The Post You've Been Waiting For!

This week held even bigger surprises than the ones we talked about in our last post!

On Thursday afternoon, May 19th, (a day now forever burned into my memories) I got a call at school from our adoption agency that started something like this, "Sorry to be calling you at work, but I just wanted to make sure I got a hold of you..." The rest of the conversation was a blur. I remember thinking, "what? can this really be our referrals? is there any other reason AAI would be calling me at work? oops, I need to be listening!" The conversation lasted about 40 minutes, which has been yet another patience building exercise, because the entire time my only desire was to hang up, call Jon, and scream hysterically into the phone.

In two emails and about 20 attachments we have been getting to know our two sons. Asnake (meaning he outshone, outclassed, overshadowed, or became better than others) is a beautiful 9 month old boy who we having seen laying on Strawberry Shortcake sheets with big, alert eyes. His hands are out stretched toward the camera as if inviting us to reach down and begin playing with him. Soon, baby, soon!

The second email highlighted our older son, Eskinder (meaning defender of mankind) an irresistible 2 1/2 year old. In my favorite picture of him, Eskinder is clutching his name to his chest with a solemn and intense look on his face as if to say, "This is me! Don't forget me! I am Eskinder!". We won't. I also love zooming in on the bottom of his picture to look at his little toes in his yellow flip-flops.

The big question everyone asks is, what next? The answer is more waiting! (I bet you already knew that, didn't you?) We will wait 4 to 8 weeks to be assigned a court date that could be 1-3 months out from that point. Courts also close from sometime in August until late September or October. We may be able to complete the first trip before courts close (we are praying for a date before the closure), but it may be more likely that we would make our first trip after they re-open.

We are praising God about these boys, and have had a wonderful weekend calling friends and family with the good news. We are learning slowly that we need to stop making predictions and plans and let God work His story in His time. He is faithful.

Surprise!

Recent phone conversation from someone we hadn't talked to in 8 years, "How would you feel if we sent you $5,000?"

From the fifth grade teacher at my school, "Do you care if I engage my students in a service project to raise money for adoption?"

God, you are cool.

Week In Review

Oh, “the list”. If you are an adoptive parent, you may be able to relate to the obsessive quality it takes on in your life. Our wonderful adoption agency puts up monthly stats for AAI families to see regarding referrals, court dates, and the list of requests from waiting families. They are awesome about relaying facts only, and not getting swept away in speculation. We are also known to read any Ethiopian adoption blog we can find, especially families with AAI.

I experienced a major roller coaster of emotions last week, when a friend’s (I have actually never met her, but anyone on this journey is considered as much in my mind) blog stated that 3 referrals had been given. Needless to say I let my imagination run wild, thinking we were now number five. My heart soared as I thought about how soon it could be. My level-headed husband merely kissed me good night and said he wasn’t getting his hopes up until we heard from AAI. We did find out the next day that we indeed had moved up (yay!), but 2 of the 3 referrals were for families “behind” us on the list. Many of the families ahead of us on the list desire girls, or two kids, and these families behind us received infant boys. If families intend on adopting 2 kids, the Ethiopian government states that they must be 9 months apart, unless twins, and these little guys were not. My brain could process the reasons why those boys were not intended for us, and I knew that God had placed those babes for a reason, but my heart was broken. I was truly surprised by the intensity of my emotions, which of course, only made me more emotional. I found it hard to rejoice that 2 orphans were receiving families, when I wanted so badly for them to call our house home.

The next day I picked up a book by Jeff Manion called “The Land Between: Finding God in Difficult Transitions”. I had wanted to read this book for almost a year, but I believe God was waiting to place it into my hands until now. It’s a great book that spoke to me about calling out to God in honest ways during difficult situations. I really felt like God was soothing me through the words of the author and reassuring me that He continues to work out all things for good. I really need to be keeping a better prayer journal, because I have been truly amazed to see God’s hand time and time again in our adoption. He was able to get my heart and brain back on the same page.

We are now officially number 6 on the list, because along with the 3 referrals last week, one also happened yesterday. We are thankful for referrals, babies getting families, and God’s help in the easy and the hard.

Just Facts - Calendars

You may already know that the time in Ethiopia (East Africa Time) is 9 hours ahead of our Central Standard Time or 8 hours ahead of the current Central Daylight Time. But here is something you may not have known...Ethiopia is currently in the year 2003!

There are a number of differences between the calendar we use (the Gregorian calendar) and the one used in Ethiopia (the Ge'ez calendar). The main difference is the seven- to eight-year gap. This comes about as a result of alternate calculations in determining the date of the Annunciation of Jesus. Apparently, in 400 AD Annianus of Alexandria calculated everything one way, but then in 525 AD Dionysius Exiguus calculated it to be different and his calculations were eventually adopted by the Europeans and that is what we all use now. I'm not sure how that all works, but I guess there isn't a law saying that everyone in the world must agree on what year it is.

Another difference, as if that one wasn't enough, is the layout of the months. In the Ge'ez calendar, each year has 12 months that are 30 days long. That makes sense enough. But then they throw in a few extra epagonemal days (days within a solar calendar that are outside any regular month) which make up a 13th month. There are typically 5 of these days tacked onto the end of the year, but every 4 years there is a 6th day to account for leap year (which occurs during the year prior to when we celebrate leap year).

Oh, and one other thing...the new year in Ethiopia starts on our September 11 (or September 12 during an Ethiopian leap year). So I guess that means we are approximately 8.5 months into the year 2003.

Just go ahead and add this to the list of things you never cared to know!

Mini-Update

Let’s start with some knowns…

• There are 7 families ahead of us waiting for a referral.

• The last few court hearings for AAI families have been scheduled 3-4 months after referrals have been accepted.

• Ethiopian courts close from early August until October.

Now it’s time for some guesswork. At current best guess, our new family members will not be home in 2011. We will likely get our referrals sometime this summer or fall, but it probably won’t happen soon enough to ensure two trips to Ethiopia plus wait time before a new year.

While we would prefer to bring our kids home tomorrow, the realization of this news has actually brought a measure of peace and contentment. Knowing that this process is unfolding in God’s time, and not ours gives us more time for prayer and preparation, more time to save, and more time to trust in the one who has the greatest adoption stories of all time.  Thank you for praying for peace.  God has given it.

Ethiopian Cooking

Today we decided to try our hand at Ethiopian cooking. We wanted to start with something that looked relatively easy, so we chose Doro Wat (spicy chicken stew), Abesha Gomen (collard greens with green peppers), and Injera.

This was our shopping list 

These were our ingredients

Some of the spices we had to make ourselves...this was berbere

Cutting up ingredients

First try at making injera

The finished product (not quite authentic, but still pretty good)

Time to eat

We have room for two more!

We surprised ourselves with how delicious everything turned out. However, we did find out that Wat really does mean extremely spicy stew.    

Number 8

We are slowly making our way to number one! We are excited to report that a couple of people received referrals last Friday. Yay for kids who now have forever families! AAI still expects another handful of referrals sometime soonish. We are not sure if we are high enough on the list to expect to be in that handful, but are thankful for some progress, and mostly for kids getting families and homes.

Please continue to join us in prayer regarding our kids, wisdom for officials in the Ethiopian government, and our agency staff. The wait is getting harder, (especially for one of us), so prayers for patience would also be appreciated. We are grateful for your support!

Keeping Busy

Since it looks like we might still be waiting for awhile before we receive our referral, we thought this might help to keep us busy while we wait.

After more than a month of searching the internet and compiling recipes and pictures, we have the final product, with more than 150 recipes for us to attempt. Some of them, like milas tibs (tongue stew) and hodiqa wat (kidney and liver stew) we probably won't even try. But others, like shimbra asa (fish-shaped chickpea dumplings) and sambusa (stuffed fried pastries) sound a lot more appetizing. Not to mention all the recipes for injera (the spongy bread eaten with almost everything). Hopefully our practice will pay off in the form of some delicious meals. We'll let you know how it goes.

PS. If you want try some of the recipes for yourself, just click on the picture above to download a copy of our cookbook.

A Little More News...

Hello all!

Time for another mini-update. AAI will hopefully be working with another orphanage east of Addis soon. Apparently they are a couple weeks away from being up and running! More news on that to come soon…

While we continue to sit at #10 on the referral list, AAI anticipates that some families will receive their referrals soon, meaning we will move up! The referrals they are waiting on are either in the process of being approved by the Ethiopian Government or getting medical evals completed. We are learning that approval from the government for a child’s referral has become a much lengthier process than it previously was.

Other random news:

* We decided to put the baby/kid room on hold and get some other areas of our house finished up first. Hence, no new pictures of the baby room and darling baby beds.

* Jon's last day of Papa John's is on Friday. It seems that our adoptions will not be on the short side of our anticipated timeline, giving us time to save with our "normal" jobs. We did, however, get over half of our thermometer colored in, so we definitely saw some financial progress.

* We are so thankful that God is in charge of faithfully orchestrating this major life change. I’m glad we are not in charge of this whole process. It’s beyond us.

* Please continue to pray for our kiddos, our agency staff, the Ethiopian Government, and families like us who are waiting.

* Praise God we get this opportunity!

Time for an Update

I know it has been a while since we posted, but not much has been happening. We are currently in the waiting phase, which understandably involves a lot of, you guessed it, waiting. We are starting to think that our "prediction" may be a little off. Referrals for our agency have really slowed down (or perhaps been nonexistent) for the past couple of months. AAI has been really good about keeping their clients in the loop about what is going on though. Here are a few things we have been told.

AAI recently discontinued working with one orphanage due to trouble obtaining clearance from the Ethiopian government office for additional referrals. This means that AAI is currently working with only 4 orphanages. One of these is rather small and hasn't produced many referrals, but it is currently in the process of working with another larger location and should be able to have a good number of referrals through them. If all goes as planned, hopefully this will happen within the next month.

AAI also recently participated in a teleconference to discuss the current status of adoptions in Ethiopia and to come up with solutions as to how to move forward to ethically and transparently better protect children, birth families, and adoptive parents. Some orphanages are currently being investigated by the Ethiopian government due to unethical practices or poor care, but of the ~200 orphanages in Ethiopia, only 77 are licensed for international adoption, and very few of those are under investigation. This has nonetheless contributed to the recent slow down of referrals, not only through our agency, but also through agencies across the nation. AAI relayed that everyone involved appears to be committed to finding solutions to these problems and that completing adoption cases with integrity and transparency will continue to be top priority for the agency.

All this to say that our adoption may take longer than what we had hoped. When we initially applied with AAI we were told that the time frame from dossier submission to adoption finalization would be 6-16 months, and we have no reason to believe that has changed. Of course everyone always hopes that it will be closer to the short end than the long end, but we continue to trust God and His timing.