EASTER!

We had a great day celebrating the resurection of our Lord and Savior Jesus Christ! Our church family was able to again meet ALL together at the Bijou Theater in downtown Knoxville, which was a blast. Stephen was able to get up on stage with the kids and do their song, he was soooo cute! Isaac and Bethany both decided that they were tired and just passed out half way through. Then we had our best friends the Sams and Shields over for lunch and fellowship. The guys got to go out and shoot and us girls got to gab (which we're real good at=). The big kids had fun playing with the littles. What a blessing they are in our lives!


A few Easter pics....

(PS. I'm not yelling at Isaac in the picture above=) We were hammin it up)

He is Risen!!! He is risen INDEED!!! Come Lord Jesus COME!!!

Update!

Yea we got an update this morning! We really were unsure if we would get one or not. The social workers over in Ethiopia typically start doing updates every other month after the child turns 2. Well 'A' turned 2 a few months ago but we have still been able to get an update each month! I'm so happy we got this because even thought they say she is 2 she is still not walking by herself. We found out in this update that she is starting to cruise along the walls and taking a few steps by herself! This is so bittersweet. I'm so happy that she is growing and progressing but it hurts that we are missing these milestones in her life (espcially since we have already missed so much of it). The social workers continue to tell us that she is a very sweet little girl. I can only laugh when i read about her getting upset when another child takes away her toy and how she goes to the nanny to 'tell' on them with a sad face. We got about 12 new pictures of her, some of which she is wearing boy clothes which our boys think is rather funny. 38 days till we leave!!!!

We booked our tickets to AFRICA!!!

After going back and forth on a few different flights Stephen and I decided on one and booked it a few days ago! We are so excited and so happy to finally see things moving along. We will be leaving Knoxville on Friday May 13th and will return on Saturday May 22nd.

We chose this flight because it will put us in Africa on Saturday and give us Sunday to recover a bit before we get to meet our little girl on Monday. Then we are hoping to get to see her each day during that week. As a rule the orphanage will only allow you to stay for a few hours so we are excited to at least have a full week to spend with her. Our court date is on Thursday but we still hope to get to see her maybe after that. We are keeping our expectations in check, knowing that things don't always go 'as planned'.

So now we are just working on our 'To-do before we go to Africa' list, which just seems to grow everyday. This next month is pretty full so hopefully that will help time to go by fast! At least that's my prayer.

Only 42 days to go!!!!!!!!

Court Date!!!!

We got the call from our Social worker today that we have been assigned a court date of
May 19th!

There is quite the story to go with this. So after waiting twice as long for a court date as they said we would we decided to schedule a conference call with our agency. About 2 minutes before the call started our social worker got on the conference call and let us know she JUST got news that we have a court date! We decided to go ahead with the conference call because there were other issues we needed to discuss with them. The funny thing is we scheduled a conference call back when we were waiting to get submitted. We got submitted right when we scheduled the call!
And one last really weird thing is that all of our good news has come on Wednesdays (referral, submitted, and court date). We also seem to have a fondness for the 19th (referral and our actual court date).

As anyone who has been following our blog knows, our case has gone over their estimated time lines for EACH AND EVERY step of the journey, thus far. So we shouldn't have been surprised when we found out our court date ( should be 6-8 weeks) was 8 weeks and 1 day!

We are excited to have these first steps behind us and ready to get to planning this trip to meet our daughter for the first time!!!!

We have gone through some VERY dark times in these past 5 months. But we have clung to the Lord and His Word throughout it all and are so thankful He has allowed us to wave goodbye to this valley!

Cutting Adoptions

For the last week we have been waiting to find out what the outcome will be for the memo posted on VOM earlier in the week. Stating that MOWA was going to begin cutting adoptions but up to 90% starting on March 10th. This would mean that they only write 5 letters per day. You have to have this letter to pass court. We just got off the phone with the International Coordinator for Bethany and she confirmed that they have indeed implemented this new rule.

Truth be told we really don't know what this means for us. We have heard that there are still discussions within the government (because MANY don't agree with whats happening). We have been told that this could be just a desperate plea for more staff in the MOWA office. But as it stands now only 5 cases a day will be processed.

This is extremely disheartening. And yet we are STILL waiting for a court date. Court Dates were given out last week to families we were submitted with. We were told we WOULD get a date in 2-3 weeks, well we're now past 3 weeks. So again our case just isn't the 'norm'.

So once we do get a date we really are not sure what will happen. We have been told to still attend the court date and just assume that we will not pass (because of the letter we need from MOWA). At that point we will have to wait for them to write our letter. The amount of time we have to wait for that letter is what is in question. The memo stated that they would cut adoptions by 90% so if they will only approve 5 cases per day that means they WERE approving up to 50 a day. So there is a potential for a HUGE backlog of cases needing a letter.

Please pray that this rash decision will be discussed and handled in a way which doesn't hurt the kids waiting to go to their forever homes! We're in this for the long haul. We will do WHATEVER it takes to get her home but we're just ready for things to start flowing a little more smoothly. So also if you'll just pray for encouragement for us and strength to continue on.

I have to also say I have the best friends a girl could ever hope for! Bethany, Crystal, Kelcy thank you so much for checking in on me and praying with me all the time. I love you girls!!!!

Please pray, spread the word and ACT!
As you may have heard, Joint Council recently released a Statement regarding the announcement by the Ethiopian Ministry of Women’s, Children’s and Youth Affairs plan to reduce intercountry adoption by 90%. We do not have a lot of detail on why or if this is going to be temporary or permanent. JCICS has issued the following Call to Action in hopes that MoWA will reverse this decision.

Please help! by doing the following:

1)Sign the petition to the Prime Minister of Ethiopia, Meles Zenawi – and pass it on!

2)Have you adopted from Ethiopia? Please send us up to 3 photos and 50 words or less with what you would like the Ministry to know about your child – we’ll compile the information and send a book to the Ministry of Woman’s Affairs. Send your photos and stories to advocate@jointcouncil.org by Sunday, March 12, 2011 to be included. Please note that sending photos and stories gives Joint Council unrestricted right to use the information you provide.

3)Share…Please send this Call to Action to family members, other adoptive parents, and everyone you know! Post, forward and share your adoption stories via Facebook, Twitter, and blogs. Make sure you include us in your posts so we can all hear your stories! Here’s links to our pages: Facebook, Twitter and our blog.

4)Stay informed: Get up-to-date information regarding the situation in Ethiopia by signing up to receive information from us: click here to do so, make sure you choose “country and issues specific information” and “Ethiopia.” And don’t forget to follow us on Facebook, Twitter and our blog!

5)Help ensure our advocacy can continue: Joint Council is a non-profit and receives no government funding. Please join us in ensuring more children live in safe, permanent and loving families. Donate today!

Update!!!

Today we got update #2! I heard my special ring for our social worker and my heart skipped a beat, hoping that she was calling with a court date?! But the update is GREAT!
A is doing good. When we received our first update (3 months after referral) she had lost 6lbs. That's a lot of weight for a little girl to loose. So our hearts were very happy to see that she has gained back 1 1/2 lbs. She is getting her 3 regular meals everyday plus she is on a supplemental feeding to help with her weight gain.
In the update they said she is "a very beloved baby in the orphanage". It makes me so happy to know that the nannies are loving on her=)
Each update gives us a little better glimpse into what her personality is like. She seems very sweet and gentle from what we have heard. We just can't wait to meet her in person! Come on court date!!!!!!!

On a side note... During these very rough weeks we had been going through I was reading to the kids the children's version of Pilgrims Progress. The Lord was using that book a ton to minister to my heart. One scene in the book was when Christian gets caught by giant Despair. He is held there for a long time before he finally escapes. When he finally does escape and gets back on the Way of the King he is exhausted and weak as he continues his journey to the Celestial City. This is EXACTLY how I was feeling. Beaten up, worn out, exhausted and numb.
I was able to go to our women's retreat this past weekend. The theme was ' A Heart set on Pilgrimage' from Psalm 84:5. I know it wasn't a coincidence! In the book, when Christian is on his journey to the King he goes through some VERY dark and scary places. He can't understand why the King is allowing this or that to happen. But as he travels further down the Way of the King he can see the purpose more clearly. It doesn't make those times any less scary or difficult but it does help him when he comes to the next dark place (and he will come to another dark place) to remember what the King brought him through already.
I was sharing all this with my girlfriends during one of our breaks and when we came back in for another session guess what was laying on the table?=) As a gift to all the women everyone received the book Pilgrims Progress! Our God is so good! So faithful to come and mend our broken hearts and set us straight on The Way of the King!!!!