Thank You

One of the hardest things about being here in Ethiopia is the lack of communication that I am able to have with friends and family back at home. It seems like I am constantly fighting trying to be on the internet. Sometimes it feels like a losing battle.

Most nights, we do not have the internet. I'm not sure if our guest house doesn't pay for the "super speed" internet, therefore, it's too slow for us at night (b/c so much of Ethiopia is on the internet), or if Satan is trying to prevent me from feeling connected with loved ones back at home. Either way, it is discouraging. We almost always have internet during the day. But, as I am sure you can imagine, my time on the computer is VERY limited during the day. Most of the time I do get to sit down for a few minutes to log onto the internet, I am listening to crying, whining, screaming, fighting, or all of the above while I try to catch up with life back at home. By the end of the day, I practically fall into bed after I talk to Adam for a few minutes (if I am even able to do that). Many nights I just message him on skype, and these messages "pend" until the internet eventually comes back on at some point during the night, and then they get sent.

All this to say, I am SO very sorry for my delay in saying THANK YOU to those of you who sent beautiful birthday cards and sweet notes for my birthday!! I truly felt SO blessed to know that so many people back at home are lifting us up in prayer as we get thru our adoption process! The night before my birthday (Ethiopia time), the staff here at the guest house, surprised my with a birthday party! Adam had ordered a cake and roses! It was SO much fun! Then, on my actual birthday in Ethiopia, we celebrated by spending the day at the Sheraton! It was such a fun day! The girls LOVE to go here, as we spend the whole day swimming in their pool! It really is nice. When you walk into the water, it's like walking into the ocean at the beach, as it gets gradually deeper. But, it is not like the beach in Santa Cruz, more like the beach in Hawaii:) as the water is very warm! They have the kids area sectioned off, so it is perfect for my five girls who don't know how to swim. My parents gave me the best gift, a BREAK from all of my kids. Some other adoptive mommas met us at the pool as well, so we all ditched our kids and snuck inside for a cup of coffee! It was such a treat:)! This was probably my first real break since coming to Ethiopia, and I enjoyed every minute of it.

I enjoyed all of your cards over the course of three days. Reading your cards was the highlight of the days end for me, so I wanted to make it last:). With my kids sound asleep, I would hunker down in my bed and just enjoy the quiet moments of reading these words from home!

Having so many people praying for us, is the ONLY reason I am still surviving here in Ethiopia. When Adam left, I was sure that I was NOT the strong woman that everybody kept saying I was. God has given me the strength to get thru each day though. And, He has stretched me in more ways than I ever thought possible.

Thank you SO much for your continued prayers! I am definitely feeling them. While I definitely need prayer all day, I would specifically love prayer around 7:00, bedtime. This is 8:00am California time. It is around this time of the day that I just feel like I have run out of steam. I want everyone to go to bed, and honestly, I want them to go to bed NOW! Lately the girls have been taking over an hour to fall asleep, which means that they wake up cranky and tired. Capri is often the last to fall asleep and is always the first to wake up. With no nap in the middle of the day, you can imagine how fun she is around 4:00pm:). Please pray for patience for me during this time. Pray that God would sustain me beyond 7:00, and that I would be patient in waiting for the girls to fall asleep (so that I can have "me" time:).

Thank You again so much for all your love and prayers!!

Update!

It has been really hard for either Heather, or I to update anything here on the blog. The internet on the other side of the world in Ethiopia is awful. Even worse over the last couple of weeks. So Heather has been unable to post anything. My main internet is through our ipad, and once again, it won't let me post anything for some reason. So I have had a lot on my mind that hopefully I will posting in the next few weeks. Some thoughts on adoption and life in general in Ethiopia.

However, I wanted to give an update on our status.

I, Adam came home on Jan 31st. Right now it is my plan to return to ET around the middle of March or so. The day that I left, we finally passed court for our boy, Yosef. It took about 7 weeks or so for him to pass. He is still in the transition home as we are really uneasy to taking custody of him yet as his case seems more difficult. We have taken custody of our two girls, Eyerusalem and Mahlet, as of Jan 4th. It has been an awesome time for us to be there in ET getting to know our girls. So many times, we have been able to use a translator to get to the root of different issues. Also, it is more of a familiar area for the girls as they learn how to be a part of our family.

All three of our kids were submitted to the US embassy at the same time last Wed. The embassy is supposed to take around 10 days to decide what they are going to do with our case. There is a chance (albeit SMALL) that they could just clear us and request an interview with us. There is a MUCH greater chance that they will schedule an interview first with the distant uncle who relinquished the kids. This will likely take another month or so. There is also hopefully a very, very small chance that our case could be sent to Nairobi to be investigated which could then take who knows how long. Right now, we are hoping and praying that we will ALL come home as a family of 8 around the end of March.

Here are some ways to pray for us.

- Obviously the whole embassy issue.

- Heather and our 3 other girls visas are all expiring in a couple of weeks and they are going to have to go renew it, hopefully.

- Heather is T.I.R.E.D. Thankfully, her parents are staying with her right now, but this time of us being apart is really wearing on both of us, especially her. The kids are draining every little bit of energy she has.

- For Heather as she parents 5 of our children right now. Though we wouldn't change a thing, our new girls are HARD! Our 11 year old threw a full-blown tantrum the other morning for over 2 hours because Heather cut her balloon string too small! The nerve of her:) Our 7 year old won't leave Heather's side.

- We know that there are some real deep issues and hurt for our girls and pray as we work through these. During the tantrum, our daughter asked Heather to just hit her so that she would be punished already. :( Heather told her that is not how we do things and she is going to need to learn to talk through some of these issues.

- Pray for our girls English to continue to improve.

- Lastly, pray that our Heavenly Father would continue to sustain us. He has to this point, and we see His hand at work. We trust that He is in each and every situation.

Well, I am sure that is enough for now.

What a fun day!!

This morning we decided to venture out and went for a walk down to the cafe. Each of the girls picked out their own special treat (gotta love having grandma here:), we got a bottle of water to share for the girls and my mom and I each got a macchiato:) Our total bill was 65 birr, which is about $3.50. If we only we could go to Starbucks for as cheap back home!!

The girls have gotten super creative and fun in their play today. After lunch London went upstairs and started "washing clothes". She pulled out our buckets we had bought awhile back, and a bunch of clothes from their closet. She found a few different small containers (like bubble containers, small cups, etc) and was filling those with water in the bathroom, and bringing them over to the big buckets her clothes were in. When Geneva went upstairs and wanted to help, they decided to have a wash bucket and a rinse bucket. Then they would "ring"out their clothes and hang them, (still dripping:) on our balcony. SO cute to watch them:)

After they tired of this they decided to put their swimming suits on and brought the buckets and a bunch of empty water bottles downstairs for water play. They have been wanting to go swimming SO BADLY! I think this satisfied that desire, at least for the time being.

While the girls were playing outside, I made some oatmeal cookies, and they all REALLY enjoyed fresh baked cookies.

Now it is just after 4:00pm, they have started a video, and are watching that as we begin dinner preparations.

Best day we have had in a LONG time!! So much giggling and laughter; hopefully the beginnings of friendships being built in our house today!