Pictures from Ethiopia..

Another family returned today, from Ethiopia and shared their pictures. There were about five new ones of Olivia, that I cannot post, but wanted to share some of just the sites around the city...as soon as I can get bloggers photo feature to work!!! You will see them here....
waiting by unpacking, but also reading a book on adopting older children and attachment. It will be interesting to see how our transition goes, with Olivia being older. Mary Beth was almost three when she came home. Olivia will be seven. Enjoy the pics....

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Nothing new under the sun...

at least on the adoption front....

I am in a wait mode. Waiting for the homestudy to be sent.

They are waiting on a piece of paper that they will only allow to be signed by the director of the adoption agency, who happens to be in Ethiopia right now and will not be back until next week.

So wait.

We are in our new house, with more space....

So we are living life, and waiting...

God's timing is perfect. So I am at peace on this. Have actually set my mind to realize my Nov/Dec will probably be the timeframe...and as I already posted, it may be better. We will be more settled, the kids in school, Angela will be here and more comfortable with the family and routine...so in many ways, probably better.

So, nothing new....:)

Just boxes to unpack!

Setbacks and Delays....

So I have had a piece of paper delay in my homestudy being completed...and again it is outside my control. With this added delay, I have pretty much given up hope to get to Ethiopia before the courts close....which would mean Oliva would be coming home in the November December time frame....

God knows what is best, and I am surrendered to His timing. I keep getting awesome pictures of her....and I know God is in charge of the whole situation...who knows what He may do.

So I am trying to learn about ESL and how to transition a child who does not speak English into the school system mid-year. Maybe Nov, Dec would be a better time anyway....less going on, kids in the school routine, so I could spend 1 on 1 time with her.

Our Abba loves us all...and we will be united....what a Christmas that would be, no? :) Can't wait. Hold on dear little daughter of mine....we are coming....we are coming soon, and we have made a great place for you....a house with many rooms, and one for you to share with your little sister. What laughs we will have. What fun. What pretty dresses, and dancing around the house and songs about Jesus. What hugs. What love. What a future. Our Abba Daddy is wrapping us all in...making us family. We are family. And we are coming.

Good News.....

No, I did not get my homestudy, yet. But I did get some good news, from another source.

The company I work for just added an adoption benefit. They will reimburse $5000 of my adoption cost! Isn't that an awesome blessing?!

Thank you Lord, and God bless Intel!

I also got to see some video footage today from the orphanage. I wish you could see these little precious smiling faces, and high-pitched voices. It is touching. I am hoping they will post the video of Olivia when she got our package and photo album.....

So here is a funny thing, I was thinking about the $5000 reimbursement from my company, that I was not planning on..... That is the exact amount to adopt a second child at the same time. Hmmmmm. Am I nuts?

BTW. The fabulous picture above was taken by a family who were in Ethiopia just a week or so ago.

Connected...

oh...more more thing, I forgot to mention....

In the many many pictures of Olivia Mame I got, one showed her holding a card, with her name and my name on it!!!!!

We are connected....we belong to each other. That is so amazing. To think, this little girl on the other side of the globe holds pictures of us and we hold pictures of her and the "belonging" is already starting. How awesome is that?

Just adjust...

Well, I did not get the good news I was looking for. :( The social worker was not done with the homestudy on the day she thought she would be, or on the 30 day mark....

But what can you do? Nothing I am not in charge of timing, and although she may not know it, neither is she.

So I had to adjust my thinking again, as I am counting days...and realize God is in charge of timing.

And regardless of when the next chain of events kicks off, it will be the perfect time in God's timing and it will all work out. :)

Isn't this a cool picture? A family that just got back from Ethiopia took it while they were there.

So...the homestudy is now being reviewed by various folks in the agency and should be sent to the head office...maybe Friday...in which they take up to 30 days to review and approve it.

Meanwhile, I am going to pull out all my dossier papers, double check that they are all in order, and then get them authenticated...so all I will have to do when I get my homestudy, is get it authenticated and send it off to Assistant Stork. Makes me feel like I am doing something.

On a happy note, I got TONS, I mean TONS of very cute pictures of Olivia, from the same family mentioned above. So cute. and in a few she was wearing the necklace and bracelets we sent her and the little purse!!! How cute!

She is always smiling and right in the middle of things and hugging her little friends. I am glad I have a full house for her to come home to, or she might me lonely.

What a blessing.

Hoping for good news on Monday....and Tues....

Well, I am hoping to hear good news on Monday: My social worker said a couple weeks back, that she hoped to have the homestudy done and sent to the agencies corporate offices by the end of April. Well, it is 4 days past that. I have not heard anything, but I sent her an email asking if it was done, on Friday...I am hoping to hear good news tomrrow! The home office gets another 30 days to review and approve it...I would love for them to be quicker than that....we are all waiting!! Hoping to beat the rainy season, as well as get Olivia home before school starts. ...Fret, fret....but God knows all this....Lord, your timing, your will.

My other good news, I am hoping to hear, is Tues or Wed. . . but more on that later...so waiting waiting.

New Hair do....

Oh, we all love a new DOOOOOOO!

I saw some new pictures of Olivia (from a couple families traveling to gather their little ones...) and I noticed she had a new do. Zizagged part and three braids on each side. Very cute!

So I am going to have the fun of learning a whole new set of hair dos. Fun... SO I do some hair-do surfing...and here are some I came across. No none of these pictures are MY Oliva...but lots of pretty girls with pretty Hair dos!

She Knows.....

News from Ethiopia.

Below is a snippet of an update from a mom who is over in Ethiopia getting her daughter. She visited the orphanage where Olivia Mame, our dear one is, and gave her the little package we sent her, that includes a little photo album of us. This is a snippet of what she wrote in an update to our yahoo.group:

Forgive me for not remembering...but whoever has Mame...ohhh she is SUCH a sweetheart. We gave her the package and showed her the pictures and got it all on video. She was so excited and kept saying Mommy??!!?? With a huge smile...you will cry when you see it.

Isn't that awesome? Precious? She now knows of us and that she has a family! Yes, I am a mommy again!

Home study, home study...wait wait wait.

So, an update:

I was hoping the actual writing of my homestudy would take less than the 2 months that my social worker predicted. (One month for her to write it and one month for the home office to review it. )

I gently, kindly, showed her pictures of my sweet Oliva Mamea in Africa, and told her the only little thing we are currently waiting on to move forward is......well......her to write the homestudy. Since I had my homestudy with them when I adopted Mary, it was an update really...not having to start from scratch and decipher the history of my life.

So, with the last visit on April 4th, the one month, for her part, would be May 4th. So I thought, at half way, I would just gently, kindly inquire as to the progress, hoping, knowing that she was the only thing between me and moving on, knowing it was an updating, knowing Olivia is waiting and we want to get there before the rainy season...(yet knowing, I am just "another case" in an overloaded caseload).... hoping to hear good news. Friday, I heard. "I have not started yet..."(had it for 15 days and have not typed one word of it??!!--thought, but not said). " But I plan to start next week and should be able to have it done by the end of the month." 4 days. Maybe 4 days earlier than the one month prediction. :(

sigh...not the answer I was hoping for, but at least I know. Then it goes to their head office, and I know there is no hope that it will go quicker than 30 days there, when the pleading eyes of a waiting mommy and waiting daughter to a social worker had no impact. Why would another packet of papers in a stack of many draw attention?

So..there is where we are.....waiting mode.

I am ok with it....God has his timing and I am ok with it. Was just hoping for some happy, quicker news.!

On another note, a mother from Oregon, Denise, has left for Ethiopia to pick up her children. In her luggage she has a package for Olivia, including a photo album of us. Olivia will find out for the first time either today or tomorrow, that we are her family and what we look like.

I covet your prayers for her as she adjusts to these thoughts. I pray the very thought will be a blessing and hope for her. Pray Denise has a smooth and fruitful journey. (She is still waiting for one piece of paper from the states, to be able to bring her children home, but stepped out on faith, since she has an Embassy appt in Addis Ababa on Friday.)

2 1/2 hours until our Home Homestudy visit....

Update: We survived...and all went well! Whew! What a day, braces for Nick, walk-thru on a possible bigger house, Home Study Visit.

Now...time to unwind!!! Lookout Nim Island, here we come!

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Well the house it is as clean as it is going to get. My mom and dad came over yesterday when I was at work and mopped and cleaned from top to bottom. Isn't that a blessing????

Since then I have only allowed my kids to sit and walk as tin soldiers and eat while standing in the bathtub. haha. Justk idding. Well, ...almost. :) Do you know that pull-ups almost fit a Yorkie, if you don't want himto have an "accident" on newly mopped floors?

sigh....

So, learning from a painful lesson on my first go round adoption,have some engaging project for the kids to do while the socialworker is here. So they don't sit so nervous that when she getshere they lose all reason, and cognitive thought and act like wildalien spacemen without parents. :)So I have set up the watercolors, paint brushes and art supplies onthe kitchen table and they do not get to start until 5 minutesbefore her arrival.

Is that staging? LOL!

They really DO like painting and we REALLY have done it before!!!!

Pray for us.

We may celebrate (or console ourselves) afterwards by going to the movies to see Island of Nim.

Just keep swimming....just keep swimming.......

Sometimes it does not seem like a lot of progress....but it is progress...so I just keep swimmimg.....

Remember the saga about the Child Clearance Letter I needed from the DOJ? Well after a couple months and hair pulling and fingerprinting twice...I found out today, I did not need to do ANY OF THAT!!! My social worker said today, they already had everything they needed and they would include the information in my homestudy regarding this.

!!!!!!!

Sigh...not sure WHY someone could not have told me that on one of my 25 calls before.....but....at least I know now. Just keep swimming....

So I had my first homestudy meeting. Went well. We laughed a lot. and the home visit is scheduled for next Friday! yea! I was hoping the homestudy would be done by the end of April. (or sooner). I found out today, they say 8 weeks!!!!! 4 WEEKS for my social worker to write it and 4 weeks for the home office to review and approve it.

sigh. She admitted it does not take that long to write one homestudy, but the fact is I am not the only one, so it is more the "queue" wait, than the actually writing. And we laughed over the fact that, yea, I realize it is not all ab0ut me!!! (Truly, yea, ok, I know, it is not. :) )

So I am contend with us moving at the pace we move at. God has his timing. So with this timing there is not telling if my dossier will get to Ethiopia and through court in enough time for me to get custody before the courts close for the rainy session...with is mid-July until October...or close to it...a couple months or more.

I would rather travel during summertime, yet on the other hand, having the kids in school when I travel and being settled on the home front, may be a better tme for all involved. Either way, God has it covered and I...well ..... I just keep on swimming....

I bought some goodies for a little package to be taken over to Olivia with another family that is traveling ...with an album of the family. The kids are going to draw some pictures to put in it!

This is the fun stage of the whole adoption journey. Putting a face to our dream, praying for her at night, thinking and talking about her with the kids.....

God is good!

Just keep swimming......

YES!

I said YES! (With God's permission!) I accepted today the referral of a precious little angel from Ethiopia..... "Olivia" Mame (or Mamea...not sure of the spelling or pronounciation.)

Just perfect for us..... I pray we are perfect for her. She is lovely, cute, smiley, happy. Due to Ethiopia law, I cannot post pictures of her in a public setting until she is really mine, after the court date...so I am sorry...because she is lovely!

She is around 6 or 6 1/2...and loves pink, (as I mentioned the other day!)

So I have my first homestudy interview tomorrow. I am hoping my homestudy will be done by the end of April, or sooner. Then I get it all authenticated at the Secy of State...then off to Assistant Stork to be checked and send to the Ethiopian Embassy and the US Consulate..then on to Ethiopia. Then it gets translated and hopefully approved by the MOWA. Then a court date is set. Once I pass court, then I travel.

Easy as cake, no? (LOL!) ok, not so, but !! Big step...we found OLIVIA!

God is good. But we all knew that, huh?

Why must we care about orphans?

There are some 143 million children around the world who are considered orphans through losing one or both parents, according to the United Nations. Moreover, every 14 seconds a child loses a parent due to Aids – the leading cause for a child to lose both parents.

Yet between 1971 and 2001, US citizens have adopted only over a quarter million children, according to the US Department of State.




Religion that God our Father accepts as pure and faultless is this: to look after orphans and widows in their distress and to keep oneself from being polluted by the world. James 1:27

Well, only if it is convenient. Only if it won't put you out, or financially cause a challenge. And only if you can still afford those new soccer shoes and daily latte's. And only if they are cute and well behaved. OH yea, and only if it does not cost much and the paperwork is easy. Oh, and only if someone else does it and I can pray for them. ..... Only......


I was thinking...there are many ways we can become polluted by the world. But one way, that cries out to me most, especially in the culture in which I live, is the myopic view of our lives and what we think we can do or bear, and what we think is not for us...ie Adopting may be for some folks, but not for me because : _____________. Fill in the blank.

But yet, there are 143 million children needing families? If not the Christian community WHO is God calling on do adopt? If not us, than WHO????
Like the froggie in the boiling pot of water, for so many years I became desensitized to what I had become, what I expected from life, what I was ENTITLED to... yet, God, all the time is crying out for His faithful to step up to His heart cry.

The children.

Our children.

Why would we not? Is there any reason good enough? Can I look Jesus in the eye and say, I could not Lord, because ________________ and then look down at His nail scarred hands?

Pretty in Pink...

2 months 3 weeks and 6 days.

I may have found Olivia today. I think I have. I will have more information tomorrow...but today may have been the day when I laid eyes on her for the first time...

Wearing pink and a beautiful smile. Will she want to be my daughter? Will she want to be in this family that looks different from each other and different from her?

Abba, if this is our Olivia, make it so.

I have about 8-10 pictures of her, thanks to some families that just returned from Addis Ababa and took lots of pictures of all the children, and in each of them, she is wearing pink! :) And in one a pink Minnie Mouse! Minnie Mouse was Mary's favorite when we adopted her.... How cute that they may have this in common!

Now I just wait for more information...tomorrow........

Half a Step Closer

My First Home Study Appt is Scheduled!

Wheeeee! I have my first appt scheduled for next week, March 28th. It seems like it has been so much scurrying to get to this point. Paperwork, appts, reading...and I know I am not all the way there, but.....at least I am half a step closer!

And since I have been through all this homestudy stuff before, I am not worried.

Half a happy dance!

God is good and loving beyond comprehension....

I just love God. He is so caring. I was troubled, not doubting my intent to adopt, but wanting to be open to questions posed to me. Like others who walk with God and get a call to do something..."different" and then get hit with obstacles or at least a bumpy road, I too can either bully through and wait on God...

I asked God, still feeling peace over my adoption plans, if He would in some way that would mean something to me...He would know best, reconfirm to me that I was walking the path HE would have for me.

And then I just restfully sat that request at His feet, not knowing for sure what He would show me or when.

That very night He showed me not once, but twice.

First, I have been reading Stepping Heavenward, by Elizabeth Prentiss, written in 1869. That night I picked it up to read where left off. Katy, the main character, went with her children to spend the summer on a farm. She was talking to the farmer's wife, Mrs. Brown, about children. Katy had four. Mrs Brown none. Mrs. Brown said children were fine, if you could afford them, but that she was lving month to nmonth and trying to pay off her mortgage. Katy agreed their is worry and care of children, but that is only half of the tstory...that there is pure joy and delight as well. (How often am I smiling over my little ones and like Katy, as God works in me and I become more at rest in Him, less selfish and less upset over petty things - the more joy and delight I experience.)

Katy went on to say, suppose you do have nore money comin in and less going out and you pay off the wole mortgage...what then? (temporary concerns, is this my eternal calling to pay off a mortgage....) Who will enjoy it with you? Who willyou leve it to> Who will car for you when you are old? (grin)

Here is the clincher, she said:

"I want to see little children adorning every home as flowers adorn every meadow and every wayside. I want to see them welcomed to the homes they enter, see their parents grow less and less selfish and more and more loving because they have came. I want to see God's precious gifts accepted, not frowned upon and refused."

Yes Lord...

Later I was doing my Patriarch homework and reading about Abram and Sarai in Genesis...about following the path God sets for us. That He bless me and makes me "many".

So I am at peace and thankful to my Abba who reinforces the path He leads me on.

Slightly Despondent...

I am slightly despondent, but I will recover....

I was planning on my tax return to fund a big chunk of my adoption. Every year for the past 6-7 years I have gotten a return about the same amount, so yes, even though it is counting those eggs before they hatch, I WAS counting on it.

I just fund out it is about 5000 less than normal. Not sure why. Something to do with selling stock. (Although they hold out taxes on stock, and my stock was not worth much....)

So part of my gut says go double-check the stock part, that they don't have it wrong. And another part says, boy, wow, I was counting on that...now what do I do?

But the biggest part says, God knows all this. And if He is blessing the adoption, He will bless a way to fund it.

Thoughts on Adoption..by John Piper

Before the world, in love adoption has its origin, from God....and through Him...the reason: Grace - bringing praise to his name.

John Piper at 50 adopted his daughter. God's grace is put on display most beautiful through adoption.

God planned from eternity to fold my children into our family.

Eph 1:3-6
In love He predestined us unto adoption....