We got our EMBASSY date!

We just found out that our embassy date is May 6th so we will leave in a week or so, maybe as early as Wednesday or as late as Saturday! We will just be picking up Sydney and will have to go back and get him (who we have named Andrew and I can't write his other name because he isn't legally ours yet) probably some time in July. So here we go, one at a time...

Sydney

Here is video of Sydney in the care center. Our friends who just picked up their son last week took this for us. They were in the same room for the past few months. Enjoy!

Goodie bags for the kids

Here are pictures from when I went to see Shea before she went to pick up her son. These are her three children in the picture too. We sent over some luvies and a toy and some pictures for them. This is the day before they left.

AHOPE, an orphanage where children with HIV live

Many of you have said you would love to help or would love to be connected to the needs of African orphans. I am going to attach the list that this orphanage needs. I know as Americans, we all read all these needs that are sent to us and think, this is just a small part of the world that needs help, what difference can I really make. Most of us, just move on and think "I can't help everyone." Just remember, even if it is $1 or an item, you are making a difference.

In this situation, I would love to try to capture how much need there is. AHOPE is a place where children with HIV live; the conditions as my friend who just returned described the sheets, the pillow, and mattresses as very dirty and that bunk beds were being held up with chairs. Andy and I can only pack 4 bags of stuff to donate so if you feel led to help, please contact me. Now that I am looking at all the clothes that were donated, I think we could fill the bags already. You can see from the list what they need so if you would rather donate items instead of money, I can try to coordinate with someone else who may have room to bring them. Just let me know.

AHOPE for Children. AHOPE is an organization that provides a nurturing home in Addis Ababa, Ethiopia, for orphaned HIV positive children, provides care for HIV positive children in the community through an outreach program, and educates the community about AIDS prevention. Thanks to Dr. Jane Aronson's Worldwide Orphans Foundation, the children at AHOPE are now receiving life-saving antiretroviral drugs and many of them are thriving.

Lisa sent this message out to the masses in an attempt to organize an effort to get much needed donations to the orphanage.
Her message follows:

Because AHOPE has a very limited budget for basic items like clothing, diapers, and toys, we depend on the generosity of individual donors for these things and on traveling adoptive parents and volunteers to help deliver the donations.

There are several ways that you can help the children of AHOPE.
If you are traveling to Ethiopia, you can collect donations from the needs list and carry them over. Any amount, large or small, is appreciated.
If you are traveling and are able to carry donations that others have collected, I will gladly arrange to have items delivered to you.
If you are not traveling to Ethiopia and would like to gather donations, please contact me and I will match you with somebody who is traveling and is able to carry your donations to AHOPE.
To make a financial donation or to learn more about AHOPE, please see the website: http://www.ahopeforchildren.org/

In the past few years, more families have become interested in adopting children from AHOPE. I am very happy to report that approximately twenty children have been adopted or are currently in process. There are currently 70-80 children at AHOPE between the ages of infant and 14.

Medical Needs:
Band-aids and other general first aid supplies
Children's Acetaminophen, Ibuprofen, and Benadryl
Children's vitamins: Flintstones chewable or equivalent
Cough syrup
Hand sanitizer
Antifungal - Ointment and Shampoo
Antibiotic ointment
Sterile -First Aid gauze
Surgical gloves
Pediasure (complete balanced nutrition)
Electrolyte (oral rehydration solution - powdered form)
Amoxicillin (syrup, 250mg tablet)
Doxycyclin
Erythromycin syrup
Augmentin (150 mg .312mg, 5ml syrup)
Cloxacillin (syrup and 250 mg capsule)

Special Requests from our nurse:
Nelson Textbook of Pediatrics 18th Edition with CD
Textbook Of Pediatric Infectious Disease - current edition
Harrison Textbook of Internal Medicine -16th Edition

Always needed:
Arts and Crafts supplies
Preschool supplies: crafts, workbooks, coloring books, etc.
New or gently used clothing, especially sizes 8-12 (boys and girls) and boys sizes 3T-6

Thank you for considering the needs of the children of AHOPE. Feel free to forward this letter or post it where interested people may see it.

Lisa Qualls
AHOPE Supplies Coordinator
ahopesupplies@gmail.com
Family blog: http://abushel-and-apeck.blogspot.com/Wife to Russ, Mamma to ten (three from Ethiopia)

More from Heidi on income in Ethiopia

Another post from Heidi about living wages for those in Ethiopia. I thought some of you would find it interesting since it is hard to understand how people really do live off of 1 dollar a day.

Heidi writes:

"I’ve been thinking a lot about living wages. David and I have this discussion often. On one hand, if you are making $1 a day and before you were making nothing, then your life is improved. But, how can one live on a dollar a day, and how did the person now making $1 live before that income? When doing research on the parents of adopted children of my friends, I found that a number of the birth moms made between 30 and 50 birr a month ($2.50 to $4.50 a month) making injera for a living. Injera is the local bread, made entirely of fermented teff flour and water, usually cooked on a clay plate over a hot fire made in a small hole in the ground. It is similar in look to a large pancake, but grey, with more air pockets. Teff looks like long grass and has tiny black seeds, which may be ground into flour. It grows in the higher regions.So, here are women with at least two children making $3 a month. I asked five different people what it cost to feed a family of four. The answers I got ranged from 10 birr ($1.10) to 25 birr ($3.00) a day, if the family does not eat meat or much fruit.

I spent that range on each meal I purchased just for myself. For a meal of injera and goat meat pieces, it cost 20 birr in the hospital cafeteria. The cheapest thing on the menu was 8 birr. The really cheap food is false banana, and if you see them growing, you are almost guaranteed to find a round house next to them. Inset, or false banana, is made from the stalks of trees that look like banana trees, but bear no fruit. Tastes pretty much like stalk, with basically no nutritional value.

Most poor people drink ½ a cup of water per day, which Dr. Ruth says accounts for many of their health problems. I learned that here, when you are dehydrated, you no longer feel thirst. It happened to me a few times, crept up on me, when out walking for a few hours, I felt weaker and weaker until I got home and forced myself to drink. Only after about two glasses did I again feel thirst.My daughter’s birth mom lives in a government rent controlled mud hut. It is one room, with a door and a wooden cover for the single window. The room is as wide as the length of her bed, but not big enough to fit my king size bed. It is 25 birr a month to rent. She has a 25 watt light bulb on a wire. No running water, no bathroom, mud floor and walls."

You can see how malnourished these children are with a 1/2 cup of water a day or why so many parents have to give up their babies because they don't have water for a bottle if the mother has died.

Stories of Ethiopia in the city and outside

I thought I would share some of the stories that a woman I met through a Georgia Ethiopia group has experienced. These are some of the stories she uncovered as she spoke with different people in Ethiopia. She is an incredible woman who takes many trips and shares with the rest of us how others live. For more of her stories see www.starbelliedsneaths.blogspot.com You can also see on her blog a post about how orphans happen and video footage of the village in Soddo.

Heidi wrote,

"I spoke with two HIV positive women who chose to give up their girls for adoption before they die. I asked them what they were feeling. I asked one ofthem what she would like to tell her daughter on her wedding day. She told me about her own wedding day,at age 14, and how her parents told her she must go and sleep with her husband. She wanted to run away and not do it because she was so scared. She said she didn’t want her daughter to go through that.The daughters have already changed roles with their mothers, and they talked about how they were worried about who would take care of their mothers when they go to the States. Yet, I could see they were excited about the possibility of a new family and a good education. One of the mothers had prepared her child well for the transition. Hers was the interview where I could no longer see my viewfinder after the first few questions. After all I have seen here, no one could ever convince me that a poor or sick mother in a mud house cares any less for her child than I care for mine. I really miss my kids. I want to hold them and I long to look at them while they sleep. My kids were born of other women in another countries, yet I get to look at them,I touch them, and they bring their joys and sorrows tome. I am beyond blessed."

This next long entry is about Soddo Christian Hospital where Sydney was taken when she was brought to the care center. This is where Andy and I will go eventually to see where she was from. Heidi writes the following:

"But here, though I am focused, I can't keep up with Ruth (a friend of hers who is a doctor there)– she mentions doing an ultrasound and it is finished by the time I change the setting on my camera and reach the room. Her work is like triage after a disaster, every day. The waits are quick, but the cases are extreme. On call at night, a toddler in his father’s arms arrived with a knife wound to the eye. It was his good eye, the other blind from birth. When asked at 8pm when the accident occurred, we heard it happened that morning. At first, I feel angry – why was he not brought in earlier? Then, it occurs to me they likely have been on their way here since the accident occurred.

Another man refuses to give Ruth a direct answer to the simple question, “do you ever eat fruit?” She gives up after three tries and tells me he probably has chewed a lot of chat, and is experiencing the depression that follows the high. Today she’s frustrated with people who won’t answer her questions. But, she does not show it. Each patient feels special in her presence. She has a way of repeating what they say to her that makes them know she is listening, even if she has a different idea of what to do. “So, the other doctor would not give you an x-ray for your stomach pain? I see. And, you feel you need an x-ray? Perhaps we could do a ultrasound instead, would that be okay with you?” She smiles at the patient, and nods, encouraging them to buy into her plan. She is incredibly gifted with non-verbal communication, which I think serves her well in this culture.


The woman we met in the clinic, whose breast was destroyed by TB shows up the next morning. I found her outside the hospital, wandering lost and ignored, and sent her to Ruth. She is one of four wives, and her husband no longer cares for her. She also has five sons and no daughters, and the sons do not care for her either. No one will pay for her to have help atthe hospital. Ruth thinks they must want her to die. It is decided that she can be cared for from the benevolent fund. Since meeting her, the supreme sadness of her life sits on my shoulder. I see her when I look to my left. Her eyes, her face, her hand pulling back her shawl to show me the horrible wound. Me, the photographer, the one with absolutely zero ability to help her aside from a hug and my warmest smile, I was given the pleading look, beseeching me to do what her family refused to do. To help.


I ask Ruth if she ever cries. She tells me two stories, one of a breach birth to a woman so brutally circumcised that the child could not be born. The woman’s mother was with her. Likely, it was she who cut her daughter and removed every part of her that said she was a woman. Ruth said the woman’s mother gazed blankly ahead, “I am not going to think about my responsibility in this tragedy.” Ruth said she cried over this because the baby did not die because of some environmental cause, but because of something done to his mother by another woman. The second time she cried because a mother starved her baby. She had too many children to feed. So, she kept food from the youngest, and when he was almost gone, brought him to the hospital. All the nurses cared deeply for the baby, and tried desperately to save him. Then, Ruth saw the moment the mother realized she could have brought him earlier and he would have lived. She saw the realization cross the mother’s face that she alone made a devastatingly wrong decision.


Later in the day, a little girl I kissed in the children’s ward succumbs to malnutrition and dies. I had seen her dad standing next to her bed each day when I went to take “my” boy for a walk. The vitamin enriched Unicef milk, purchased on the black market, did not arrive in time to save her. Some things you can buy if you know who can get them, but morphine is next to impossible to get. Chemo, radiation, strong painkillers, common blood thinners for anesthesia are just a few of the things not found here. Some doctors have a small stash of pain killers. Ruth is not one to hoard, so today she gives a patient who is dying some relief.


We talk about a friend who had his leg amputated above the knee. One of the other doctors kept the leg in his freezer to use as a teaching tool. “Honey, where is the ice cream?” “Check under the ankle!” Amputation seems to be the common cure for cancers, tumors, hyena attacks, snakebites and more.A few days ago a container arrived from Switzerland. It was sent over after my last visit a year and a half ago and has been in customs until last week. It was filled with crutches, which will be put to good use. I saw a man on the street using a tall stick and swinging himself around it to move, so I asked my translator to send him to the hospital for a crutch. It is nice to think about how a crutch might change his life. I can handle thinking about a crutch today, but I can never do what Ruth does. If you wish to help Ruth and her work, you can send her a donation (a check from an American bank is fine, there is just no tax deduction here:

Stichting Witte Velden te Hilversum
Postbanknumber 1485137
NetherlandsIBAN: NL 41 PSTB 0001 4851 37BIC: PSTBNL21

mention her name: for Ruth DroppersEmail of the foundation is: stgwittevelden75@chello.nlEmail of contact person in Netherlands: estherdroppers@hotmail.com

Update on Sydney

My friend Shea, who is picking up her son this week in Ethiopia, just emailed and said she got to go visit Sydney. She took pictures of her with her son and here is what she wrote about Sydney (Tarikwa)...

Tarikwa is beautiful. She's alert and happy, she laughed and smiled a lot. they let us video and take pictures of her. Aster was there, but now I'm realizing it was a different Aster. She was the main nanny in that infant room today. I got a short video of her praying for the children. While they prayed and eric held Tesfamlak, I held tarikwa and we prayed for her. She looks healthy and smart. She made eye contact and was very attentive to everything. We gave her the "lovey" and she said thanks she loves it. Sheka explained to Aster that you had sent it for her and she seemed to understand. She also gave aster the other bag for Andrew. She put it aside as well. I can't wait to get her home too. She's amazing, Martha.

How amazing is this, that while we are sleeping, they were able to meet her and pray for her...

OH MY GOODNESS!!!

OH my, here she is! Sydney Eyasu Cook. Her middle name is after her father's first name and means Jesus or Joshua. We are overwhelmed with joy that she is legally ours. These pictures were taken when she was about 6 weeks old and she is now 3 months old. We should get an embassy date in the next two weeks and should go get her in 4-5 weeks. That is the magic number, 4-5 weeks. Here is a little video of her from 2 weeks ago...

And now that you are still reading, we have more news as of 11:30 this morning. Andy got a call while I was taking our car to get cleaned from our case worker who told us of Sydney's brother who came up for adoption TODAY! We had asked that the agency would let us know if her brother ever came up for adoption; she said that it was unlikely but that she would write it in our file. This little one is between 2 and 3 years old, and we have accepted the referral for him today. Yes, you just read that right. We will be going to get two children, probably two separate trips. We cannot express our emotions right now. We are so blessed. We prayed for a long time that the children we adopted would have a biological sibling, and thinking that was out of the question, we were just granted this gift. Talk about lives being full...God is so faithful. What a gift they will have in each other.

On Sunday, Andy and I let the kids ride their bikes around the track near by and we sat and talked for 45 minutes uninterupted (anyone with children knows this is a dream), and the conversation centered around having 3 or 4 children. I have always wanted 4 and so has Andy until the past year, Andy has thought 3. He was starting to get very serious about 3 recently since Thomas is getting older and the diapers, baby, food, and all the rest were disappearing. I asked him, if he would just consider and pray about being willing to adopt one more so that Sydney would have someone so much like her. He said he would definitely consider it, but he just wished we had gotten two at the same time. So here we go...

When he told me when he picked me up from the car wash, I thought he was kidding me since we always do that to each other. I knew by the look on his face, this child was already ours in his heart, there was zero discussion. We both just said, yes, of course we will go get him. (then we said a few extras, like, what in the world are we doing. As most of you know through this process Bobby has asked for a brother too and we have said for a year now, we would think about it. I finally told him it wasn't going to happen a few months ago. He asked my "Why?" and I didn't have a response. I didn't know why; I just said because that would be a little much. We told him today it was going to happen, and he said, "What?" "How?".... We told Thomas he was 2, and he said with the utmost joy, "I'm three!"...

Just in case anyone is doing the math, that would be a Senior, Junior, Sophomore, and Freshman in high school and then college... Wow. I might as well cancel my cell phone because everyone will know where I am, at home with 4 children under the age of 5 for the next 5 years! You can all get on your knees and pray right now...

We will hopefully get pictures of her brother today and of course will be waiting by the phone.

"In Me"

As I was running today (that is what you start doing when you have nested so much, there isn't much else to do but get things like your body in order), one of my favorite cd's, "Lifesong", by Casting Crowns played and the song just hit me like a ton of bricks. They summarize so much of my thoughts during this process... (it is now playing on the blog)

"If you ask me to leap, out of my boat on the crashing waves.
If you ask me to go, preach to a lost world that Jesus saves.
I'll go but I cannot go alone.
'Cause I know I'm nothing on my own, but the power of Christ in me makes me strong, makes me strong.

'Cause when I'm weak, you make me strong.
When I'm blind, you shine your light on me.
'Cause I'll never get by living on my own ability.
How refreshing to know you don't need me.
How amazing to find that you want me.
So I'll stand on your truth, and I'll fight with your strenth,
until you bring the victory,
by the power of Christ in me.

If you ask me to run, and carry your light into foreign land.
If you ask me to fight, deliver your people from satan's hand.

To reach out with your hands,
to learn through your eyes,
to love with the love of a savior,
to feel with your heart,
and to think with your mind,
I 'd give my best breath for your glory."

I love the line that says I'll go, but I cannot go alone... how precious that He is with us wherever we go...

Our court date

We got a call today around 2 saying that there were four cases that went through today and only one didn't make it through.... that happened to be us. Bummer. What that means is that a document wasn't there or a signature wasn't there so the agency will deal with that in the next week. They rescheduled our court date for April 8th, so another week and a half, and we wait. Waiting... isn't that so much of life. We knew things could be delayed, but it is pretty hard thinking about your daughter even staying an extra day. It was a double bummer when we found out too knowing now that we will not travel with our friends who are going to get their son in a few weeks.

But hey, I will quote my father's words, "It is what it is," and I think I will add to the saying that the timing is all perfect; God knows exactly when Sydney will come home to us. Thanks for all your prayers. I fought some tears today and know that your prayers covered me through being a cry baby!

Statistics of Ethiopia

I have seen these statistics all over place from other blogs and the book, "There is No Me without You". Here is just a sampling on the people and children of Ethiopia...

• There are approx. 4.5 million orphans due to AIDS and poverty
• One in six children die before they turn 5
• One in ten children die before they turn 1
• Millions still die of starvation each year
• Half the children in Ethiopia will never have an opportunity to attend school
• Some parts still practice female circumcision
• 82% of the population survives on less than 1 dollar a day
• Only 1/4 of the entire population has access to safe drinking water
• Ethiopia’s doctor to children ratio is 1 to 24,000
• Children and family are honored above all else threre
• 1 in 3 people are HIV+ , the average life expectency is between 37-42

Where things stand

Since we decided to adopt, many people have asked us why, how, when, who, so we thought we would use this post to share. Let me take you back...(read the other posts if you want more of the details...)

Why adopt?

The simple secular summation is this: we wanted a third child, pregnancy for Martha is miserable (and consequently for Andy too) and there are children in need of parents. Yet this compelling rationale was far from sufficient. 2 + 2= 4 doesn’t inspire.

We talked, thought, prayed, talked, moved on, came back, thought some more, prayed and talked and seven years later, we decided to adopt. At what point do you choose something that you can’t control or afford that will set you up for both joy and pain and can never be undone? Interestingly, we posed this same question before Martha became pregnant with Bobby. We didn’t have an answer then and don’t now. We looked for the hand of God, we awaited his still small voice and moved forward praying our desires were from God, looking for answers in Scripture, and seeking the peace of God to guard and guide our hearts at every step.

Why Ethiopia?

After determining that adoption was the best choice for our family, we began to consider every nation in the world that was open to adoption. The number of options was daunting, but through time Ethiopia emerged as our choice for many reasons.

First, the Ethiopian culture is a culture we could see sharing with our child forever. The beauty of its people, the rich political and religious history, and the unique elements of its culture seemed not only plausible to communicate but desirable to share as building blocks for our child’s life. Simply put, we love what we know about Ethiopia and know we’ll take great joy in teaching our child about her native land.

Second, we’ve been astonished by how many personal connections we have to Ethiopia.

At our church there are other families currently pursuing adoption from Ethiopia.
Friends from Massachusetts (from our time in seminary) adopted two children from Ethiopia and provided us with wonderful counsel as well as connections to additional families with Ethiopian children.
A close friend has been to Ethiopia as a medical missionary twice every year for many years. Hearing her love for the people made a compelling impact on us.

Third, from a very practical viewpoint, we found Ethiopia to be the ideal choice as its policies and processes regarding adoption seemed to be in the best interest of the children. For instance, the required amount of time spent in orphanage, the travel requirements for the adoptive parents, the age of the children and the government’s general role in the process, all seemed to be developmentally responsible to the child, realistic for all parties, and properly in depth to promote both the safety and wellbeing of the children and efficiency.

How?

Lots of paper, time, driving, overnighting, organizing the random things that your kids put everywhere from birth certificates to septic tank inspections. We started by doing our home study back in May 2007, choosing our agency, Christian World Adoption, finishing our lengthy dossier in November, waiting for a referral, getting a referral at the end of January, and now waiting to travel….

The question that some people ask is, how in the world do you afford this? We don't... God does. I am not just saying this to be cliche, but ironically it is sort of matter of fact because He just has. Since we knew we were supposed to adopt, we always had the feeling that God would provide the money to do so. I think the peace we had about this in the beginning allowed us to take this step of faith, knowing that when we took the step, there would be a loving and gracious God out there to catch us and meet us where we couldn't He certainly did; many of you would say, no surprise, but for us, it is one thing to say you believe He will and another to experience it each step of the way. At times we have such little faith and then boom, He just shows up.

I won't go into it all because it would require 10 more entries, but the gist is we started with $0.00 dollars in our bank account that I opened last May. I deposited our coins that we saved for a few months to open the account and then we said, okay God, now you fill it for what we need and we waited. God has blown us away. Every payment we have had to make, the money has come... from so many places, many anonymous, many just out of the blue, the day we needed it; He has always waited until the very last moment, which has strengthened our faith incredibly.

Phillipians 4:19, "And my God will meet all your needs according to his glorious riches in Christ Jesus"

We are so grateful to all of you who have supported us, prayed for us, and just walked alongside of us--to God be the glory.

When?

Very soon. We got our referral January 31rst which means for those of you not in the adoption world, we found out who SHE is with pictures, medical history, and a really exciting phone call. Of course, we can’t share any of these things because she is not legally ours until….. March 28th when our court date takes place in Addis Ababa, Ethiopia. We will not be present for the court date, but will be waiting patiently at home for a call that let’s us know, it went through. After this date, we can share a picture of her with you.

Who?

The cutest little girl we know… Sydney is what we will call her.

Andy

Wisdom

Haggai 1:5
"Now, this is what the Lord Almighty says: Give careful thought to your ways."

Proverbs 16:3
"Commit to the Lord whatever you do, and your plans will succeed."

A decision

So the question then was where was Andy in all of this... on board he was, but waiting for the same clear confirmation. He went to New Orleans on a mission trip in March and during that month leading up to it, it about did me in to keep my mouth shut in asking him what he was thinking. Before he left, I asked him, "When do you think you will know if you are ready to adopt?" He said in all out manly fashion, " I will give you an answer when I get back." I said, how do you know you will know then?" He said, "I just will."...

Andy listened to a sermon in New Orleans at 7 am by a preacher and twenty minutes was about adoption--adopting people in your life, community, church. There were so many drips ((a saying coined in the movie "Amazing Grace" where the butler asks William Wilberforce (the man who Andy did his seminary thesis on), how do you know God is speaking....He describes it as not a flash of lightning, but drippings)).

The culmination of all our "drippings" was when Andy came home and said, "I am ready to adopt!" Yiphee...

The Big Picture

During these few months, one weekend in February, I spent the weekend watching my sister's two little ones and Andy was out of town. I had 30 minutes of time to myself and I was at the end of my rope. I sat down and printed out my Bible study from church. This weeks lesson that I printed was titled "Adoption by God". The week before I had prayed for God to confirm it in Scripture that we were supposed to adopt. This same week, I stumbled upon my journal from 3 years before, opened to the page where I had written about my experience in Boone.

As I went through this study I had chills the entire time. I had always asked myself, "why would I adopt?" "Was I doing it to try to rescue someone that I may not be able to help in the end or was I doing it to make myself feel good?" or was this something God was calling me to... Lots of questions flooded my mind as I was searching this out.

The study progressed to paint the incredible picture of how God adopts us into His family. It struck me in my own life and my relationship with God that God only adopted me into His family because He loved me, not because of anything I had done or deserved; therefore the ONLY reason I could adopt is because God would give me the love to adopt. I wouldn't have that love on my own. I am too selfish, I am too sinful. It was then that I realized, I didn't need to have all that in my heart, that God would give it to me. I couldn't do anything good for God--it was just God in me leading me to do it.

The last verse in the study was 1 John 3:1, "How great is the love the Father has lavished upon us that we should be called children of God--and that is what we are." It all clicked in this verse because I had never read it in this way before..... it just happened to be the verse in Andy and my wedding bands...

Adoption everywhere

After the experience in Boone, we came home and had a few experiences that were what you wouldn't call just coincidental. We went on a walk and a lady who came out of her house spoke to us and out of the blue just told us she had just gotten back from Russia and adopted a child. The next day my sister and I were in a fabric store and overheard two women talking about adoption, and then within the same week, we had some more enounters with people who had adopted. I thought it was strange, but decided to journal it and move on, knowing that if God wanted us to adopt he would continue to reveal it through more than just random circumstances.

After we had Thomas, I couldn't get adoption out of my head and wondered, what will make us ever do this? It just seemed too strange to just decide to adopt. Four years later, Andy and I had decided we were getting closer to wanting a third child, but again didn't think we were quite ready to adopt. I had always thought something strange would happen like I wouldn't be able to have children any more or that I would have a miscarriage and maybe that would lead me to adopt. I got pregnant with baby #3 and immediately wondered if the whole adoption idea was over since 3 children seemed like a lot to me, and I always knew that if you adopt one, you probably would want another and boy, that was going to be a little much. Lo and behold 4 days later, I had a miscarriage. Humm...

After mourning the loss of a child, we decided, let's wait, pray, and just see what the next step is...

For two or three months, it became clear. I just thought, this is it... I know we are supposed to adopt. It is one thing to know it or shall I say feel it in your head, but it is another to just decide something like this. From January to March, I have never in my life heard God's voice like that in my life. It was clear and direct through Scripture, events, prayer, and more. Of course I didn't hear it audibly, but it was like a conversation when I read the Bible and through various books I was reading. My heart was bursting at the end of this time... I would cry at any adoption story, ask 100 questions of whoever had adopted, and thoughts of getting pregnant were pretty much gone.

The Beginning...Do What?

Starting back in 2001 when we got married, Andy and I had dreams, very far off dreams of running an orphange in our younger dreamy years of just getting married. We took a trip to Quebec City in Canada and saw a stroller that pushed 8 or 10 kids and saw them holding hands and talked of what would it be like to tuck 10 children into bed every night. We sat at the top of Le Frontenac in Quebec City and reflected back to the movie "Cider House Rules" where the man running the orphanage says, "Goodnight princes and princesses of England" and thought about how he made the children feel like princes and princesses just by loving them and providing a home and food. To us then, it just seemed like a fun conversation. (note... doesn't this sound dreamy when you don't know what having kids means...)

In 2004 during Easter, we went to visit Andy's sister Katie in Boone, North Carolina and listened to a pastor speak and he didnt' speak on adoption directly, but alluded to it. When I left, I told Andy, "I know this sounds crazy, but I think we are supposed to adopt at some point in our life." We had Bobby at the time and he was 10 months old. At this point we were still stressing on whether to put Bobby in smocked john johns or jeans and t-shirt; we weren't really thinking of going out to the level of adopting a child from Ethiopia. Fortunately, God knows what we can handle at each point in our lives. He knew we were not ready to start the process then; we had a lot of growing up to do. Andy left the service and when I said this to him, his response was " I think we are supposed to adopt too." My mouth almost hit the floor, thinking, what? Did he just say that? Again, just a small dream at this point or what I like to call a "dripping".