TIME TO CELEBRATE!!!!!

God has given us a giant blessing!!!! He now has a full-time job!!! We can finish our adoption!!!!!!!

It’s been a rough, sweet, heart-breaking 6 months, but the dog-days are over!!!! God has shown Himself to us in a very real way, providing for us in dramatic fashion, just at the right time, even to the point of catering to our prayer requests (a la Gideon). He’s opened our eyes in a big way to new things He might be calling us to, and we’re totally excited about them. It’s been hard, but it’s been good. Thank you Lord!!!

We are beyond excited to be doing things that our hearts long to do. Not only do we have jobs, but he’s going to be working for Young Life and for a sweet, sweet church, and I even have the special opportunity of working part-time at a job that has me loving on and ministering to teen mothers in the area. AND obviously, it looks like God is providing for our HEART’S DESIRE to adopt a child in Ethiopia who needs a family.

Basically, I haven’t slept since Saturday because I’m so excited.

Just a little paperwork, a little fixing up the apartment for our home study, and we’ll be right back on that waitlist!!!!

Let’s BTBH, people!!!!!

James 1:17 – Every good gift and every perfect gift is from above, coming down from the Father of lights with whom there is no variation or shadow due to change.

On top of all that, we're celebrating together with a blog friend who just got a referral (you know who you are)!!!  Congrats you guys!!!

On hold.

You might be wondering what it means that we're on hold. Well, basically because a large part of our income has unexpectedly ceased, we are no longer able to report the same financial numbers on our adoption paperwork and have therefore, after a lengthy conversation with our most wonderful case worker, been placed on hold until the situation is rectified. We are praying fervently that the Lord would bring us a good job, one that would be fulfilling and encouraging, and obviously one that would allow us to complete this adoption and BTBH (bring that baby home), as we affectionately like to say. Please pray for us, if you think of it. Once we have things in order, we'll be re-doing some paperwork so as to get back on that wait list asap, and we'll get to retain the 6 months and change that we've already spent on it.

On a personal note, it's been hard. I've pitched fits at God. Then I felt guilty for pitching fits (duh), considering that it's not like anyone died, and we're not starving, or cold, or alone or enduring anything like what most of the world is suffering through. After which I determined that my pain is still real even though it's not the worst pain the world has ever seen. That pain belongs to sweet Jesus, and after all, pain is not a race. I've now come back around to a place where i want to bring my pain to God again, and my supplications, and he has begun to soothe my hurting heart. Thank you D.G. for a well timed letter, thank you L.Y. for your 10 minutes on why you'd say no to the devil if he offered you everything you ever wanted, and thank you Betsie ten Boom, you were the bomb. You guys helped me when I needed help turning this heart around. I'm doing better now. I have peace. I know that I must have faith, and that my God is trustworthy. My life is all in His hands, even my desires to love on our baby.

In other news, today is Ethiopian Christmas, so Melkam Ganna, everybody!!! Hope you're enjoying some wat and injera on this fine evening :) If you wanted to learn more about Ethiopian Christmas traditions, just click here.

6 months waiting...

This book is one of the sweetest books I've ever read. It's by Scott Simon who hosts NPR's Weekend Edition, and in it he discusses his own experiences with and thoughts about about adoption (he has two daughters form China), as well as the experiences and thoughts of some of his friends. It's sweet, encouraging, thought provoking and full of love.

Stats:

We're #8 for girls, #7 for boys and #5 for either gender.

Please continue to pray for us, we'd love to bring this baby home by this summer, but we know that whatever God has for us is the absolute best thing.

5 months

Tomorrow makes 5 months on the waitlist.

Stats: we're #9 for a girl, #7 for a boy, #5 for either gender, and so #18 overall. Now, if all the either genders ahead of us are boys, that makes us #11 for boys and #9 for girls, but if they're all girls (not likely) that makes us #7 for boys and #13 for girls. The possibilities are endless... :)

In the mean time I got a part-time job at a book store, he's participating full-force in no-shave November, and we both spent the night at Chick-fil-a for 104 free sandwich coupons (don't be jealous!!).

It continues to be an uncertain time in our lives in some ways, which can make it hard to be very excited for fear of disappointed hopes, but we're praying and trusting. We're super thankful for all the friends that have and are gathering around us to pray and encourage. Y'all are the best :)

Barring any craziness, our baby is somewhere between a 4 month old fetus and 3.5 months old infant right now. So, somewhere in here:

 

(pictures randomly selected from a google search, and do not depict our actual child)

  That visual right there makes my heart ache to have our baby. It feels like "we're missing out" on part of his or her life. Part of me looks at these pictures and wants to hold him/her as soon as possible, but at the same time, it makes me think of our baby's birth mother, and what she must be going through. Nothing in me wants for her to have to give up her baby. Her emotional and/or physical pain I'm sure is beyond intense, and I pray intensely that my Lord, her maker, would draw near to her, comfort her, and show Himself to her.

4 months

Another month down!!! Hopefully 4 months means we're somewhere around half-way through the wait to see our baby. Yay! Right now we're #10 for girls, #8 for boys, and #5 for either gender, so that makes us #21. Not many referrals this month, and I'm trying to find out why that is, but for now there's nothing to do but be patient and trust.


It's been a little bit of a chaotic month, full of uncertainties, but I feel like we're pulling out of that into a period of being able to relax a little and just be excited about this baby. People tell you at the beginning of the process that no adoption story is straight forward, but that they are more often than not full of unexpected obstructions and stressors. I believe them now :)

Favorites:
-Lunch date with my blog-friend. We ate, we talked, we bonded, we drank some buna, and we laughed our butts off... it was amazing!
-I've started working with a teen mom program here in town. I LOVE it!!!! I love the girls, I love the babies, I love love love it!! Did I mention the babies?!?!
-I love Fall...

 Here's an assortment of pictures from the last little bit:

Summer Concert Series

 I was soooo sick on this day

photography sKylllz

My boy

This is a series of pics from Young Life's All Area Club:

It was awesome!!

Young Life pursues un-churched, lost high-school kids. All these kids are being loved on by college-aged Christians. All these kids heard the Gospel that night, and they do every week!!!

Beautiful Gardens and the Now

 

       It's funny how there's not much to say while you wait for a referral. People ask you excitedly what's new with the baby, and unfortunately there really is nothing to report. Life goes on. Brain space gets filled with other stuff: work, friends, life plans, dreams, thoughts. Soon. Soon I'll have pictures to share. Soon I'll get to enjoy, to absolutely explode in praises and thanksgiving over, the sweet snuggles and smells and giggles of our very own sweet baby. Soon, my life will change, drastically and forever. I feel caught in between two huge life stages, because even though I know that change is coming, I find myself still living in that pre-change era for a while. Some days I catch myself forgetting that I'm even waiting on something. The forgetting is easier emotionally than obsessing. Probably healthier in most respects. Today I feel like a woman, in my life, in my time with the Lord, in my marriage. Soon I'll feel like a mother, but I don't yet. I think that's okay.

ONE MONTH!!!

We've been on the wait list for our baby for a whole month today!!! YAAAYYY!!! Can you believe it?!? That means we probably only have like 6.5-9months to go until a referral :) WHAT?!?! That's crazy soon, right? right?

Plus, we found out this week that by the time we need to travel next year, we'll probably have built up enough sky-miles to award us 1 free round-trip ticket to Ethiopia!!! Can I get a "Whoop, whoop!" That's 1 down, 3.5 to go, folks :) Obviously, morale's pretty high around here!!

It's funny, since coming back from Haiti, I feel like I have a whole new perspective on life.

1) For starters, I have way less anxiety about adoption stuff and life in general. I think for the first time in my life I'm really learning what it means that I don't have to fret, worry, or be afraid of anything, because my Lord, my eternal Dad, is in charge of this whole sha-bang. How freeing is that?! He has all the money in the world, he cares about people and hurts over injustice way more than I do, He's never taken off guard by a need that anyone has, never scrambling to make things work out, He knows the end of the story, He's got this under control. All I have to do is just follow Him, and He'll take care of the rest. Yay!

2) Then I pair that with my new-found knowledge of the condition of the world; that America is just part of a much larger, painful picture, that all people are equally important to God and also equally broken, and that there's SUCH a need for help; for people who have (the Gospel and material resources) to help the rest of the world that is FULL of those who don't. There are so many children... too many children living in garbage dumps.

3) ...And what I get is a FIRE growing in my bones, as Sara Groves would say, to get out there and do something with the life He's given me!!!! I'm so excited to have a sense of purpose, to know how I want to serve the Lord, have found something I can't wait to pour my energy into!!! Don't know what it's gonna look like yet, but I'm excited!!!

But in the meanwhile, as we wait expectantly for our next big adventure, our sweeeeet baby, I compiled lists of Amharic names, from what I could find on the internet. The links below will open into a Google Doc and you should be able to edit them in case you know a name that's not on there, or maybe something's not quite right, cause I totally don't have any illusions that they're completely accurate. There are some really beautiful names like Salayish-"before I saw you", and some super sad names, like Masresha-"the one who helped us to forget". Hope you find them helpful, and enjoy reading them as much as I do!!! Oh, and I also found this other website with a pretty extensive list PLUS some pronunciations, sweet!

boy
girl



#25 (11 girls, 8 boys and 5 either genders ahead of us)

Dossier Complete!!!!!

That's IT, we're DONE!!! Today we received our I-171H!! --Our officer at the USCIS office should win the award for government worker of the year, she went above and beyond, calling me and e-mailing with me until we got it done! If you ever read this, officer, thank you so much!-- We had to stalk the FedEx truck like crazy: we watched it's progress online, and one of us was posted at the apartment at all times until we received our package. But then we had some stuff notarized, and shipped off the last of the paperwork in our foreign dossier, to bring home our baby! Can you believe it?!?

It's been surreal to be getting so much closer to meeting our baby. In a way, it's still an amorphous idea of a baby in my mind, and I have a hard time feeling the deep feelings I know I'll have for it (it'll help when I don't have to call it an it, huh? :) ) one day, when I hold it in my arms. But in another way, I think the reality of/the magnitude of what we're about to do has started to sink in, and my mind is pretty much reeling from it 90% of the time. I though I'd share some of what I've been thinking about.



- Being a mother is going to be intense. I realized this on a deeper level this week, as I was keeping the two cuties above (aren't they sweet?) for a day and a half while their parents took a little time away. It was an absolute pleasure, cause I love these girls so much, but I did learn a lot. It made me understand that when I'm a mother, that'll be my biggest mission. You hear this all the time, but I feel like I finally felt it on my own, like I finally understood that mothers are valiant lone rangers in a lot of ways, on a quest that is of eternal value, but requires daily focus. Wow, I hadn't ever felt that.

- Are we equipped to parent a black child in a white home in the States? I had a minor freak out about it last week. Said freak-out included checking out 8 books from the library :) The truth is we don't really have many friends who are black, and really none of our closest friends are. Where we live is much more diverse than were we used to live, and that's part of why we moved here, but it's still no Atlanta, Chicago, or any other big major city. I began to feel really insecure about our ability to equip our baby for life as an African American, and really afraid that he/she might grow up to resent us for "getting in over our heads". But then, that's just what we're not supposed to do, huh? We're not supposed to be afraid, we're supposed to shatter the boundaries of love in this world. And plus, that was one of the major reasons we wanted to adopt in the first place:

"We have both individually felt compelled to adopt for multiple reasons. Firstly, we are very aware of the huge number of children in the world who need families, and we have a desire to love them and be that family. Secondly, we are passionate about the beauty of multi-racial families, and as we begin to form our family have decided that we would love to be one! And thirdly, we are compelled by our relationship with Jesus Christ, and the way He's loved us, to share sweetness and love with a world that needs it. James 1:27 specifically encourages us to take care of the orphaned, and we want to!"

I don't have to be afraid, cause the love of Christ washes over a multitude of harmful things the world might through at our kiddos, even from our direction. I can feel confident that teaching our children to find their identity in the love that God has for them, regardless of what color their skin is, is the best thing we can do for them. Sure, I'm gonna make a point to be continually celebrating different beautiful aspects of and admirable people in Ethiopian and African American culture, because I still think that's so important, but mostly I'll teach them who they are in the Lord, who they are to me, and then set them free into the world to live their life. I just want to give them the most the most solid, loving, secure, accepting foundation I can offer.

- I was watching a TV show the other day where one kid looked at another and said "you're adopted" like it was the worst thing in the world. C'mon, TV, why you gotta do that to kids?

- I'm gonna have to learn to wield my tongue wisely when people say things that are hurtful without thinking, or even intentionally. I've always been super sensitive to racist, or otherwise prejudiced or hurtful comments, but haven't quit developed the right way to respond. I generally just shudder and stare out the window, occasionally I'll say something, but it's inevitably abrupt and followed by awkward silence. For now, I suppose it's ok to bite my tongue, but when my sweet baby's old enough to hear and understand the hurtful undertones of the comments sometimes made by folks, I'm going to have to learn how to stand up for my baby with dignity, and care a little less about embarrassing the commenter. My Dad reassures me I'll know just what to say, cause I'll be a mother, and mother always know what to say. Thanks, Dad, you always know what to say :)

- More likely than not, our baby is an embryo now. It probably exists, or will very soon, somewhere in Ethiopia. What a precious thought, and what a weighty one. The beginning of our baby's life will have pain in it, and sadness, and loss. I've been thinking about that. I think that knowledge will live in my heart forever. I think it will cause me to look at our baby with more reverence.

our very last documents :)

Coffee and creativity!

We were at our friendly local Harris Teeter, which has a Starbucks inside it, and this coffee caught my eye. It's from Ethiopia!!! I was like "Babe, this coffee ACTUALLY came from Ethiopia! And now it's in my hands, can you BELIEVE it?!?!" Sometimes I get a little overwhelmed with emotion over stuff like this. I obviously begged him to let me buy it, he obviously denied seeing as we don't even have a coffee maker :) But as we were walking out I asked him (very dramatically) if he ever felt like he just HAD to have everything we see that's from Ethiopia, and he very sweetly replied "Nope, I just need one thing from Ethiopia." "Or two," I said. "Or two," he replied. "Or three," I whispered. :)

Below is my photographic documentation of the evolution of my crib skirt!!! I just couldn't find a single bedding set that I liked, and seeing as I have all the time in the WORLD, here it is:

The above picture has the most accurate depiction of the fabric colors.

The final product on our new dresser, since no crib yet :)

Boy or girl????

So, I made a tally last night off of the unofficial list, and found that for families in the last two years that requested "either gender", there was about a 4:1 boy:girl referral ratio. There's clearly a high possibility we'll be bringing home a boy (our little Habibi!!), but the girls are still holding strong there at 1/5 (oh, my sweet Habibti!!). It's funny cause if I were pregnant, I think I'd definitely want to know the baby's gender, I've never been much good at waiting on surprises if there's the option not to. But adoption has it's own set of rules, and we'll have to wait till almost the very end to know. It's all gravy though, cause honestly I just happen to like gender neutral colors (green and aqua and orange and yellow) better than your traditional blue and pink (though I do like a good peach), and more importantly, we feel really confident that we'll be equally as excited about either gender. I've even realized that (at least this time) if we'd requested one or the other it might have driven me crazy, I'd have been doubting the choice the whole time. This way it's not up to me, which is better (for me) :) But... I still can't wait to know who you are, my sweet!!!

Sweet baby dreams

A couple of weeks ago my fried had a dream that she went to Ethiopia with us and my Dad to pick up our babies. That's right, two, a set of twins. a boy and girl!! How funny is that?!? If you think I didn't melt inside for a moment and wish we were getting twins, think again :)

I had a dream too just the other night. It was about meeting our baby. He was a boy, and he was tiny, and I can remember feeling so much love for him, and my husband was so in love with him... it was sooo sweet. Only, then, as i held him I started to realize that he wasn't Ethiopian at all, he was just as vanilla as me. It caught me totally off guard, I was like "what the heck?!?" But I'm pretty sure I decided to love him anyways :) Dreams are the weirdest!! I think it must've been some sort of repressed fear I have of getting a referral for a child that's different from what we're expecting. There's a fair amount of letting go of expectations in adoption. Just about every piece of paperwork we sign has some sort of disclaimer on it, stating that things may not go as planned. It's really sweet, cause part of me (the part that knows that God's in control) doesn't think this is any big deal, cause I realize that I've never had an ounce of control anyways, nor do I want it. The other part of me (that does want to hold on to my life with an iron fist and freak out when something slips) just needs to jump on the bandwagon and take a ride on the wild side! :) Nothing's unexpected to my Lord, he knows exactly what I need, and exactly what's gonna happen in our life. So far, he's given me the sweetest boy in the world for a husband, some days I stop and realize how special he is and I just can't believe he's mine!!! We're closing in on our third anniversary :)

Piesole and other delays

Here's the deal y'all: I've been a little discouraged, just a tiny smidgen. I know I have no room to be so, seeing that our process has gone sooo much more quickly than normal, and seeing that God's in control. But I'm no good to anybody if I'm dishonest, and I want to remember what this whole thing was really like, so here it is: I've had a little bit of a rough week. Nothing major's happened or anything, just a few paperwork delays and unresolved life things, but since I'm a girl that likes to have all my ducks in a row, a lot of little loose ends can stress me out a little.
Following our home study I felt like I had just worked a night shift and never gone to sleep. I had that "I just ran into a brick wall, and you're gonna have to scrape me off the sidewalk" feeling. I think it's because this whole last month we've been pushing so hard to get paperwork done and completely put the apartment together, that the 4hr culmination of a home study just drained anything I had left. But I had to keep going. Somehow, the rest of the week was one of the busiest, errand-filled weeks I've had since I quit working, and yesterday had a few little surprises and realizations, some of which I'll talk about here and some I won't, that had me ready to just start over with a new day. Here's what it's looked like:

*Have you ever had a day when you just completely put your foot in your mouth all day long, and you just have to keep apologizing? It's like you've lost control, only you know that you really are saying those things, so you wish you weren't saying them, but you never know when the next one's gonna come out, and you'll realize a half second too late what you said, and that you meant it, and that you wish you'd just not. That was yesterday.


*I was photocopying my birth certificate yesterday, because I was about to send a bunch of papers in, and I noticed that my city of birth was misspelled. Whoopsy. I sent it back in to the Passport Vital Records Office with a notice of correction needed, which again is estimated to take 4-8weeks, but we'll see.

*I didn't get my FBI clearance back yesterday, which broke our one-week turn-around streak. No big, there are plenty of families who've been having to wait 13 weeks for theirs. I can't really trow a pity-party on this one, but I'd be lying if I said I hadn't had my hopes up.

*And finally, I haven't done any serious form of exercise in a month. I've theoretically been saving it on my to-do list for the waiting months, but I think maybe it's time to go ahead and start that process, cause y'all know how you start to feel... :)

Ok, now for a happy thought: I also realized this week that God already knows our baby. How sweet is that!?!?! He already knows who he/she is, He can see them even when we can't, even before anyone can see them cause they're hidden. And He already really knows them. He knows our baby's personality, He knows what he/she looks like, what he/she's gonna love to do in this life, even the foods he/she's gonna refuse to eat!! Soooo... this whole process is gonna go just as fast (or slow) as it needs to go to get us to the right batch of referrals, with the perfect little babe for us. My husband told me that my job for today is to not worry about anything. Ok, I give.

Are you ready for some cuteness???

Emily:

Graham and I went on a date to Target last night to register for baby stuff!!! It was soooo much fun! And we pretty much agreed on everything as far as what we need/don't need, which is awesome! Last night I was up 'till 2:30 on an accidental caffeine and a not so accidental cute-baby-stuff high, and I wanted to share it with you all. You're welcome!! :)

Cutest bedding EVER!!!

I know I've posted about these before, but HOW CUTE ARE THEY?!?! Graham and I really think we want to TRY cloth diapers, and I found and registered for these on Wishpot.com. They have the sweetest colors, and they snap and grow with your baby! I can't wait!!!

Beautimous Storchenwiege Inka wrap! I found this at Attachedtobaby.com. It's the best website I've found for wraps and things, it's easy to browse and has lots of variety. I can't decide if I want to register for this one or the Leo Natural. What do you guys think? I think I'm leaning toward the Leo. My sister and cousin really had a lot of great things to say about using wraps, so I definitely want to try it, not to mention that I think it might be helpful in the bonding process.

Thanks for sharing my excitement about this! It's just so much fun!!! And happy shopping to all the moms out there!!!

A is for Application

Y'all, I'm tired! "Why?" you ask, THIS is why:



My new best friend and dictator is my cute little gray filing cabinet and all the paperwork that lives in it. This week has possibly been the most productive week of my life. I've sent in:

**WARNING, LONG LIST FOR THE SAKE OF MEMORY, SKIP AHEAD UNLESS YOU REALLY WANT TO KNOW**
Requests for both of our birth certificates, marriage certificate (already received)
Group 1 documents for agency (including Application, copies of said certificates, directions to our house, some moula and other very important documents)
Some of our Group 2 documents (including our child preference profile and some other important documents)
FBI Clearance fingerprints
I-600A
The beginnings of our Foreign Dossier to authentication service
AND
I've initiated:
Reference letters
Bank statement
Employment Letters
AND
We each got our local drivers licenses
We've each had a physical and a bunch of vaccinations! (we're coming, baby :))
**RESUME READING, LIST FINISHED**

Can anyone else who's done this before validate me and say that they felt like they'd run a marathon every day during the paperwork months? Seriously, I'm kinda thinking that God had me go through nursing school/work as a nurse to build up my meticulous organizational skills and endurance for completing 'to do' lists. Mostly I really loves this, though. My personality enjoys this kind of work, and it's still exciting every time I have a new document to prepare because I know that it's one step closer to our baby!!!

Just to keep that happy thought in mind, here's a picture of everything we have for our baby so far:

It's mostly my old stuffed animals, and there's even a blanket that my mom made before she had any babies (Mom, if you were wondering, I took it home with me last visit :)). We've bought two little super-cute gender-neutral outfits because I needed something baby-shaped around here, and one of them says "universally cute;" my sister and I thought it was appropriate! Other than that, we'll probably wait till much closer to time to buy anything. We shouldn't spend the extra money, we don't know the details about our baby, and it's always a good idea to keep my emotions/expectations a little under control. At least that's what I'm saying tonight.... :)

Here's the blanket:

On moving, orientation, seeing babies, birthmothers, and my husband.

Sorry for the long delay in blogging, but I didn't feel like writing until I had something to write about. So here it all comes:

Yesterday we moved!!!! Yaaaayyy!!! It has been the biggest hindrance to our adoption so far, and I’m so so glad it’s OVER! Our new apartment is lovely, it’s clean and it smells good. We have a gym, which I couldn’t be more excited about, and indoor and outdoor pools, with hot tub!!! Y’all we’ve moved up in the world : ) Many thanks to our friends for all their help! Now we're just praying for someone to come and take over our lease for the old apartment.

ALSO, today I had a phone orientation with my agency contact!! So much information gained, so many questions answered, so much excitement all around!!! Seriously, the staff has been nothing but helpful and excited with me!

The next step was to send in my request for application and the application fee, which I did very promptly, and promptly an application was delivered to my inbox! Now, you KNOW that's all I'm gonna be doing tonight!!! This is so fun. Sorry for the play-by-play, but I just can't help my excitement :)

Other than that, today I was in a cell phone store, and a woman came in with a tiny crying baby in it's car seat, and my heart just ached! I always imagined that pregnant women must feel excited when they see other babies, I thought that they'd just be pumped by the reminder of what's to come. I didn't realize how strong my emotions would be, being myself a sort of pregnant. Seeing that sweet baby, and even hearing it cry made me long for my baby so much. I felt like telling that mom "hey, me too! I'm gonna be in the secret mom club soon!" It did, it made me SO excited to hold my own sweet little one. That day is coming, and it's gonna be AWESOME.

As I think about and pray for my baby every day, knowing that it's probably growing away in a womb somewhere in Ethiopia, I've also had my baby's birth mother on my mind. I've given her a secret name until I find out her real one. A name that I lovingly use for her as I talk to the Lord about her. It helps me feel how real she is, it helps me love her better. I bet she's having a really hard time right now... sweet girl, I wish I could hold your hand. I wish I could help you. You're on my mind all the time...

We ARE adopting!!!!

So, funny story, the last post I wrote was about how excited I was that I had found stuff I could be working on toward our eventual adoption while we waited for our life to calm down enough so we could decide what our plan was. I thought I was just getting a head start, and that someday, far off in the future we'd adopt. HOWEVER...

Last week we went out to a fancy dinner and made the decision that we're ready to pursue adoption, like NOW! We've spent the last week telling our family and close friends, and that's been really sweet. I don't think it's really sunk in yet, but at the same time it's all I can think about. Have I mentioned...

We're going to be adopting a sweet baby (12months or less) from the BEAUTIMUS land of ETHIOPIA!!!! And we're so excited, we can't wait!

"Why Ethiopia?" you might ask. Well, let me just tell ya... we both just feel our hearts drawn over seas, especially after reading books like Field of the Fatherless by Tom Davis, and There's No Me Without You by Melissa Fay Greene, and after learning so much about the world through Compassion International. As for the specific country, a friend of mine who has adopted internationally shared with me that as she and her husband were considering this for themselves, they asked themselves what culture they were most drawn to. After all, this culture's gonna be a celebrated part of your home for the rest of your life. For us that narrowed the search to the continent of Africa. And to be perfectly honest we weren't very well educated about the similarities and differences in its individual countries in terms of culture, socio-economic status, or really anything. So from there we began our search, investigating geography and economics, scouring agencies and programs and prerequisites, until we landed on Ethiopia. This last part of the decision seems really technical, but as we started investigating, we found that it's an ancient, beautiful country, rich in history and tradition, but it also faces the daily struggles of poverty, disease, and famine. We feel both inspired by the beauty of Ethiopian culture, and compelled to reach out to it. They call it the cradle of life, it's people the lost tribe of Israel. Archaeologists and theologians (my dad included) speculate that the arc of the covenant might be hidden in Ethiopia. They have beautiful legends of a dynasty of great rulers descended from a secret union between king Solomon and the famed Queen of Sheba (which I'm finding out may really be accurate). I mean, how much cooler can you get!?!?! Ethiopia's been in our hearts for over 2 years now, we just knew that that's where our baby was gonna be. Now we get to go find it!!!!

If you think of us when you're praying: (I'm anticipating this might need to be a recurring section in our blog) We've hit roadblock number 1. We need to get out of our apartment. It's not fit for a baby, and most likely wouldn't pass a home study. We have a couple of options, but it's a tricky, wait it out sort of thing, and that's hard. Please pray for us.

Below is a picture of the sweetest children's book I've found that deals with the subject of adoption. It's called A Mother for Choco, and as my sweet cousin would say "It's the best!" Does anyone have any sweet books they'd recommend?