One Last Package

This will most likely be our last correspondence with Josiah before we meet. It takes at least 4 weeks for our letters to get to him --- 4 weeks from now we should be in deep preparation for our journey! We are only allowed to send "thin" items that fit into a letter envelope so we wanted to make the most of it. (You'llwant to pause the music at the bottom of the page).

He won't know the song but we hope it makes him smile!

I have a few other things that I need to blog on, including the great Walk-A-Thon that so many of you were part of!

Commit your way to the LORD; trust in him, and he will act. Psalm 37:5

Julianna is "getting her praise on" and doing the "miracle dance" because we.....


PASSED COURT the FIRST TIME!!!!!!

We feel incredible and are now the parents of a beautiful 3 year old boy!!

His birth mom was there, our recommendation from M*WA (an overworked/ understaffed organization in country) was there, and everything they needed to say YES. We will now wait for a few papers to be processed and to be assigned a date for us to show up at the Embassy in Ethiopia. Many families are having to wait through several failed court dates (I just read a blog of a family on their 7th date). Please lift these families up today b/c we know the prayers of the righteous accomplish much!!

Thank you for your prayers People of God!!!

More Waiting...

Our court date has come and gone and.......

days have passed....

nights have passed....

and...

We still haven't heard the outcome!!

Waiting to see if you have become the legal parent of someone half way around the world is no easy thing. We are anxious and yet we know that there is nothing we can do to speed up this process and so we will wait, hope, and rest in God's sovereign hand.

The main adoption branch in Oregon can only tell us that the internet in Ethiopia is unpredictable but that we should know soon.

Anytime....really....anytime....

But tonight we will celebrate anyway in joyful expectation,

Ethiopian style

Welcome Packet

Well, now that we have a court date set, A. will be packing his bags and moving to the Holt Transitional Center in Addis Ababa (the capital of Ethiopia). The center is a beautiful, well kept facility and is where he will be when we go to pick him up. Also, for all of you that we have shared the scary, retro, caucasian Santa video with, this is that place...HA!--Thank goodness A. will be home before Christmas.
All joking aside, we are now able to send him a book of pictures that we made of our family so that he can get to know us a little bit. I put the packet in the mail today! We also sent a letter, a couple of coloring pages, and a few puffy stickers that Julianna picked out for him.

Blogger is being strange tonight so here are pictures of the pages in our book...in crazy disorganization.

We are building a nest.

For the past couple of months we have been working to get bedrooms ready in our upstairs. We were in a big rush the past couple of weeks to get A's room set up for a picture we could send to him in a welcome book saying, "This is the bedroom we have prepared for you!" We have done painting, some wiring, and trim work.

I was mostly the painter, scrubber, and tool grabber.

We still have some trimming around the windows and the door but the room was "picture" ready this afternoon.

We purchased a "twin" bed frame at a second hand store. When we set it up yesterday, we discovered that it was about 2' short! This is a strange mystery to me. Micah had to make a box spring and supports so that it would hold our twin mattress.

Here is a peek at the pictures we sent him. I love the quilt I waited for...it is perfect. And for all of my facebook friends, that is the lion that I got by asking for the discount b/c of a smudge. I am also VERY happy with him. The frame above the bed will hold our family picture once A. arrives. Here is a picture of the north and east walls. I was unable to find any art that I really liked for his room... and perhaps a little too cheap to buy any, so I rescued a couple of square pieces of chip board from our basement and tried my hand at painting. One is a Jeep driving up a mountain and one is a lion under the night sky. I am pretty happy with them considering the only thing I had to buy was a 60¢ bottle of orange craft paint. We bought the glider off of craiglist last week and it fits in perfectly.

Also, this past weekend we drove to Omaha for an adoption parenting class that was actually in Des Moines.....WOW, what a day that was. But, while we were there we had some cash from Micah selling his paintball gun and decided to have some fun at Toys R Us. After all, every boy needs a Tonka truck and the closest thing we have to that is a pink pony wagon. We found some awesome deals and we now have some boyish toys and some toys that are a little more co-ed than what we have now.

Things are getting exciting as "gotcha day" is coming into view!

We have a date!!! April 20th is our scheduled court date in Ethiopia and by all appearances we will NOT HAVE TO ATTEND!!! This morning, for no apparant reason, Micah and I both felt like we were going to hear news today about our adoption. I checked my email several times this morning, always keeping in mind the time difference between Iowa and the main Holt office in Oregon. I checked it again right before lunch and WOOHOO! A date had been set.

This is, of course, tentatively set as they are often (very often) pushed back once or twice. We will be fasting and praying on this day that, by a miracle, we could get through court on the first date set. We do, however, know that, like everything else in this process, God's timing has been perfect and we trust that it will continue to be that way --but we do pray that no scheme of the evil one will put any delays on us becoming a father to the fatherless.

We will be having a Walk-A-Thon to help raise money for the remainder of the adoption on April 24th at 2pm, 3 laps around Little Sioux Park. We have pledge cards available (we're bringing them to church or we can mail one to you) if any of you would be willing raise some support and walk with us. We are still trying to raise a significant amount through grants and fundraisers. We will be traveling to Ethiopia 6-8 weeks after a successful court date.

God, we are SO grateful for your sovereign and loving hand. You give us your shield of victory, You stoop down to make us great!(Ps. 18:35) This weekend we remember how low you stooped down and the pain you endured so that our adoption as Your sons and daughters would be secured.