One Sought Me

Thanks for visiting our blog about our journey to adopt our son from Ethiopia!  It's been a long process and we are finally blessed to share the stories from the other side of the earth, in beautiful Addis Ababa, Ethiopia.  Catch up on previous post to this series by clicking  Part 1  and  Part 2  Meeting Our Son and  Part 3  Warming Up and  Part 4  Company and Culture, and  Part 5  Seeing Growth. Don't miss Part 6 Taking Custody! Before we are able to travel home to the U.S. there are many steps that still need to take place.  We have decided to stay in Addis Ababa, Ethiopia while these steps are happening.  Todd must go back to work after 2 weeks stay, but our daughter and I can stay a little longer if we need too.  Now that we made the decision to take Tarik out of the foster home, my daughter and I will be in country for as long as it may take to get Tarik home.  This could be a month, maybe more, ma...

Happy NEW YEAR!! We are very hopeful this year that this is actually THE year that we will meet our little guy and join him officially into our family! Praying, hoping, and trusting, but things are going well so far. Check in here. Just taking one more step forward is a huge PRAISE! Thank you for your continued prayers! From the end of last year, if you remember, the foster home where our little one is staying had a Measles outbreak.   Read about it here . The children were having a difficult time with respiratory infections and complications with pneumonia and the Measles.  Many children were sick, over a dozen were hospitalized, and to my knowledge, there were 3 children who died.  A very, very sad situation and please be in prayer for those adoptive families faced with this difficult news. During that time, our agency was collecting funds to send help to the foster home. Many of YOU helped in this effort to send supplies to the children in the foster home by ...

We are so thrilled and extremely grateful to the Lord for directing our paths and leading us to this day that we can announce that we accepted a referral of a precious little one!! Our adoption process through Ethiopia has opened our hearts and stretched our minds in ways we never knew possible!  In several ways, Todd and I are not the same people who started off in this journey 2 years ago. And for that, we also praise the Lord for His goodness, His love, and His teachings.  God has shown us more of himself through His word, through life events, provisions, trusting journeys, changes of the course, ups and downs, and now He has shown us His little precious child who needs a family! Finally the day has come that we can announce that we have a referral!!!!!!   Thank you Lord! Our agency called us in the evening and it was a blessing that the entire family was together.  I have our agent's number on a special ring tone so when I heard that it was her, and ...

  Tonight was a special night as we were able to connect with new friends who live in Ethiopia.  In our community we have friends who live here in the states and they are from Ethiopia.  The family has been so kind to us and have taught us many things about their country including traditions, foods, and language. The wife's sister, who lives in Ethiopia, has come to visit here in the states!  Yetinighet and her two daughters came in this weekend and will be staying for a little over one month. We were able to meet them tonight.  They brought us all a gift of a traditional Ethiopian outfit.  The kids put on their clothes and we enjoyed a coffee ceremony together.  Coffee ceremonies are a time to socialize or mark a special event.  Yetinighet roasted the coffee beans then prepared them in the traditional pot serving it to us with the coffee set.  (you'll see it in the pictures). The daughters speak very good English as they attend ...

I just had to give a shout out of "Thank you LORD!" that MOWA (child protective services equivalent in Ethiopia's system) is moving along with their end of the paper work and signing letters which release children in Ethiopia to be matched with adoptive families!! Yip. yip! This is tremendous news and such an answer to many prayers.  You can read about the hold up in letters here . Since late September the amount of referrals being made have only trickled through leaving many adoptive families in the holding tank waiting.  As adoptive families' wait times carries on and on, children are spending more time of their precious growing years in institutions/orphanages when they could be in their forever family's arms. So the news that referrals are coming and letters are being processed is a huge OPEN DOOR!   You can read about our prayer requests for open doors here. "What is a referral again?" you ask.  A referral is the match of the orphaned child/...

Friends, we are asking with weary hearts for prayer for the children of Ethiopia - Will you join us in storming the gates of Heaven with prayer and petition?  You see, there is huge battle going on of which many are unaware.  That battle is for the rights of abandoned and orphaned children to be loved and cared for in forever families.  What seems to be a basic human right and common sense from one human to understand about another, is being stripped away from the most innocent and vulnerable- those who can't defend themselves, and they are the children. Over the years several countries have closed their doors to international adoptions.  Not because they have grand plans to stop the poverty, or provide for the hurting families.  Not because they are setting up systems in their own country to support the children, for third world countries don't have these resources to fund even the best intentions of plans.  But, you see, when countries close their doo...

Todd and I and our family are blessed to have friends in our neighborhood who are from Ethiopia.  Through a friend of a friend, we first met near a year ago and our families have hit it off ever since.  The mama and I enjoy talking about the children and she is very helpful to me in learning about Ethiopia, the culture, traditions, and the people. Last weekend we were graciously invited over for dinner. The kids played while us parents talked in the kitchen.  (We'll just call the mom Allie) Allie breezed around the kitchen pulling out spices and telling Todd and I all about them.  We smelled them and she told us how to use them and what types of recipes they would be used.  My weakness is anything to do with the kitchen, so I was utterly amazed that real cinnamon comes on sticks.  (Yes, I'm that terrible).  Todd has the cooking talent (in my opinion) and he really enjoyed the different food and spice combinations lesson. One staple food in Ethio...

                                          Over the last month we have been having family discussions and debates over the names of the children.  Names are very special to us as our biological children all carry names that tell a story and have a unique meaning to who they are. We wanted to choose names that were true to Ethiopia, true to the children's heritage, but names that had an "American" sound to them too (basically so we could pronounce it).  It will be a process enough for the children to be different by race and origin let alone different with a name that would constantly get the response of "What? How do you say that again?"  I understand there are different opinions on this, but this is our choice to re-name the children and open their new chapter of life with us. We will treasure their birth names and have intentions of using their birth name as the...

I have to admit that Ethiopia wasn't the first place we considered when looking into adopting internationally.  However, various countries that were once available to work with the U.S. are currently experiencing situations that have closed adoption processes either temporarily or permanently with the U.S. ( see this unfortunate current news about adoptions in Russia ). Also, since we already have biological children, and 4 at that, many countries will not accept families with bio children to adopt and/or families with over 3 bio children to adopt.  The list of requirements goes on and on, depending on the country. When we were in contact with our agency in the research and questioning phase, they suggested Ethiopia to us asking if we would consider it. Our response was, "a child in need is a child in need, no matter where they might be on the map."  This is where our heart is.  We do meet all the requirements for adopting from Ethiopia, especially since there is ...