A Happy Valentine's Day

My hubby is awesome. On Friday afternoon, we left Madeline with his parents and headed to Chattanooga for the night. He found an incredibly nice hotel room downtown via priceline.com for only $50, and we had 24 wonderful hours away together. It was just what my sad heart needed that day.

It is so refreshing to have time to remember just why it is that we love each other. Time to be best buds again. The last year has been long and full of many challenges. Plus I have found it much harder to relax and just enjoy time together while at home ever since becoming a stay-at-home mom. My home is my workplace, and that means I am always at work. I often miss having the opportunity to clock out and go home at the end of the day.

So Daniel has discovered that getting me out of the house is my #1 love language these days.

We enjoyed walking around the Riverfront in Chattanooga, found a coffee house that suited us perfectly (Rembrandt's), and went to see an IMAX movie about Africa. We talked and talked and talked. It is so good to have some time with my best friend. And I didn't think about dirty dishes, laundry, or emails to write a single time. :)

In honor of the holiday, I want to share one of my favorite song about marriage. It is written and sung by my very, very favorite singer, Sara Groves.

Different Kinds of Happy

http://music.myspace.com/index.cfm?fuseaction=music.popupplayer&sindex=-1.3&shuffle=false&amix=false&pmix=false&plid=27694&artid=1335855&profid=29391434&friendid=29391434&sseed=0&ptype=3&stime=7.288&ap=1&rpeat=false

go on and ask me anything

what do you need to know?
I'm not holding on to anything
I'm not willing to let go of
to be free, to be free

I've got to ask you something
but please don't be afraid
there's a promise here thats heavier
than your answer might weigh
baby it's me, it's me

it's a sweet, sweet thing
standing here with you and nothing to hide
light shining down to our very insides
sharing our secrets, baring our souls,

helping each other come clean

secrets and cyphers
there's no good way to hide
there's redemption in confession
and freedom in the light
I'm not afraid, I'm not afraid

better than our promises
is the day we got to keep them
I wish those two could see us now
they never would believe how
there are different kinds of happy
different kinds of happy
there are different kinds of happy
different kinds of happy

No.

That's the answer we got today. Apparently MOWA was closed yesterday and didn't have our letter of recommendation ready. (The Ministry of Women's and Children's Affairs reviews our file and has to prepare a letter of recommendation for the court.) I don't know yet if his birth mom was able to make it. I think that usually if a family member makes a long trip to appear in court, they will go ahead and take their testimony so that they don't have to return again for another court date. Hopefully we will get more details about what happened later.

Our next court date is 3/1. Seventeen long days from now.

I am thankful to know that our son is in a safe place with plenty of food to eat and clean clothes to wear. I am thankful that our God is Father to the fatherless, and he is rocking my baby boy in his arms right now. I am thankful for the God of all comfort who comforts us in our troubles so that we can later comfort others. I am thankful that now I will be able to better relate to adoptive families who encounter problems and have to wait. I am thankful for his peace that passes understanding. I am thankful that God works all things for the good of those who love him. I am thankful that God is GOOD and he is LOVE. I trust him.

I have a lot to be thankful for. But, you know, my heart still hurts. Please pray for the 1st.

Please Pray

I humbly request that you say a prayer for our family before you go to bed tonight. Please pray that if it is, indeed, God's will for us to adopt this particular little guy that won't allow Satan to cause any unnecessary problems or delays in the court process. Our boy has been waiting in an orphanage long enough. I hope with all my heart that we will receive a phone call tomorrow telling us that we have become a family of four. You will probably hear me shouting from the rooftops when that happens!

Showered with Blessings

I was so blessed today to go to a shower for the Mihnovich family. This precious family has just adopted a sibling group of FOUR from Ethiopia to add to the three children that they already have. In just two weeks from today, they will travel to pick up the new additions to their family.

Tracy has been very influential in our decision to adopt. I first met this lovely lady in September of 2008 when I was providentially placed in her small group in our Community Bible Study class. International adoption was something that had already been in our hearts for a while, but having the opportunity to be around Levi (their youngest child, adopted from Ethiopia in January 2008) every single week, to ask Tracy questions, and most of all, to see her beautiful heart caused me to begin considering it much more seriously. I will always be thankful for Tracy’s influence on our family.

One of the many unexpected blessings on this journey has been the people that we have met along the way. The instant connection of the heart that I feel with other adoptive families is amazing. Our monthly get togethers are literally a highlight of the month for me. We have received so much encouragement and support from these wonderful families. My heart was blessed and refilled today as I got to talk to Gillian, Missy, Amy, Tracy, Kristi, Cindy, Gwen, and many others.

Only four more days now until our court date. It will actually take place during the night on Thursday. Please remember to pray for Little Brother, his birth mother, and all of the court proceedings this week. Thank you and God bless you!

Little Feet

Look what I found when I went to the mailbox yesterday:

What a gift from above! I had asked an adoptive family who traveled to pick up their child a couple of weeks ago to take some pictures of Little Brother for us. I had been eagerly anticipating receiving those. When I saw that they had sent us a small package in the mail, I wondered why they didn't just email the pictures instead of mailing a CD. When I opened it up, I found this and absolutely fell apart. Our little guy's foot had actually touched this piece of paper that was now in my hand. This made me feel more connected to him than anything so far. I thanked our Father above for this gift and sat and cried for a while. Then went to his room to see if some shoes that I have for him are going to fit. :)

I pray that next Friday he will legally be our son, and I will be able to share the pictures that they sent. Thank you, Richardson family, for this precious footprint!

Court Date!

I am very, very excited to announce that we have a court date: Friday February 12th!!!

This is when our request to adopt our son will be heard by a judge in an Ethiopian court. No, we will not be present for the hearing. We will actually be asleep in our own beds when it happens, as Ethiopia is nine hours ahead of us. (Yeah right, like I will be able to sleep that night...) An individual from our adoption agency has power of attorney for us and will present our case to the judge.

Hopefully, we will receive a phone call early in the day on the 12th letting us know that we have passed and we are legally and officially the parents of our little guy.

Unfortunately, about 50% of families do not pass court the first time. This happens for a number of reasons:

• First of all the courts are in Africa. Things are a little more laid back there than they are in the U.S. Recently, several families didn't pass simply because the courts decided to have some meetings that day instead of hearing the adoption cases that were scheduled.
• Sometimes paperwork doesn't make it from one office to another. One missing document is all that it takes to not pass.
• A member of the child's birth family does not appear in court. If there are any living birth family members, they must travel to the capital, Addis Ababa, to testify before the judge that it is, indeed, their wish to release the child for adoption. This can be a very big deal, depending on where they are from. Our son is from the far southwest corner of Ethiopia, Bench Maji. I've learned that it takes about 24 hours of travel to reach Addis from that region. A family who is in a situation that requires giving up a child for adoption is most likely not in a good position to make a huge trip like that. Our adoption agency assists them in their travel, but still it can be a tremendous burden on the family.

If we do not pass court the first time around, we must wait for another court date a month or so later. Yuck. If we DO pass, we will travel to Ethiopia pick up our son approximately six weeks later.

Please, please pray for our court process:

• That God's hand will be over the whole process and his will be done in our son's life.
• That all the proper paperwork and officials show up at the right time.
• That Little Brother's mother will be able to make the trip to Addis Ababa to appear in court.
• That we are able to find out more information about his birth mom's life and situation. Someone from our agency will ask her a few questions for us while she is in court and record the answers. We really, really desire to meet her when we are in Ethiopia, but we do not know yet if she will be willing. If she is not, this will be our ONLY OPPORTUNITY to find our more information about our son's history.

My emotions have been at a low point since last week. Last Wednesday we received a monthly update from our adoption agency, complete with photos and info about his current size and health. I had been nothing but excited about getting all of this information and seeing more pictures. But my emotional reaction was not what I expected. I could see immediately in the photos that he is bigger, and he has grown two pounds in the month since we received our referral. The realization hit me hard that he is growing up without us. He was four months old when we received our referral and saw the first pictures of him. He is now five months old - he has lived 25% more life already. And meanwhile, he is still just sitting in the orphanage, and we are sitting here in Tennessee, waiting around for something to happen. There is absolutely nothing we can do to expedite the process (except for pray, of course). He hasn't known what it is like to have a mother since he was relinquished at 6 weeks old. Already he is 5 months and has lived two-third of his little life passed around in several orphanages. He needs a mommy. I have been feeling so lonely for him.

So once again, I ask you to pray that we pass court the first time. I want to go get my boy!

Snow!

I love winter, I love bundling up in sweaters and scarves, I love cozy fires and hot drinks, and I especially love SNOW! We got about 4 inches at our house this weekend, which is a very big deal around here. Madeline was not a fan of the white stuff at first, but she warmed up to it after a while. Here are a few pictures of our winter fun this weekend:

It's never too early to start ski lessons!

We took Madeline on a tour of our whitewashed neighborhood via sled.

We stuck with it until she decided that she liked it.

Nothing like a little hot chocolate to help you warm up. :)

About to go for a hike down by the river

Building a snowman this afternoon. Seriously, it has been years since we've had enough snow to do this!

Madeline was pretty impressed with my snowman-making abilities.

Giving the snowman a hug

Happy girl

The view from my kitchen window

And, finally, here's some fun with snow balls captured on video. Madeline thought it was simply hilarious to see us throw snow at each other.