Washington D.C. USA to the capital of Ethiopia spans 7,159 miles,
about an 18 hour plane ride, and a quick jump through several time zones.
Sound easy enough? Finally getting the green light to travel to
meet our son has been a long and rough road of 986 days or we could say 2 years, 7 months, and 26
days. Yikes!
God's strength and
mercies have carried us through beyond what we could bare. Prayers of
many and God's ultimate timing will be revealed. I'd like to share with
you how God moved mountains as miracles upon miracles lined into place
during this phase in our adoption process through Ethiopia.
Recap: For those who haven't heard our
story, it has been since December of 2012 that our family stepped out in faith
to pursue an adoption of a child from Ethiopia. A quick look at our blog
home page and you will see the timeline of the process and the waiting we have
endured. A brief overview of our blog posts will show you the prayers and
support that has generously been given to us throughout this entire process.
We completely and joyously give all the glory to God our Father, for He
truly put us in a place where there was no other possible human way for our
adoption to go through had He not opened the doors for us to bring our son
home! For this, we share and tell our story, because it is God's story of
how He brought Tarik home.
May 29, 2015 was
the first of two required court dates held in Ethiopia. This court date
we were not required to be present. The courts would approve our case and
move us on to further acceptance as adoptive parents by the MOWA association
which is Ethiopia's equivalent to Social Services in the interest of women and
children's affairs. MOWA needs to sign one paper, one,
and we will be assigned to our court date. This is the date that we
travel, meet our son, and testify in court that we are his legal parents.
A day long awaited and prayed for!
Without doubt, we
and our agency predicted MOWA would only take a few weeks to sign our paper and
we would be traveling early in the summer. This would give us plenty of
time to arrive for court before the Ethiopian courts took their typical annual
closure for the months of August, September, and October for the city's rainy
season. No adoption cases are held during this closure and all cases are
then put on hold until the courts reopen mid to late October.
Wouldn't you know
it, we packed our bags! We waited, and waited, and waited. June
past, then July. Courts announced they were to begin their closure on August
6th. It was the last week of July and we were getting worried. In my heart I knew something was wrong.
I called our
caseworker, let's just call her Kathy (but that's not her real name). I cried
and cried saying we are running out of time and what is the hold up? I
asked who is looking into our case and why isn't someone there on our Ethiopia
team asking MOWA what is going on? I told her I was going to travel over
there and just ask myself. Surely I could sit in the office and demand
answers right??
She was very calm
and assured me not to travel, that it wasn't going to move forward our case.
It was hard. My husband and I felt defeated and that our hopes had
burst. We weren't going to make it before courts closed. That phone
call was on a Tuesday before the courts closed in 2
more days. It was our last day to get any good news and allow travel time
to arrive in Ethiopia.
The next day,
Wednesday, August 5th near 4 in the afternoon, my cell phone rang with Kathy's
ring tone. I answered the phone and Kathy asked if I was doing better
today. I appreciated her calling to check in on me and assured her that I
had calmed down and was already looking into the flights for later in October
when the courts would reopen and we'd hope again for travel news.
"You might
not have to do that," was her response. I was puzzled, but Kathy
went on to say that MOWA had signed our paper- yes, that ONE
paper that we had been waiting for! She must have called the team in Ethiopia, they asked MOWA, MOWA said they lost it and signed a new one! Now, sit tight, we didn't have a court date
scheduled, but the agency was going to try to get it established so we could
still travel. Kathy suggested we call right away and book a flight that
would leave the next morning. Over the evening she would be waiting to
hear from the agency in Ethiopia to see if we had final word of a court date to
travel, or that we couldn't get in and no traveling.
The rush was on!
Todd and I quickly booked the tickets for the next morning, gathered our
bags, packed our clothes, and yes, thank God we had started packing months
prior. The kids were excited but also getting caught up in the rush of
things and becoming anxious. Our neighbor friends helped out and took the
kids for dinner while Todd and I scrambled for cash! Yep, we needed to
take a little over $2,000 in cash of new bills over 2006 to travel. Remember
that it's after 5 p.m. now and the banks are closed. We called our
friends and family and asked them to max out their ATM's and bring us the
greens. It almost seemed like a crime sitting at the dinning room table with folks coming
in handing over all the cash they could while we sat and wrote them checks
back. Thank God for friends with money! :)
We live
approximately 3 hours outside of Washington, D.C.'s international airport. Though
the flight was scheduled for the next morning, we were worried about leaving in
the middle of the night once we got the 'go ahead' call from Kathy. Instead we
decided that we would travel to the airport and stay in a nearby hotel and wait
for the call there.
We said our
goodbyes to the kids in care of their grandparents, while our oldest child, Todd, and I were
ready to go! We hoped. We
could be driving right back home the next day and waiting some more, but we pressed
forward and prayed for the best - that we would get the ok to travel and our
court date would be set.
Kathy also sent us
papers via email that needed to be notarized prior to arriving in court.
Reminder that it's evening and everything is closed to get a notary at
this point. Thanks be to God, a friend of ours is a notary and we were
able to meet her off an exit on the interstate so she could notarize a few
papers for us in the dark of night with a flashlight over the hood of the car.
All that night in
the hotel I could hardly sleep. I had the phone beside me waiting for the
call of what was going on in Ethiopia. Not until 6 a.m. did Kathy call.
I sprang to the phone to hear her sleepy voice say that they still didn't have a court
date set for us, but asked where was I. I told her we were already at the
hotel near the airport and ready to go. She cautioned us that this was
our decision to travel and that she couldn't advise it since we were not
guaranteed a court date. "We're going!" without a doubt was our reply and Kathy's
was, "I love your faithfulness."
Not knowing what
was ahead, we boarded the plane at 10:30 a.m. on Friday, August 7th. At least we would be able to meet our
son in person and give him hug. At best, the Lord would open the doors
and we would get into court to claim him as our own.
* * *
* *
The flight was
well, boring...movies and resting and more movies (like Cinderella 3 times) and more resting....it was
the closed up torture I thought it would be. All the way we prayed and
hoped that God would part these waters that stood before us, because there was
not turning back now.
We arrived in Addis Ababa Ethiopia at 7:00 a.m. on Friday, August 7th. (yes, note that we left the US on the 7th in the a.m., had a 13 hour flight, and it's still a new Friday morning when we landed). After all the
lines at the airport of getting visas, luggage, and such, we were warmly
welcomed by our friends Tamiru, Yetinayet and their two daughters! It was
amazing to see them there and to know that this is what God had orchestrated years
ago when we first met this family (when they were visiting the USA) who lived
in Ethiopia just in the same neighborhood as our guest house. That is
a God thing! Read about it here.
Our friends drove us to the Guest House that is run by our adoption agency. We chatted with excitement as we first viewed Addis Ababa and were thrilled to finally be in the country! It was like a dream come true and very surreal.
No sooner than we unloaded our luggage at the Guest House did a driver from the agency come to the door and ask for the new people who just arrived. That was us! The driver and the lawyer's assistant asked us to hurry and get into the car, that they were taking us to meet the lawyer. Great news! I was hoping to ask the lawyer some questions and see where our case was standing. It hadn't been long after we introduced ourselves to Tesfeye and Paulos that we were trying out our much practiced Amharic language skills with them during the car ride through the city. They were pleased and laughed as we did our best to tell them the words and phrases we had been practicing. Driving and driving, we were getting confused of where they were taking us. "Where are we going?" The driver had gotten a phone call and turned the car around. "We are going to court, " he said. "What? Why?" as we were very confused and our jet-lagged giddy brains weren't quite top notch. They told us that we were going to court to claim our son! Ok, this is great news, but we hadn't met our son yet. And as far as we had heard, we needed to meet our son first before the judge would approve us.
Here is the court house. We drove up and were told to wait in the car. We waited, and waited. It was cramped in the backseat and we had already been sitting in an airplane for over 13 hours. The driver and lawyer assistant came back to the car to tell us that we....ready for this: missed. our. time. That the judge was going to see us but that that we were late and that another case has been started. Our hearts sunk. The guys went back to the court room and must have begged for our case to still be heard today. Already, this was Friday and the courts for adoption cases were officially closed, but exceptions were being made to get a few more cases through. Thank the Lord, ours was one of those very few!! The judge agreed to see us at the next break between witnesses.
In the meanwhile, Tesefeye and Paulos took us to lunch at a small cafe. We just watched and talked while they ate. We asked questions about the court and they told us what was going to happen when we met with the judge. I told them that I had practiced this line to say to our son when we met him. It went like this: Ben-dem ten kah back-ben a Nasa di gi hallen. (and that's phonetic since in Amharic language doesn't use the same alphabet or characters as we do). They were impressed and asked if I would tell that to the judge when we met. Of course, I would be happy to!
The time came that we walked into the court room. Our daughter, my husband, and myself were finally there and this was the day! I had dreams of this day. I imagined it all prior. The feeling was amazing and I wanted to soak in all I could in the moment. The room around us was a typical court room, but small, with the judges desk front and center, pews for the people and a podium for the person testifying to the side. Todd and our daughter were so very tired. As was I, but the adrenalin was keeping me alert. Todd was literally falling asleep-like bobbing head sleeping- while sitting in the front row pew waiting for the judge to come in. Our daughter was so tired that her eyes were bloodshot red. We were asked to come into the judges chambers. Through a dark wood door to the right opened to an office desk and a few chairs. The judge sat behind the desk and barely made eye contact with us. The standard questions began, the ones that we had been prepared for. "Do you know this is forever?" he asked, and "yes" we answered and he checked off a box on a piece of paper. "Will you keep his love for his country and his culture?" was another question out of nearly 8 or 10 questions of a similar nature, "Yes" we answered and he checked the boxes. "Have you taken classes on adoption?" "Yes." "Have you met your son?" and this is the one we were praying to get past. "We have seen pictures and love him already and when we do meet him I will say to him, 'Ben-dem ten kah back-ben a Nasa di gi hallen." That was my cue and Paulos smiled at me. The judge looked up at me for the first time since the interview began, gave a crack of a smile, and checked the box on the form. Stamp, stamp, stamp, signature, check-mark, check mark and you are now the parents of this child!!! August 7th, 2015 near 2:30 in the afternoon.
Praise GOD!! The saying that I learned and told the judge that I would be saying to our son means, "I will take good care of you for all the days that you live, and as you grow."
Miracles of miracles, oh what a Good God we serve!!
Driving back to the Guest House, we were very excited, and very tired. It had been near 30 hours that we had been awake. The driver noticed our fatigue and said we should get some rest and tomorrow we could visit our son - Although the visiting hours start in 5 minutes. Oh no! We are not going to miss this! We are going to see our son! I can't even remember what happened next besides that we were on our way to the foster home/orphanage for the very first time to finally meet our son. He was already our son by court and we were extremely excited to meet him!!
Ok, so I can't tell it all in one post! Where's the fun in that? This story would take up your entire evening to read it all! So more to come....visit the next post by clicking here!!
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