Prayers

My prayer for Tuesday:

You know my desire today is to pass court in Addis. But God, make me insanely aware that you don't love me less when I don't get my way. You already know the judge by name and exactly what we need. Thank you for Micah's nanny that is loving on him until I can. Please let the Koby, Lunceford, Jones, and Crowell families feel your arms around them today. We claim your word when you say,"...like water to a weary soul is good news from a distant land". We can't wait for good news!!

A funny...

Our daughter, Bethany, is taking a child development class at school and this is her weekend to have the "baby" here at home. We've gotten a bit of a reminder of the uncontrollable fussing with this little one she named Isaiah. He is an African American baby that is as real as they get. She has a computer chip bracelet that she has to scan on his back to ensure she is caring for him properly. She clothed him in Micah's socks, a cute outfit, set him in Micah's Bumbo and his new stroller and took some pics of him in Micah's cool shades!! He kept her up quite a bit last night and no diaper changing and bottles would calm him down. A little dose of reality if you ask me!! I actually "babysat" for a while today while she went outside to spend some time in the Spring sunshine! I guess it was a reality check for me too!!

Packing

So I have to admit I packed a bunch of Micah stuff today. With all the shower presents I couldn't help myself! I''ve made so many lists, I can't begin to keep them straight. It felt SOOOOO good to cross some things off. Our tentative travel is April 11, which is three weeks from today. This will only come to fruition if we do the following:

*pass court on the 24th
*Micah's tb testing doesn't pose a problem
*the new consulate closings will work in our favor as they are only taking appointments every OTHER week starting April 1
*God says, "Yes, it's time!!!"

Any and all of these can keep us here...or send us to Addis.
Four other families have tentative travel on the same day. We look forward to possibly traveling alongside them as we finally meet our little ones for the first time!

More waiting...

This school has found me a bit preoccupied with impending baby care! I keep my class updated on all of the latest scoop and share my photos and updates with them. They are almost as excited as we are, but not quite! We have spent this long winter busying ourselves with work, church, the kids and friends. My bff Amanda and our girls threw us a Micah shower recently with several of our close friends. Dennis and Andrew claimed this to be their first "baby shower". We pigged out on great Mexican food, opened presents, and laughed the night away. Not a bad thing at all!

I have been trying to limit my "Micah buying", although difficult. The kids and I occasionally submit to impulse and find ourselves in line with a cute outfit or too...how can we not? Some of my close friends from school threw us a shower yesterday and we got TONS of great stuff...clothes, toys, diapers, books, sunhats, photo albums, etc. The best part about our time is that my school friends also bought donations for the Transition Home. Dennis packed them up yesterday and it came in at a whopping 49.6 pounds!! That's cutting it close! Each bag can weigh 50 pounds!! We still have some more stuff to try to stuff in our personal bags to get there. I absolutely can't wait to share all of the great items with them!

Court is in 3 days.....

Turning 40...

January 2009 was the biggie around here. Dennis and I both had birthdays, he 39 and me, woefully, 40. Among the greatest of birthday gifts I received came early: January 5th. REFERRAL MONDAY!!! The most incredible things happen when you pray. On this particular day, I had asked two friends from school to pray "specifically" that today would be the day we would hear. I knew time was running out on our homestudy and that each week that went by without a referral would mean lots of work down the road. I knew that Virginia was an hour ahead of us so I had no preparation when the phone rang at five o"clock our time...six theres. I had dreamed countless times what I would do when I saw America World on the caller ID...none of my dreams came close! Now he had a face and a name! :-)

Waiting...still!

Our Christmas was relaxing and full of "sleeping in" mornings. I personally believe there is nothing better. That's half the reason I became a teacher...HA! Dennis and I had originally held out hope that we would hear something about a referral by the end of year and 2008 ended with no call. I suppose inside I had prepared for it, but I was still sad nonetheless. Every month that went by reminded me of a few truths:
*More families are turning to Ethiopia as an adoption choice
*This is a good, good thing for the millions of orphaned children there
*This will extend our wait time substantially...from 5-6 months to 8-10 months we were told
*God's timing is not mine...and it's way better
*I'm impatient most of the time
*I have the greatest family in the world...