Awesome Way to Intro their new son!

Had to post this family's introduction to the newest member of their family. This is the video they put our once they passed court! Get a tissue and Enjoy!


http://www.onetruemedia.com/otm_site/view_shared?p=8f89e7801a2774953778a6&skin_id=601&utm_source=otm&utm_medium=text_url

Treasures of the Day

Well, as each day passes since our last court date, Tuesday the 23rd, I get a little more composure back! (Smile) We truly are doing great and looking forward with great anticipation to getting our little buddy in Mid July. Incidentally, our court date was given in error. It is not July 2nd, it is now July 3rd (Friday). The only thing that kept us from passing last week was the Orphanage Director not being there. Lord willing, he will be there this week and all will go well! If not, we will survive again, praying that I will do it a little more gracefully this time! (Smile)

Great things happened today! We contacted a local organization called Gleaning for the World earlier this week and told them that we had been praying that we would be able to do more than pick up our child when we go to Ethiopia. We said we are praying for a way to try to have a little bigger impact with helping the other orphanages over there when we go and we were wondering if they might have some items that we could possibly take. They were so sweet and gracious. The head of the organization, Pastor Ron Davidson said, "sure", then gave me the name of an Angel who cares for their inventory and said "call her and she can tell you better what we have". We called the Angel named Jean and she said, "I don't know if we have what you need, but you are very welcome to come and take what you find that would help."

Well, Brett, Noah and I went out this afternoon and found so many items that will be a total blessing to share when we go over there. As a matter of fact, she had a couple of bags of items that had come in the day before. She said, when it came in, she said, I thought it must have come in just for your need. It was lots of craft and school supplies. Praise the Lord! He is so good! It will be so awesome to be able to deliver these things. I know it will do a lot for our 8 year old son to be able to be a part of it all.

I was just thinking today what a blessing it is, not only for us to be able to have a new member added to our family, but also for us to be able to have the gift of what I know will be a heart and eye opening trip for our family. We have always been blessed beyond belief and I am praying that through this, God will open our eyes and our hearts to a larger ministry for Him. I know He doesn't need us, but I am so humbled to know that He wants to used us, even when we are such a mess like I so often am.

Thanks for all of your prayers and support!

Round #4 - July 2nd

Court Date #4 is scheduled for the 2nd of July. Thanks for all the prayer support! The case was closed yesterday, which should mean that we would be put at the back of the line for new court dates, but it sounds like the judge met us 1/2 way! Our court date could have easily been several weeks off. Thank you God for all the little ways you calm us! I should have more information about tentative travel soon. Thank goodness we are working with a travel agent that works with adoptions. This would be much more miserable otherwise! Stay tuned!

Failure #3

I am writing this right now, not because I feel like discussing any of this at the moment. I am pretty frustrated to put it mildly! I am writing this because I feel like I need to give our prayer warriors an update! Thanks for the prayer!

All was completed with our paperwork and we would have passed, but the Orphanage Director is required to be there and was too sick to be. I am sorry for the director, yet the judge doesn't sound willing to just hear from them another day this week. She wants to close our case and get a new court date, probably a couple more weeks away! Too frustrated to say how I really feel and know it won't glorify God, so I will sign off for now! Please pray for us to not get too frustrated and for court to pass before they close August-October. I know I need a lot of prayer right now!P

P.S. Please pray for Noah in particular. He has been soooooooooo very patient throughout all of this and I know when I pick him up from Vacation Bible School at 12, he is pretty much assuming a "Yes, we passed".

Waiting for Round #3 on June 23rd

Hello All,

We didn't pass today! Yes, this is disappointing, but we are doing fine. There was progress to note. The relinquishing family members did make it to the court and were allowed to give their testimony so they will not have to travel back for the next court date, which is June 23rd. The main reason stated for not passing today was that MOWA (the ministry of women's affairs), which is understaffed, was unable to get their part of the paperwork to the court in time. Yes, this is why they call adoption "paper pregnancy". All the paperwork has to be done before the delivery! Smile!

So, as I said above, the new court date is next Tuesday, which incidentally will be the 20th Anniversary of my father's death. I believe we will see a PASS on that date! It is currently a bitter sweet day for our family as we are joyful to know that Dad went to be with the Lord on that day, yet we miss him dearly here on Earth and the 23rd is an amplified reminder of that. I believe God, in His usual Goodness wants to give us more reasons to celebrate and be joyful on the 23rd. His timing is Perfect!

Approximately 36 hours until we hear how our Court Case turned out!!!!

Well, once again, we are excitedly waiting for our court results. We should wake up Wednesday morning to find out if we have passed court and our son is an official Pace.
We thank all who are praying. Just to give you a little glimpse of what we are learning about our new addition. Below is a note from the sweet family that took our latest goodie bag to our son when they were picking up their child. She took a couple of pictures for us and our son looks wonderful! It sounds like he is a playful, fun little boy. We have one of those already and pray that the two will make a great heart connection!

She wrote:
Your little boy is a hoot! He was very shy when we first met him, but then when we started playing, he was so very funny. He loves playing with balls and really loved my husband.

We so enjoyed your little T! The pictures really don't show his personality, but our son's didn't either- you will so enjoy having a little older child, especially one who likes to play like your's!!

Stay tuned for the Wednesday update!

Prayer Request for all going through the court process right now!

Seven days to go for our court case to be heard! It will be Wednesday, between 3 and 7 am our time. Many other families that were caught up in our same paperwork issue last month have passes through their new court date, with many still coming up over the next week. One in particular needs urgent prayer. They have a child who somehow got caught up in previous orphanage trying to adopt them out. I guess the couple decided not to complete the adoption, more than likely because the child has some health issues. A family working with our adoption agency really wants the child, but because of the other attempted adoption, it is all being held up in court. Please lift the Setliffe family up in prayer. The decision has been deliberated for more than 4 weeks already and the child needs surgery and other needed medical care. Please keep those prayers flowing! I know they appreciate it very much! To be continued.....

New Court Date - June 17th

Yeah! The new court date is June 17th. Now we just need to pass it! If we pass that date, then we should travel over the 4th of July. It looks like travel would be July 4th through 11th. We are hoping to travel a couple of days early to meet other members of our son's family. Please continue to pray!

No New Court Date Yet!

Sorry for not posting more! We are doing well and just trying to focus on getting our house in order. Truly time is passing for us very quickly! As is always true for me, I can never get as much accomplished as I would like, but I'm learning through all of that process too! As Noah continually reminds me ... "I am a work in progress". Praise the Lord, He isn't done with me yet! I need some upgrades! (Smile)

We still do not have a new court date yet, but God knows when it is and we are at peace with that! A prayer request would be that we are able to pass court before the beginning of August. We are not going to be distressed, even if it does go longer, but we are praying that court passes before August because if it doesn't, we will be faced with a delay from August - the end of Sept. The Ethiopian Courts close for a 2 month break and do not reopen until October. We didn't even dream that we could have to think about being effected by that when we first sent our paperwork over, thinking we had plenty of months, but it may be something we have to be prepared for. I will post again as soon as I hear anything! Thanks again for all of your prayers!

Fresh Joy

Wow! After our learning about the court case being "closed" until further notice today, my son and I decided to have a party of a different kind. No pity party here! We sang praises to the Lord, went riding bikes in a torrential downpour, hitting all the deepest mud puddles at least 15 or 20 times. Once we were all cleaned up, we ate Crab legs (my favorite) and macaroni and cheese (Noah's favorite) and played games. What a way for God to restore your perspective and bring fresh joy! He is so good!

Plus, we were a lot less rumpled once Brett arrived home. The only downside was that Dad couldn't join the party!

Thanks again for all of your prayers!

More Hurdles to Jump before we pass!

We are disappointed but not surprised this morning as we just received information that we did not pass our first court date. Not only did we not pass, we were not even presented. The case was marked "Closed". A document that we jumped through hoops to update last week will arrive to them in a few hours, but wasn't able to get there in time for court. Faxed copies wouldn't appease the judge. This document by the way was accepted for the last 10 months then changed on a dime last week. Does it sound like there is something working against us? There is and it is the devil. He wants to keep us stirred up with little peace.

My desire is to be aggitated beyond belief, not because we didn't pass, but because of the reason that our case wasn't heard. I was prepared for a "No", but would feel a little better if it was for a good reason like maybe the relinquishing relative couldn't make it to court or maybe some information was missing that still needed to be collected. This situation just feels like antagonism and breaks my heart that power politics may be playing a roll in this, rather than putting the good of the children first.

As it stands now, the document will be delivered and looked at on Wednesday, again this will be in the middle of the night for us here in the US. I asked if there was a possibility if our case would be heard tomorrow. The answer was, "doubtful because so many have been canceled for the same reason." There is no way that the judge can catch that many cases up tomorrow. The next court cases being scheduled are after June 18th. Unfortunately, the relative that relinquished our child lives 7 hours away and probably showed up for court this morning. I don't know if he would have been able to stay over night to be able to be there in the morning, so more than likely, they will be inconvenienced to have to come back again for a later date.

Please God, give us your ability to pray for those who seem to be pulling all the strings right now and who seem to be antagonistic to this process. Please give us your eyes, your heart and the peace that you are in control and that your timing is perfect. Please be with all of the families that didn't pass yesterday and today because of the same thing and may you somehow be glorified through this situation! Please grow us in ways we aren't expecting and use this time for miracles! Praise God for He is Good All the Time!!!!

Thank you for all the prayers! Keep praying!

Tonight is the night for the next big milestone!

Tonight is the night! As we sleep tonight, our court case will be being heard. Thank you all for your prayers! We are so excited no matter what the outcome of the court no matter what it is! Of course we are praying for a "Pass", but we are trusting in God's timing for it all and just know that this is one step closer to bringing our sweet new son home! I can't wait until we can post pictures to introduce him to everyone! Blessings to All!

Thank you Charles for this verse I will cling to today:
Isaiah 41:10 (NIV) "So do not fear, for I am with you; do not be dismayed, for I am your God. I will strengthen you and help you; I will uphold you with my righteous right hand.

Court is almost upon us!!!!!!

Tonight, we finally finished painting the bedroom for our new child and hope to go get his bed tomorrow! It is so surreal trying to picture how our new son will view all of these things that are so foreign from everything he has ever known. If you think about it, we all grow into everything we are now used to. I imagine it will be a bit of shell shock and overload for him when he first comes into country. We tried to be pretty subdued with the bedroom, yet light. Maybe I will put some pictures on here when we get the furniture in it. Taking a look around our house trying to see through his eyes makes me want to hide much to help prevent to much overwhelm. We still have much work to do before he come! What a wonderful reason to get your home into better order!

One weekend left until our court date on the 26th. Please keep us in prayer, along with the judge and the family member that has to show up at court. The family member who relinquished our child must be present at court or we do not pass. This family member lives 7 hours away and may find it very difficult to make the trip for many reasons. Please pray all goes smoothly! I will be putting out an update with a yes we passed or no we didn't on Tuesday sometime. Thank you for your prayers!


In Christ,
Mary

What can 1 person do here in the US to make a difference? A LOT

Friends and Family,

Please read the following post with an open heart. I also encourage you to ACT on behalf of these babies. You may never go to a foreign land and you may never feel the urging of the holy spirit to open your home and heart to an orphan. BUT!!! YOU can make a difference in the life of a child. YOU can be the hands and feet of Jesus from your own home.

Famine and poverty are increasing the rates of malnourished infant babies in Ethiopia. Children's HopeChest has worked with the America World Adoption Agency (AWAA) on projects in Ethiopia and Russia over the past five years. This request came to us from their transition home where they are receiving severely malnourished babies into their care. This month, in honor of mother's day, I want to raise $12,500 to provide specialized baby formula to this transition home for these malnourished babies.

A malnourished baby cries in his mother's lap at the Médecins Sans Frontières intensive care unit near the southern town of Sheshemene. Radu Sigheti/Reuters. [Tom's Note: This is not a child from AWAA's transition home.]

Here's a view from the ground from Duni, an Ethiopian woman working for AWAA at their transitional home:

Even though I grew up in Ethiopia, I never knew just how badly babies suffered from malnutrition until I returned to Addis and started working at the AWAA office there. The children at our Transitional Home come from very remote areas. Their families are unable to feed themselves let alone their children and usually relinquish them to their local orphanage when it becomes evident their children will die if they don't.

It is hard to see malnourished babies, so tiny, with just skin and bones. I remember the first one I saw, we will call her Gracie. She looked like an old woman in a baby's body. She had big eyes that seemed so wise and testified to what they have seen in the short months Gracie has been alive.

That was a few months ago, since then we have admitted many more babies in such condition. And looking at Gracie today, I can't believe she is the same baby. I knew she was a beauty but it really came out once those cheeks filled up. She is still tiny but the pound she has gained in the past week has made a world of difference in her appearance.

I look at the others and feel the same way I first felt with Gracie, dejection and fear that she may never make it. The right type of formula for such babies is hard to come by. In fact any kind of formula is expensive and hard to come by. We have babies who need this today so we work tirelessly to get the best formula possible for malnourished babies shipped from the US.

It is not fair for a baby to have sad eyes like Gracie's or for a baby to cry out of hunger and not have that need met.

Worse yet, it is not fair for a baby to die because of malnutrition. And yet, that is what happens daily in Ethiopia. Today, I am praying for the babies lying still in their cribs. I am praying I will see them feed soon (they are now on feeding tubes). I am praying that their tiny lifeless legs will slowly fill with flesh and will wiggle and play like normal babies do.

Here's what we can do to help. CHC will raise $12,500 to purchase what is known in the U.S. as "Nutramigen" formula. This type of formula is necessary because traditional formula cannot be digested by malnourished infants.

You can participate by making a gift of any size. A gift of $30 will buy and ship one can of formula to the chidlren in need. Right now if you give $30 it will be doubled to $60! The first $500 we raise will be matched dollar-for-dollar. If we hit our goal, we can send 400 cans of formula to starving infants in Ethiopia.

PRECIOUS LIVES WILL BE SAVED THROUGH YOUR GENEROSITY!

CLICK HERE TO DONATE! Please put "Ethiopia Formula" in the note section of the donate page

Awesome Video by Sara Groves- "I Saw What I Saw" song inspired by her trip to Africa

Enjoy this video by Sara Groves. May it touch your heart as it did mine!

http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=OSdP6PqsbJY

Learn Some Basic Amharic Phrases

Hey Everyone, I just found a link that really gives a glimpse of Amharic and how it is pronounced. If you have interest to learn a little to connect with our child when he arrives, this is a great crash course. http://ethiopianadoptiontravelogue.wordpress.com/?s=Amharic+Phrases .

Help Us Raise Awareness

Hey Everyone, As our family is traveling down this road to adopt through Africa, it is increasingly weighing on our hearts to help raise awareness of the huge need that Africa has. Please check out this website. https://www.mochaclub.org/mochaclub/welcome and the other links I have posted on our blog. I am daily trying to find more ways to get the message out that small things that we in the US can do, even in our challenging economy today, will make a huge impact on those in Africa and other less fortunate countries. Just look what $7 will do! We recently watched a movie about Mother Teresa and I will never forget the scene where she was sitting in what would probably be called a board meeting with those who were managing her ministry that had been growing so much, she had finally succumb to allowing management. She didn't ever want that. She believed it (her ministry) should stay simple and let God do the rest. In the scene I am referring to, everyone at the table had a bottle of water sitting in front of them. She asked someone around the table how much the bottle cost. I believe they said about $3. She said that that would enable a child to go to school for a year or a semester, then she disbanded the management group and went back to simple and as we all know, God used her mightily throughout all of her efforts. $3/$7/$10/$20/$100 can do so much and yet it is nothing to us in the US. Please search and consider how you might be able to support Africa or some other country that has so little and is so desperate for our help. And stay tuned to our blog if you are looking for more ideas of how to get involved. As I find more, I will attach their link. More than anything, please pray for those who suffer, who are homeless and those who may need a family.

A Post from the Times Online

I found this today while searching looking at another adopting families blog...

The Ethiopian peasant farmer and his wife shuffled painfully into the orphanage. They were in the last stages of Aids and had only weeks to live. However, they were happy. They had heard the Franciscan nuns had found a home for their three children and had come to say farewell.
“I am so happy, they are going to stay together,” the father, Solomon, whispered as he embraced a middle-aged Mormon couple from Salt Lake City, Utah. “Now, I can die peacefully. They will go to school in America and have a future. It is good they leave here.” As they embraced their two daughters, aged 8 and 6, for the last time the tears ran freely. Their four-year-old son did not appreciate the significance of the moment and ran off to play with friends.

Sister Luthgarder, a seasoned veteran of such heart-rending adoptions, explained: “It is sad, but it is so rare they are kept together and so I am happy.” Only a week previously a brother and sister were separated: one going to Norway, the other to Canada. “The new parents said they would take them to see each other every year, but inevitably they will grow apart,” she said.
Only a fraction of Ethiopia’s burgeoning population of orphaned children, now put at five million, find their way to Kidane Meheret Children’s Home. Even fewer leave and they are certainly the lucky ones.

A few miles away, dozens of children sleep in drains at night and beg by day at the sprawling central bus station. They face constant dangers.
“Some are forced into prostitution, some are sold by relatives after their parents die, they are kept as maids and often abused,” said Dagmawi Alemayeau who runs an organisation, Forum on Street Children, which tries to fight trafficking. Most of an estimated 50,000 children on the streets of the capital, Addis Ababa, at some stage pass through the bus station where he has his office.

“Traffickers go to the rural areas ... there are places where you can even buy a baby for as little as $1,” he told The Times. He always keeps an eye open at the international airport where so-called “uncles” can often be spotted boarded planes to Gulf states with teenage girls.
Across the rest of Africa, a combination of soaring populations, growing poverty and the HIV-Aids epidemic has led to a huge increase in orphans.
A UNICEF report estimates that in sub-Saharan Africa alone there will be more than 20 million by 2010.
Cash-strapped governments on the world’s poorest continent are overwhelmed. They can afford only a handful of government run agencies. Despite an increase in foreign adoptions, some well-publicised like those of Madonna and Angelina Jolie, who has adopted from Ethiopia and Cambodia, only a tiny fraction of these children find new homes overseas.
Organisations like UNICEF and the UK’s Save the Children Fund are opposed to foreign adoptions, advocating instead that the children be placed in extended families or locally adopted so they grow up within his or her own cultural identity.
They encourage would be parents to send money instead to help look after the children in the country of origin. But they are often accused of a head in the sand approach to the abuse the child may face and ignore the fact that by so doing they often condemn the child to a life of grinding poverty and no education.

“Adoption is sad, very sad but the whole issue is sad, a life of neglect, and abandonment, grinding poverty and abuse is sad, adoption is often the lesser evil especially as the people who come here are good and very carefully checked,” added Sister Luthgarder who finds at least one new born baby a week on her doorstep.

I am convinced that we are to do what we can for even just one....(or two!) Thank God for the opportunity to reach out to the fatherless.

1st Posting

Well, it is taking a major effort to get our blog going. It isn't too terribly hard, but does take some time. We really could have made this easier to follow if we would have started posting at the very beginning of our effort to adopt. However, since we didn't, I just have to jump right in or will never get started. I will try to fill in the gaps after I get a few posts going to announce where we currently are.

Our family has been on a journey to adopt for a couple of years. February of 2008, we entered the Ethiopia adoption program. March 19th we received our referral from America World Adoption Agency. It didn't take any time to decide to accept! He is a precious little one and we are so excited to be so close to going to get our new addition! We have prayed for this little guy for a long time. Noah has prayed for him as long as I can remember.

We received a tentative court date for May 26th. We don't have to be there, but what that means is that once we pass court, we will be given firm travel dates to go pick up our son. The court date is the part that makes our son officially ours. Currently our tentative travel dates are June 20 - 26th.

Please keep all of the details in prayer for us so that all goes as smoothly as possible. Many do not pass through court the first or even second time for various reasons (paperwork missing, someone doesn't show to court ...etc.). That is all pretty much out of our control, but not God's so we will accept His timing!

Well, it is past time to start school with Noah, but I just had to get something going here.