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!

Hard goodbye, but help is on it's way!!!!

I HATE goodbyes. Always have. I cry, I sob, and I dread saying goodbye. This weekend I have been thinking non stop about saying goodbye to Adam. I knew that I would be hard for me. What I didn't anticipate was how hard it would be for my girls. They each have their own unique way of grieving. The common thread among all of them though, was that they were sobbing. Adam's car was set to pick him up at 7:30pm. The girls usually go to bed at 7:00. I thought it would be easier for them to say goodbye, and then put them to bed.

Adam started his goodbyes with Mahlet. Her way of dealing with grief is to ignore it. She did everything she could to NOT say goodbye to Adam. She barely gave him a hug, and tried to act as silly as possible when Adam trying to give her a hug. Within minutes we found her sobbing on Adam's pillow. Then Adam said goodbye to London. Her way of dealing with grief is fight it. The whole time Adam was hugging her, she couldn't look at him. She knew that if she did, she would start crying. She was whimpering until we got in bed, and then she was sobbing. Then Adam said goodbye to Eyerus. Her way of dealing with grief is to give in to it. She sat on Adam's lap, and just started sobbing immediately. Then Adam said goodbye to Capri. She's only 2, so we are not sure how much she really understands. She was laughing up until we waved Adam's car goodbye, then she decided to join in and just started sobbing as well. Then Adam said goodbye to Geneva. She grieves long and slow, just like her momma:). She has been saying for days how she doesn't want Adam to go. She has been crying for days, and tonight was sobbing immediately.

Finally it was time to put the girls in bed, only nobody wanted to go to bed. Mahlet sobbed again at the thought of going to her own bed, so I let her sleep in my bed. Geneva always starts out in my bed, because she shares a bed with Capri. But, then of course Capri didn't want to sleep in her own bed, so I put her at the foot of my bed. Since everybody else was sleeping in my bed, it didn't seem fair that sick little London should have to sleep by herself. So, we made a spot for London. Eyerus was in her own bed, still sobbing. I had promised her that she could wave goodbye to Adam's car. The other girls I thought for sure would be asleep.

We left the room with everybody crying (except Capri, who was saying "I not crying". When Adam said goodbye to me, I was crying, but not as much for myself, as for my girls. The car finally came, all the girls got out of bed, came to the balcony to wave Adam's car goodbye. By now, every single one of us, including Adam is sobbing.

When Adam's car finally left, the girls and I went back inside and just held each other and sobbed. I HATE goodbyes.

The good news though is, I just skyped my mom. I thought that my parents wouldn't be here for 16 days. But my mom is getting on a plane on SUNDAY!!!! That is less than a week away! Praise God!! Help is on its way:)

Adam is departing.

Tonight, as most of you are waking up, I (Adam) will be getting on a plane to head home.

I have a few concerns about heading home.

- London is still really sick. She is going to get her last round of injections today before I leave, and she is going to be on oral antibiotics for a while still. However, she still barely can walk around and is cranky as ever.

- We have two other kids with colds and I have a wife who has not been feeling well herself.

I know that the staff here at our guest house and friends here will take good care of her. I also fully trust that the Holy Spirit will give Heather the strength, courage, patience, and wisdom as I depart.

My other concern is my returning to America. I was never concerned coming here about the culture-shock. It is the reverse culture-shock of returning to the states that concerns me. I know that it will be hard for me. I feel at home here on this half of the world. There is a peace here for me that I don't have at home. I love where we are. I love the 25 cent coffee's, I love the people, I love Ethiopia. I love Africa.

Don't get me wrong, there are some luxuries that I look forward to that we don't have here. I really look forward to being able to drive my own car. It is hard not being able to just get in a car and drive somewhere.

I will miss a lot here. I will especially miss my wonderful wife and 5 (almost 6) beautiful children . We plan on being apart for at least a month, but with the way things have been going so far, it is likely to be longer.

A morning of 2 Extremes!

This morning I (Adam) took Eyerusalem to visit the orphange that she came from before she was sent to the Transition house. I then took her to the Sheraton to withdraw some money from the bank there. Here are the stories from this morning.

Eyerusalem had been asking to visit her best friend at the old orphanage. Mahlet wanted nothing to do with going back there. I don't blame her, I think that she is afraid that she would get left. Even Eyerusalem kept looking for me when we were there to make sure that I was still close by. The orphange was on the far side of town, we were driving by one of the African Embassies, (whose President is in town) and about every 30' there was a guard with a rifle in their hands. We were driving slowly, looking for the right road, and all eyes were on us. It made me think that we were not really wanted around there:)

When we arrived, Eyerus was greeted like a hometown hero. She is getting out and getting to America! About 30 kids came and ran up to greet her, right away. Everywhere she walked an entourage of around 10 kids followed her. The orphanage is home to around 150-200 kids I guess. It is located on about 3 acres and has a lot of area for the kids to run around. The kids were all dressed appropriately, mattresses on all the beds and the place was well kept. There was new play equipment and a basketball court as well. One of the coolest things was the HUGE garden that they use to grow most of their food. They have 250 egg laying chickens. They had 5 Holstein milking cows, and a calf. They had a great system. All the waste was washed right into a few different tanks, then to the compost area and ultimately it is directed right into the garden. They even have classes for some of the older kids so that they can learn how to do things.

The hard part was when Eyerus showed me the room she lived in. We walked into a room that is just barely bigger than the average size living room. It was crammed with bunk beds. She then walked towards the wall to what I thought was a full size mirror. Only, it was not a mirror it was a hole in the wall with another room just like the first. There were 20 bunk beds in these two joined rooms, which means 40 beds, and pillows for 70 kids to sleep in. The beds were so crammed that you had to climb into them from the foot end, as there was not even walking space between them.

Mahlet stayed in a similar room for smaller kids, only their beds were a little bit smaller. Just off of the bedrooms were the dining rooms. These rooms were stuffed with kids watching some junk (adult soap operas) on TV. From the stories of my girls and seeing their habits, I think that this is a normal day long routine.

This orphanage is home to mostly girls between the ages of 8-16. Though, there are some younger kids. I felt like I had walked into a junior high camp for girls, only to realize that these kids are all orphaned. They are all hurt, scared, and longing for attention. It broke my heart.

Getting back in the car, we went to the Sheraton. Our car was not even allowed in the gate, as there is a HUGE African Union meeting there, with all of their Heads of State and delegates. The cars that were allowed in all were getting searched for bombs. We had to walk through a couple different security check points. Riflemen, stood by everywhere keeping a close eye on all the people. Once inside, Eyerusalem was astonished. Everyone was walking around in very fancy suits and their own entourages. We got a couple of chocolate treats from the bakery, for a ridiculous price by Ethiopian standards, and sat outside in a garden by a huge fountain eating them. We then went to this machine. I put a little plastic card into it, pushed a few buttons, and out came a wad of money! Eyerusalem was astonished! She could not believe that money could come out of this machine. She asked if she could put the card in, and more money would come out for her. "I don't think so dear:)" I replied. I still don't think that she gets the concept of the whole ATM thing yet.

I have been trying to spend some 1 on 1 time with each of the girls as I am getting ready to leave in 3 days. Eyerusalem lucked out on this one. The next one is going to get a little walk down the street for 50 cent french fries:)

We have been having a really hard time these last few days. We have been really under attack by the evil one. Last night, London developed a high fever and we were up most of the night. It is really hard for me to think of leaving when some of the kids are sick. It is also really hard for Heather to think of being by herself with a sick kid and trying to get to the hospital if needed.

Please pray that we will be able to withstand the attacks of the evil one, as they continue to come. We want to remain strong, steadfast and continue to give all glory to whom it belongs, our Lord Jesus Christ. Pray that the Holy Spirit will sustain us and give Heather the strength that she needs as I depart.

When it rains it pours!

This week we decided instead of sitting around waiting anxiously to hear if our boy had passed court, and if our girls would be submitted to embassy, we would get away for a couple of days on a safari. We had a (mostly) fantastic time:) We saw tons of baboons, monkeys, crocodiles, oryx, and kudu. Tons of fun stories, which I will save for another post.

When we came home, we found out that we did not pass court for our boy. There was a confusion in the paperwork, and supposedly we will pass soon (although I'm not holding my breath:). We also found out that we were NOT submitted to embassy as we had hoped. This means that we will not be submitted until at least next Wednesday, Feb. 1st. SUCH A BUMMER! While it's a bummer to get delayed by a whole week, it was sort of a decision making week. Because the court process took MUCH longer than we expected, we decided awhile back that if we didn't get submitted by this week, then Adam would go home, since he will not be able to stay until the girls get cleared to go home. He is at the Lufthansa office right now, trying to get a flight out sometime early next week. We are hoping that in doing this, he will be able to save his vacation to return to ET to pick us up in 4-6 weeks. Also, we are praying that there will be overtime available for him to work so that we are able to completely fund our adoption. As with most things in life, it always seems to cost more than you anticipate:).

Just before we left for our safari, Adam had gone to the bank, so that we could pay for our driver, our hotel and our food. When Adam and I were packing for on Monday night, he showed me where he was putting our wad of cash in his backpack. I was leery about bringing so much money with us, but we didn't know exactly how much things would cost. Plus, we didn't feel comfortable leaving so much cash behind in our guest house when we would be gone for so long. When Adam went to get his money today to take with him to the lufthansa office, it was gone. We searched EVERYWHERE. But, it's gone.

I feel like satan is really trying to test us to see when we will "crack". Adam and I, while sick at the thought of losing so much money, are really trying to have a good attitude about it. If nothing else, for Eyerus. Poor Eyerus was carrying the backpack right before we believe our money was stolen. Even though we never once blamed her for losing the money, she somehow feels a little responsible. I assured her over and over, that it's just money, and we can always make more money. She feels so bad that we have lost so much money, as she really understands the value of money, and feels like even $5 is a huge amount.

I'm so bummed that we have lost so much money, but at the same time, I feel a surprising peace about the whole thing. I know that it's because so many of you are lifting us up in prayer. I just know that God is faithful. He has not left us! He is walking this road with us, and He will continue to provide, just like He has during our entire journey.

So even though Satan may think he is beating us down, I WILL NOT BE DEFEATED!!!! I know that God is on our side, and when HE is for us, NOTHING can be against us!!