In his heart a man plans his course, but the Lord determines his steps. Proverbs 16:9

Thursday, July 28, 2011

Do you have a connection in ET?

At this very moment we have a little baby in Ethiopia that is in an orphanage in Awassa, Ethiopia. He arrived at his orphanage, Ajuuja Children's Home, at 10 days old. He is now a little over 3 months old. Our paperwork has stalled out, due to the local MOWA taking on more authority in his region and for some reason they are not signing off on paperwork. Nobody in our agency is quite sure why and they are uncertain as to when they will begin signing papers again. If it is not submitted before the courts close from August 6th to October 15, then we are looking at a terribly long time before we even get a court date. All that to say, we are considering going to Ethiopia to stay between our court date and Embassy (6-12 weeks, hopefully) to prevent another move to a different care center and to start our life together. So, I am throwing out the net to see if anyone has any connections in the Awassa region of Ethiopia. We will be one of the first families in our agency to actually go to Awassa, so we don't know any first hand experience of the city. If you happen to know of someone who runs an organization or has been there on a mission trip or has any experience there, we would love to talk to them. You can either facebook me or leave a comment below.

We don't know if we will actually do this, but we are starting to pray that God either gives us a big NO, or that connections start being made and pieces start falling into place. Even if we do choose to go over there, it is sooooo important that we get submitted to court before they close in a week. So, I'm begging you all to please, please, please, pray with us. We would truly covet those prayers. Thank you everyone.

Tuesday, July 26, 2011

Stand in the Rain

So, the question for myself has become, "How do I navigate this giant obstacle in our adoption journey?" I feel like I have to choose between two paths. One would be to put "N" somewhere near the back recesses of my mind for a few months and just carry on with my life. Be a pleasant person to my husband, kids and those around me. Part of me wants to just enjoy our family as it is right now and part of me feels like it is the right things to do, because then my attention is on my kids right now and I am savoring the time that I have with them. As soon as I start to feel the pain of not being able to meet and bring home N for such a long time, I feel like my kids that are at home suffer. I am not as patient, not as attentive and not my usual fun self:).

However, what seems to suffer when I put N in the back of my mind is prayer. I pray for N and I ask others to pray for N, but I don't PRAY for him. I'm not on my knees, begging and pleading. I only really feel the desperate need for God to step in and carry me through this or the desperate plea for him to bring about a miracle when I feel the pain of not getting to bring my baby home. I want him home because I love him and I want him home because I want the best chance of him having fewer emotional scars (which I know I just need to get over).

Like I said in my last post, I have changed over to listening to more Christian music lately, because I am just searching for encouragement. There is a song by Superchick and the lyrics are:

She never slows down.
She doesn't know why but she knows that when she's all alone, feels like it's all coming down
She won't turn around
The shadows are long and she fears if she cries that first tear, the tears will not stop raining down

So stand in the rain
Stand your ground
Stand up when it's all crashing down
You stand through the pain
You won't drown
And one day, what's lost can be found
You stand in the rain
[ Lyrics from: http://www.lyricsmode.com/lyrics/s/superchick/stand_in_the_rain.html

I wish that sometimes I could just stand in the rain, cry, plead, stand my ground, not fall down, and the rest of the time I just want life to be normal. Do you think I could do both? Maybe it's possible?



More lyrics: http://www.lyricsmode.com/lyrics/s/superchick/#share

Sunday, July 24, 2011

Emotional Muck from Being Stuck

It seems like the two times I blog are either when a new step in our adoption process has been achieved or when I just have to get some of the emotional muck out of the way. Since we are no closer to getting a court date than the day we received our referral, this post would fall under the emotional muck category.

Generally speaking, if you had a "normal" (which there is no such thing) adoption, we would have heard what our court date would be by now. As luck would have it, we STILL have not even been submitted to court at this point. From what I understand, the regional MOWA is making some changes and somehow we got stuck in the middle of it. They have to sign off on our paperwork, but there is no paperwork coming out of that region. It could happen tomorrow, but the clock is tick tocking toward court closure on August 6th.

I can tell you that this low lying frustration with our stuckness results in a low level ache, but on occasion it rises to the surface. The signs that it is bubbling to the top are when I become less patient with my kids, or a random tear here or there, etc . . . However, I always know when I'm nearing my ability to cope with things in my own power, when my music and reading selections begin to shift. When I skip over Katy Perry's, "California Girls", for a good old fashion and mildly nerdy (or outrageously nerdy according to my husband) selection from Amy Grant's "Collection" album. When I put down the latest page turning medical thriller for Philip Yancey's "Prayer, Does it Make a Difference?" I'm searching for words of comfort, words that remind me that God is still working to weave our family together, words that encourage me to lean on Him, words that tell me that it is OK to feel the hurt, but that beauty will rise soon enough in the face of our child.

Maybe I am being mellow dramatic, but my baby is in Ethiopia for an indefinite period of time! I'm not going to claim that life with a 4 and 2 year old is boing and I just need a 3rd child to spice things up a bit. I am honestly a smidge curious to see how things roll (or rock) around here when "N" arrives. Anyway, I'll leave you with a couple pictures of the 2 kids that currently reside here and you can just imaging what it would look like to add a little brown baby into the mix. If you think of it, please pray that his paperwork will make it to the courts in Addis before court closes in a couple of weeks, so that we don't have to just imagine him being with us.

Wednesday, July 6, 2011

Bummed & Encouraged

It has been exactly 4 weeks since we saw the cutie little pictures of "N"!!!!! We love him!!!! We do not love that some missing documents are preventing his paperwork from visiting the inside of a courtroom. BUM-MER! Big time, bummer! As each day passes, the likelihood that we will know our court date before it closes, diminishes. I am still so happy that we got our referral when we did, even though he wasn't totally paper ready on the ET side. It's hard to wait, but I get the privilege of praying for this little one, (and all of the pieces of paper that come with him). So, while I am most definitely struggling a little with this whole lengthy court date business, I read a blog from someone who was at his orphanage a year ago. I hope I'm not breaking any plagiarism laws here, but this is what someone wrote about where our little man is probably waking up to start a new day right now:

We learned a little about the orphanage, and were impressed with the care the children receive, even with limited resources. There is a full-time nurse, and a part-time doctor who manage the health of the children. There are many nannies, and each bedroom has a particular nanny who is in charge of those children. They sleep on the floor (literally, they showed us the straw mats they use) in their assigned rooms. My face must have shown my shock about the sleeping on the floor bit, and Ato Girma explained "It's so when they have to go to the bathroom, or if they need a glass of water, the nanny is right there to help them." So sweet! My fears of Engida crying out at night and his cries being unaswered were immediately alleviated.

Another blogger wrote that each child is "genuinely LOVED" and also praised the orphanage, the staff and the nannies. Both bloggers eluded to the idea that their resources are very limited, but the love the children received was evident.

So, thank you God for bringing little "N" into this world. I truly wish that little "N" was not in that orphanage, but with his birth parents. However, I am so grateful that it sounds like he is in a loving environment and we are so hopeful that he will be in our little loving environment soon.

P.S.-I know this sounds crazy, but besides the skin color, he actually kinda looks like Dave.