Top 10 Keys To Being A Great Friend To Someone Leaving The Country To Adopt

10. Offer to water your friend's garden to make sure nothing dies while she is out of the country

9. Offer to swim in your friend's pool while she is gone, and of course take care of pool
maintainance

8. Be on the emergency call list for any home, business, pet, or family emergencies that may
come up while your friend is out of the country


7. Plan meals for your friend for when she returns with a new child in hand, a tired family,
and a very tired self -so she will not have to cook

6. The week before your friend leaves, bring over fresh lettuce from your garden, because
you know she and her family are too busy to eat healthily

5. Clean your friend's house before she returns

4. Hang cheery "welcome home" signs throughout your friends house for her return

3. Make sure your friend's home is supplied with milk, oj, bread, homemade
adorable cookies, brownies, and a meal for her first night home

2. Drive an hour each way to & from the airport to greet with hugs, smiles and flowers your very tired friend and her family as they get off the airplane

And the number one key to being a great friend to someone traveling outside the country to adopt is.....

1. Before your friend travels surprise her with copies of her keys that you knew she needed to give to different people caring for the house & pets.....Oh and I guess along with this number 1 answer; PRAY, PRAY, PRAY!!!

Thank you, God, for all my GREAT friends!

Making It Real

A few days ago I got a call from Mary T. letting me know that our Ethiopian daughter ("M") is in the Hospital....



We have been in the adoption process for over a year. Our hearts and minds are filled with lots of anticipation of who God has planned for our family. When we received the referral call we instantly fell for our new daughter; however, My husband and I, actually the whole family, felt a bit aprehensive. We had a couple let downs along this adoption journey already and did not know if this one, was truly "The One". When we got our court date, it was another glimmer of hope of what may come. All the updates and photos have continually touched our hearts as we fall even deeper for our dear "M". Still wondering, in my mind at least; is this really who God has planned for us, or will things fall through? Then of course, the biggest call of all; PASSING COURT, I think that call from Mary T. will be forever embedded in my memory. She is ours. Ethiopia here we come...



But, what truly ancored the reality of "M" being ours was the hospital phone call. "M" and several other children ended up in the hospital due to high fevers and dehydration. They were put on medication and have since been taken back to their care home. The thought of my daughter in the hospital, without a parent made my heart ache. I wanted to be there in Ethiopia taking care of MY daughter!! I wanted to sit beside her through the night, hold her hand and stroke her hair. My baby needed us...we weren't there...but, we will be in six days.

She truly is ours!

BITTER-SWEET

THE SWEET...We travel in 10 days. We are packing and very, very excited! "Pancake" (who is 12) is bouncing off the walls. She is ready to go get her sister! We are ready to go! What once was the unsure, and fear to travel has now become an incredible aching of anticipation. God has prepared us well. We want to go now! His timing is perfect! We are especially thrilled that we will be staying at the Bejoe house and are excited to meet all the wonderful people in which we have heard. We are so ready, we think, to have our Mekdes home. What a journey!

THE BITTER...my mother-in-law is dying. She has been given one month. She has decided not to go through radiation. The tumor growing in her brain has almost doubled in size since April. She then had surgery to move the tumor, it is evidently back, and worse. It is difficult to imagine, or let this truth sink in. It was just a year ago she was here in the midwest celebrating "The Boy's" graduation from high school. She was spunky and healthy. I hurt for "Da Man," he is so torn, and yet we again realize that God's timing is perfect, even when it is painful.

She Is Ours

It is official....

we will be leaving on June 2oth

to get our almost 10yr old daughter from Ethiopia.

Praise God!

COURT DATE!!!

WE GOT OUR COURT DATE TODAY! HIP-HIP HURRAY!!! June 3rd. We are excited, shocked and praising God. We did not expect a court date so soon. It has been exactly 30 days since we received our referral. I guess we were still rejoicing that we finally did get our referral; a name and a face, with a beautiful smile. Wow! We are thankful!

My God Is So Big

"My God is so big, so strong and so mighty, there is nothing my God cannot do..."

So, if anyone thinks God is not in the miracle business anymore, they are so WRONG. God is at work every second of the day, this is really nothing new, but it is easy to say and then not pay any attention to the work God is still doing. Sometimes it takes something big to jolt the reality of His miracles into view. Over the past two weeks we have been witnessing the work of our Lord in a very real way.


Our pastor's wife became ill over night on April 2nd. The doctors said that she would not live. She was diagnosed with bacterial meningitis and the doctors said that they have never seen anyone survive with this type and stage of the illness. The first 24 to 48 hours were critical....it has now been two weeks.

"My God is so big..."


Our pastor's wife is alive, off of the ventilator, out of the coma, out of ICU...alive, Thank you God! The road to recovery will be long, but this dear woman is out of the critical stage. She is now in rehabilitation and each day there is progress.

"So strong and so mighty..."


The healing of our pastor’s wife is an amazing blessing from God, but watching and hearing how so many people have come together and to the Lord leaves me in awe. There are people all over the world praying for her, and then there are people who are hearing the Word of God through this Miracle for the very first time. People have been able to reach out to others who are not believers through this miraculous story of our pastor's wife, and this great amazing story of my Lord and Savior.


"There is nothing my God cannot do..."

I Am So Excited to Be Below Average! Praise God!

We got our referral call from Mary today, March 17, 2009 (actually yesterday, but I have not slept yet and it is 4am on the 18th). Although we began the adoption process over a year ago, due to various hurdles we were officially on the referral wait list for 6 months and 4 days. The “average” wait time for a referral is 6 ½ months, we were below that timeline, which puts us below average, I can’t imagine a time in my life that I would cheer for being below average, but right now I am doing a happy dance! God is good! I think my husband and I are both still in shock. We were so used to not getting “the call” that we are just so surprised that it actually happened. After our conference call with Mary, my husband called me 3 times on his commute home from work, he didn’t even have anything to say, he was just completely giddy.
The referral pics were filled with our smiling beautiful 9 ½ year old girl.

Anyway, we now get to play the new waiting game…court date.