible devotion every day, prepare delicious healthy meals, knit sweaters or write witty and nationally recognized blogs all while caring for at least a half a dozen high achieving, challenging and active children.

I feel like such a slacker. I don't own a supersuit.

Most days, I think I'm doing great if I get two or three errands done, make dinner and get the twins in bed without too much yelling. I really have to limit myself on what goals I set for any given week because I get so easily overwhelmed. One of my favorite blogs had a challenge to rock your attachment challenged child every day for 15 minutes for 30 days... no way was I going to publicly commit to that; I knew it had real potential to be another thing to "fail" at!

I just want to know where the supersuit store is located... I could sure use one.

Pictures I love

I'm going to start sharing some of my favorite old pictures once a week or so. This one is from a vacation in 2004 when my big kids weren't quite as big... Kenneth was 15, Emily was 13 and Anna was 10. I would sure like some of that warm Caribbean sunshine now.

Lightening my load

When I was in Ethiopia, we saw many women loaded down just like the one pictured here. They are carrying firewood they gathered on Mount Entoto to take down the mountain and sell. All this work for a dollar or so a day. She carries this load because she has to in order to make a living.

I believe I have mentioned before that I am a fretter by nature. I carry huge mental loads with me all the time. Right now, I am burdening myself with negative thoughts about everything that could go wrong with our adoption.

I sat down today to do my Bible study, which this week covers chapter 40 of Isaiah. The theme of the verses we are studying is that we need to focus on God and put our trust in him over false idols, and one of the questions asked "what idols do you put before God in your mind, emotions and time?"

Wow. The answer came to me so quickly it was almost scary... the internet. Now, I don't think the internet is evil. But I do think that it's ability to help us find instant "answers" can be misleading. In my case, my anxiety over adoption issues has caused me to constantly check various internet groups and websites to see if there were any new rumors or tidbits of information for me to obsess over. Not good. Not healthy. In fact, more times than not, participation in most of these groups left me feeling out of sorts and cranky and filled with fear and doubt.

I firmly believe that God has called our family to adopt in Ethiopia... so why in the world would I let these groups convince me otherwise? Unlike the Entoto women, I can choose to lighten my load.

I had my laptop sitting right next to me on the kitchen counter. I went over to my group page and deleted myself from several different groups and hit "enter". The feeling of lightness and freedom I felt from that one simple click was amazing. I have resolved today to listen to God more and the internet less.

But I'm not giving up my blog anytime soon. :)

Snowy days, the high cat and a special surprise

I know I'm going to end up kicking myself later when I'm stumped for a post topic, but I just happened to have three great pictures to share today and I'm excited to put them out there right now. I can be impatient like that.

My original post for today was going to feature Tom and the twins enjoying some father-daughter bonding time while building a snowman. The girls were really excited to do this and we had some actual double-digit temperatures yesterday for them to play in... above freezing in fact, fortunately for Tom.

Then while I was getting the camera to upload the photos, Harry the cat started meowing at us from his favorite high perch. I have a theory that two cat households divide the furniture and other assorted territories into the "high cat" and "low cat" areas. Harry is our high cat. Our other cat, Lucy, would never venture here.

And the final photo for today, an extra special surprise via air-mail... a letter from the twins' birth mom, with her new post office box address in Ethiopia and a couple of baby pictures of the twins! Here they are in their youngest pictures yet; about eighteen months old. It brought a lump to my throat. We love you, Roman.