A couple of posts back, I mentioned the "dry spell" and how it was starting to sprinkle. Well... it seems the flood gates have opened and we have been swept up in it!!! We have our referral for our LG and for now we are calling her HOPE.
Thursday morning I decided to listen to a new song by Matthew West, "One Less". I had been avoiding this song thinking it would make me cry (I do plenty of that on my own), but it is a celebration song of a girl and her mom brought together through adoption. That afternoon as I left work to pick up Amelia from school, my phone started to *ding* like a slot-machine. I have my phone set to *ding* when I receive emails. I began to laugh and cry and laugh more at my tears of joy. You see... there is only activity like that on my phone when children are being matched to their forever families. When I got to the school, I checked my email and sure enough there were two more referrals added to the two the day before (as well as ALL the congratulation emails), but there was another that made me hold my breath and feel my heart pounding in my chest...
There was an addition to the Waiting Child List; a beautiful little girl. Could this be our daughter? She was in our age range, but at the top end. I called America World to see if they could give me more information, but they were closed due to SNOW. It was 70 deg here HaHa! I would have to wait until Friday. I received an email Friday morning that my family coordinator was in a meeting most of the day, but she was sending our paperwork up the chain. At 2:00 Friday afternoon I received the call. WE WERE A MATCH!!!
God has been so good to have placed things in my heart about our LG that He knew I would need. The things He impressed upon me about her during this process were right there in her chart. HOW GREAT IS OUR GOD!?!? I have NO doubts, NO concerns, NO questions...THIS is our LG. Oh ya, that brings me to HOPE. This is not her name; it is the name AW used to place her on the WCL. Her name is beautiful and I cannot wait to share it with you when we pass court. We plan to use HOPE as her middle name. It represents the HOPE both families had that this match would come.
So now...you guessed it...we wait, but this time we have the face and name of our beautiful daughter to stare at and pray for while we wait. GLORY to GOD!!!!
Sunday, January 30, 2011
Thursday, January 20, 2011
OUR DOSSIER IS IN ETHIOPIA
Our paperwork was shipped on 1-14-11via FedEx and it arrived at it's destination...today! I just want to say "Way to go FedEx!"
Here is the journey it took:
Now we just wait for God to prepare the way for our Little Girl to be matched with us, her forever family! What an amazing day that will be!
Just as a heads up, we will be taking pre-orders for adoption t-shirts very soon. I will post a picture of it next week. Our family is very excited about this! We were all involved in the design in order to accomplish our vision of a tee that supports ALL adoptions and ALL families. Be sure to come back and check it out.
Here is the journey it took:
Now we just wait for God to prepare the way for our Little Girl to be matched with us, her forever family! What an amazing day that will be!
Just as a heads up, we will be taking pre-orders for adoption t-shirts very soon. I will post a picture of it next week. Our family is very excited about this! We were all involved in the design in order to accomplish our vision of a tee that supports ALL adoptions and ALL families. Be sure to come back and check it out.
Monday, January 17, 2011
How do you celebrate a "paper pregnancy"?
We are "paper pregnant" (with a 4-6 year old girl)!
Our dossier was mailed on Friday, January 14! We are now tracking it as it makes its way to Ethiopia. From this point we could get our referral call at ANY time. It could be this week or months from now. We (AWAA families) are praying for a flood of referrals in the near future. Things were very dry/slow for a couple months (November and December), so it seems to be time for a flood and the trickle has started! We could be part of this great flood! We'll see...
So to celebrate our "paper pregnancy", we went out with friends (their family of 4 + our family of 4) to an Ethiopian restaurant called Queen Sheba. As we walked through the door of this very nice restaurant we were greeted with new smells. The spices used in the food are different from anything we had ever smelled before. It made us all think about the new things LG will experience here.
We ordered the Queen's Dinner: the perfect way to try everything! The meal started with ceremonial hand washing. Good thing as you eat family style with your fingers!
The platter included chicken and lamb dishes, vegetables and beef in the center. Our friend's son hit the nail on the head when he described the beef as taco meat! It was ground beef with finely chopped jalapenos. Yum! Everything is eaten with a bread called injera. Injera is a thin, spongy, sourdough that come out rolled up like a tortilla (Can you tell I am a true Texas girl that loves her Mexican food?). The food was WONDERFUL! I just may have to take my own fork to Ethiopia. The slightly soggy injera bread is just not my favorite way to get all that great tasting food into my mouth.
Did I mention the honey wine? It is the most beautiful color; it tastes and smells like drinking honey. What is not to like? After dinner we had an assortment of desserts that included baklava and Ethiopian coffee.
It turns out that we like Ethiopian food, but it may take our stomachs a few times to get used to it. All those new spices were a little hard to sleep on. All in all it was a great experience that was so nice to share with friends (3 hours!). I believe we also gained a deeper understanding of what LG will experience with all of the new foods when she gets here.
Thank you Lord for good food and good friends!
Our dossier was mailed on Friday, January 14! We are now tracking it as it makes its way to Ethiopia. From this point we could get our referral call at ANY time. It could be this week or months from now. We (AWAA families) are praying for a flood of referrals in the near future. Things were very dry/slow for a couple months (November and December), so it seems to be time for a flood and the trickle has started! We could be part of this great flood! We'll see...
So to celebrate our "paper pregnancy", we went out with friends (their family of 4 + our family of 4) to an Ethiopian restaurant called Queen Sheba. As we walked through the door of this very nice restaurant we were greeted with new smells. The spices used in the food are different from anything we had ever smelled before. It made us all think about the new things LG will experience here.
We ordered the Queen's Dinner: the perfect way to try everything! The meal started with ceremonial hand washing. Good thing as you eat family style with your fingers!
The platter included chicken and lamb dishes, vegetables and beef in the center. Our friend's son hit the nail on the head when he described the beef as taco meat! It was ground beef with finely chopped jalapenos. Yum! Everything is eaten with a bread called injera. Injera is a thin, spongy, sourdough that come out rolled up like a tortilla (Can you tell I am a true Texas girl that loves her Mexican food?). The food was WONDERFUL! I just may have to take my own fork to Ethiopia. The slightly soggy injera bread is just not my favorite way to get all that great tasting food into my mouth.
Did I mention the honey wine? It is the most beautiful color; it tastes and smells like drinking honey. What is not to like? After dinner we had an assortment of desserts that included baklava and Ethiopian coffee.
It turns out that we like Ethiopian food, but it may take our stomachs a few times to get used to it. All those new spices were a little hard to sleep on. All in all it was a great experience that was so nice to share with friends (3 hours!). I believe we also gained a deeper understanding of what LG will experience with all of the new foods when she gets here.
Thank you Lord for good food and good friends!
Thursday, January 6, 2011
Merry Ethiopian Christmas to Us!!!
I've been checking the mail every day for a week: hoping, waiting, eagerly anticipating our I-171H. Today....it came! So here it is:
The return address is the Department of Homeland Security and the only place it says I-171H is down in the bottom right hand corner. The rest of the form does, however, say that we are approved for one female child between 4 and 7 years old!!!!!!
We have already made copies and sent or dossier to America World. They will receive it tomorrow, check it over and FedEx it to Ethiopia next Friday! I told Michael that I felt like I was handing my child over to the people at FedEx. It was more of a mix of emotion than I expected. This has definitely been a labor of love. I know God will never take His hands off of it as it makes it's way to Ethiopia and ultimately leads to the match of our Little Girl.
Right now, as I type this, it is almost 3:00 AM in Addis Ababa. When our Little Girl wakes up it will be Christmas or Ganna. Gift giving is a very small part of the celebration in Ethiopia, but tomorrow the children in the orphanages and transition homes related to AWAA will each receive a small gift from the families that are there now for court. LG could be one of these children.
Tomorrow I will go to work and have a "normal" day, but my heart will celebrate the birth of Christ with my daughter!
The return address is the Department of Homeland Security and the only place it says I-171H is down in the bottom right hand corner. The rest of the form does, however, say that we are approved for one female child between 4 and 7 years old!!!!!!
We have already made copies and sent or dossier to America World. They will receive it tomorrow, check it over and FedEx it to Ethiopia next Friday! I told Michael that I felt like I was handing my child over to the people at FedEx. It was more of a mix of emotion than I expected. This has definitely been a labor of love. I know God will never take His hands off of it as it makes it's way to Ethiopia and ultimately leads to the match of our Little Girl.
Right now, as I type this, it is almost 3:00 AM in Addis Ababa. When our Little Girl wakes up it will be Christmas or Ganna. Gift giving is a very small part of the celebration in Ethiopia, but tomorrow the children in the orphanages and transition homes related to AWAA will each receive a small gift from the families that are there now for court. LG could be one of these children.
Tomorrow I will go to work and have a "normal" day, but my heart will celebrate the birth of Christ with my daughter!
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