We Did Not Pass

The guy who was signing off on our MOWA letter went out of town and took his keys to the files with him so no one else could access them. Hopefully the judge can squeeze us in on the 8th and we'll pass then.

BUT ON OTHER NEWS!!!!! AWAA CHINA called my brother and sister in law with their TA!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!! We are rejoicing that the Lord answered our prayers and brought them this news today!!!!!!!!!! We are so excited to bring Rhett home finally!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!

We serve an awesome God who is in control of everything. Our adoption timing is perfect according to the Lord's will and this delay neither surprised Him or changed the timeline we've been on all along. We are heartbroken that it delays our travel though. We were hopeful Brooklyn wouldn't have to miss as much school if we could have traveled in the Jan 2 group, but again, God's timing, not ours, thankfully.

Waiting, waiting, waiting. . . .

Waiting for the phone to ring, everytime it does my heart goes crazy. Waiting for the time when it's AWAA. Waiting to honor God with my praises, waiting to see what the next leg of our journey looks like, and waiting for my nephew, just happily, anxiously, joyfully waiting. . .
"Be glad for all God is planning for you. Be patient in trouble, and always be prayerful." Romans 12:12 LB

PRAY PRAY PRAY!!!!

I've just felt the need to worship God all day. I feel like He's answered our prayers for success already, that MOWA has gotten our letter to the court, that their father is in Addis, and that it's going to be a day of great rejoicing tomorrow. Nonetheless, I will be continuing to fast until I receive word, and praying throughout the night for God to hold back any forces that stand against our victory and bringing home our children asap.
Here's the timeline as best I can tell.

Assuming court is in session between 8am and 4pm, and it's 1:00 in the morning now, then from 11:00pm tonight until 7:00am in the morning Central Standard time, we could be before the court with our proxy.

Our agency will call as soon as they can to let us know. I will then post as quickly as possible here on the blog to let you know the results. When we pass court, my post will include all the pictures we have of them!!!!!!!!!!!!!!

We're ready to watch you move God! Show your glory in Ethiopia!!!!

So Exciting!

My sweet friend in Ethiopia who is taking pics of the kids and showing them ours wrote on her blog today that she got pics and VIDEO of all the kids she was taking care packages for!! Can you believe we're going to get to see them moving?

We also got new updated photos today, and I made our slideshow montage with them included, all ready and waiting to post on Tuesday when we get word that we've passed court!

You won't believe the smiles!!!!!

Have a blessed Thanksgiving! The Roots most certainly are!!!!

Tonight they see our faces!!!

Tonight while we're sleeping, our sweet YG friends the Hutcheson's will be showng B and D our photos! I hope they see the love in our eyes, and feel our desire to come get them and bring them home into our family! I can't wait for Karen to send me photos, maybe even some video, and the tracings of their feet so I can get them some cute shoes!!!!!

Exactly one week from tonight, we go to court. We've been fasting and praying, and several friends have been fasting with us, in preparation for this night. It's bathed in prayer and I have no anxiety about it what so ever. God knows the outcome, and it's all in His perfect timing. I carry no burden for it! Pray with us that God's will be done, and we believe His will is for our children to be with us QUICKLY!!!

Lord prepare their eyes and their spirits for our photos tonight. No one can communicate with them but you Lord. You speak their language, you speak into their hearts and into their minds the truth. Give them a deep and trusting understanding of who we are the moment they see our pictures. Have them fall instantly in love with us, the same way you allowed us to fall in love with them the moment we first laid eyes on them. Praise you Father! Thank you for being with them, holding them, comforting them and encouraging them while they're so far away from us.

These three can't wait to show you their new brother and sister! If we pass court we'll show them to you Tuesday Dec 1st!!!!!!!

October Update

We received an email from our agency with updated photos and information on our kiddos! We finally saw a picture of them together, and you could just tell they love each other, and that they have hearts full of joy. They were both smiling, and we just can't wait to go get em!

We also learned they do not speak Amharic, so that makes me a little more anxious to go get them. It's strange to explain, but I was more at peace believing they had care givers who were talking to them, explaining their transition, coaxing their grief, etc, but now that I know they don't understand what they're saying either, it makes me want to hasten this step of their transition. But, it's all God's perfect timing, and He is in control of taking care of them and protecting them and making them feel love, so what more could I ask for them. . .

Can't wait until December 1st, when we pass court, and I can post their sweet faces for all of you to fall in love with too!

We have a COURT DATE!!!!!!

So God speaks to me, and since He knows I hear Him, He's very specific, and He's very intentional with me. I could list countless stories of God asking me to do AB or C, and the moment I did how the blessings poured in. So, back in September God asked me to fast from Sugar until we received our referral. And I did, expecting it to be 9 months or more, and our referral came at 9 days. And then our referral was pulled the next morning, but I obstinately refused to go back on the fast. For days I persisted in my resistance, constantly justifying to God why it wasn't fair. . . and finally, in a prayerful fit of tears, I repented of my bad heartitude and agreed to be obedient. This time, He called me to fast from flour and sugar, not until our referral, but until we traveled, with my main prayer focus to be on our court date. Our court date? But we didn't even have a referral yet, I argued! But, I agreed and committed to Him I would fast and pray.
While I was still laying there, the phone rang, and it was our second referral call, for our siblings! I was on fire for the Lord, fasting without reservation, praying diligently for the Lord to bless our court date. Court opened, dates were being assigned, I was being obedient, things were clicking along. But then, for some reason, I don't even remember why, I justified breaking the fast. God had told me at the beginning I could break the fast for our family birthdays, for Thanksgiving, and Christmas, but it wasn't any of these, and I was just being rebellious. And I continued through this rebellion for a couple of weeks. And court date assignments STOPPED. Not a single one.
My birthday came and went, as did the kids, and I began to have a change of heart with God and my fasting disobedience. I repented, agreed to return to it, and struggled for two days to be obedient. I'm the best justifier in the world, and it gets me no where but outside of God's will for my life.
Yesterday, I woke up and had a new resolve with Him. Jason and I committed the entire family to a different particular fast until we passed court and with that, I was able to withstand temptation and fulfill my fast yesterday. I fell asleep in peace last night knowing I had chosen wisely all day.
God has never been unresponsive to me, He always rewards my efforts to press into Him more, and yet, I'm still shocked every time He does. I hoped for some movement in the Ethiopian courts today, there are 11 families ahead of us in line for court dates, and I just simply wanted to see their names pop up on the Yahoo Group and rejoice with them over their court dates, I was poised to type a gazillion exclamation points, and then it happened! An email from our agency, could it be, it was!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!
OUR COURT DATE ARRIVED!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!! Who am I that God rests His favor so abundantly on my family? Who are we that He is so lavishly pouring Himself out on us??? May we turn it back as Glory to His Name!!!!!!!!!!!!!!
Pray, Pray, Pray for our children's first earthly father to appear in court, for all documents to be in place, so that we may be one of the 50% of families who pass court on the first go round.
PRAY DECEMBER 1st!!!!!!!!!!!! That means, the night of November 30th until the morning of December 1st, because of the time difference. PRAY WITH US TO BRING THEM TO THEIR NEW HOME!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!

Oh, and one more note, our first care package will be traveling to Ethiopia on 11-18-2009, and will arrive to them on Thanksgiving Day! Which means that over our Thanksgiving celebrations, our children will be seeing the faces of their new family for the first time!!!!!!!!!!!!!!! How cool is that??????

The Bio-Sibling Effect of Adoption

I've answered this question many times to myself and others, and this mother's wisdom says it better than I ever could. I watched a TLC program about a mom with 17 children one night and her quote at the end of the program was, "If you have an opportunity to expand your love, take it." It's been posted in my kitchen ever since. This post echos that thought.

From Blessings from Ethiopia - The Weimer Family

To each and every person reading this post who knows the concrete conviction of being called to care for the older orphans yet also bears the weight of the accompanying thoughts of fear, I want you to know this...Please hear me loud and clear, as we have now SIX times over displaced our "original" kids' birth order:

You are NOT taking anything AWAY from your birth children. Instead, what you are doing is imparting to them something eternal: You are expanding their capacity to love. Think about that for a minute before you read anything else. How do you plan to teach your child to love others unconditionally and in total compassion without giving them the opportunity to do so? I'm telling you now, You CAN'T.

My biological children have a greater capacity of love in their hearts than I could ever impart to them by just giving them a safe Christianity, by maintaining their status quo, by simply modeling "godliness" as parents (as if that's the end-all be-all for a Christian family). My kids...all of them...have lived out self-sacrifice and understand (because they live it!) that laying down one's life does not steal anything from us. That is the lie of the devil, who would have us believe that sacrifice is not worth it; that there is nothing for us in return; that God doesn't really mean what He says when He said to His followers that "anyone who does not take his cross and follow me is not worthy of me. [Because] Whoever finds his life will lose it, and whoever loses his life for my sake will find it" (Matthew 10:38-39).

Do you really believe that? That whoever LOSES his life for Jesus' sake, for Jesus the Orphan's sake, will actually FIND it? Ask yourself honestly. Because you might answer YES prematurely. I have no doubt that you might believe it for yourself, but do you really believe it for your children, too? That if they "lose" their "place" in the family that Jesus will instead impart to them LIFE? REAL life???

What is birth order anyway but just a sequence of how your child came to you? Let's not make an idol of that sequence. Because that's what it becomes...an IDOL. Something standing in the way of you taking up the Cross to follow Him, to BE JESUS in this world. Let's not place a value on birth order that God did not intend to be there.

Consider the older orphan. Consider the sibling groups. Consider the ones who are not often considered.

And whatever you do on your adoption journey, PLEASE I beg you, do NOT steal from your children the opportunity for their love capacity to be expanded. Do not deny them the true gift of learning early in life that "My life is not my own."

When your feisty and spunky 7-year-old biological daughter, who is now the middle child of 9 after being knocked down to #5 from #2, pleads "Please, Mommy, Please!!! I want another sister my age!!! Can we PLEASE adopt again?!!," your heart will beat out of your chest, not just because you can envision another child saved, but because you know that your daughter will NEVER EVER live a limited, safe Christianity. She won't even know what that means. In fact, she won't even have the capacity do so.

And all because you didn't limit her, either. You didn't limit God.

Give your children the gift of the greater capacity to love. Let it ripple out into the future. Let it change the world.

Court Dates and Speculating

So, I usually hate to speculate, because God is so full of surprises that I'm usually proven wrong, but I can't help but try and figure out some things with our adoption timeline. . . So, we'll start with the for sure news . . . the family who is scheduled to take our first care package to B&D passed court today, yeah!, so our care package will be on its way soon! We can't wait to know they've seen our faces too!
Another family unfortunately did not pass and announced they were rescheduled for court on November 24th. Although, court dates are not necessarily scheduled in order of referral, they generally are, and we are number 12 on the list of yahoo group families waiting for a first court date. I don't anticiapte getting a court date until mid December at this point, if that early, so we are going to take a deep breath and conclude that we will not travel before Christmas. We're a little surprised that there are no families in our group scheduled for court between the 12th and 24th, and only 4 families for the entire month of November at all. We're hoping this is not a trend that continues, we're anxious to get them home and shorten the amount of in-transition time between their two families.
And, that's all we know, or guess, for now. We have 12 screaming 8 year olds in the other room here for Nathan's birthday. Guess I better down this Excedrin Migraine pill and go back into the trenches and relieve Jason for a bit.

OUCH - 14 Times and counting!!!!

Today was the day Brooklyn has been dreading for months since we agreed she should travel with us to Ethiopia - vaccines at the International Travel Clinic!
She fared quite nicely I'd say, thanks to her age and her Immunization Records, she only received two shots today, the Flu Vaccine, and her Typhoid Fever vax! Jason had 5 shots, and I had to have 6! Ouwie!
So, you're counting 2+5+6 and thinking I can't add because that's only 13, not 14. . . .
The real ouch was when she tallied our bill to $725.00!!!!!!!

Since we were already at $725, we decided to save spending an additional $180 and get Brooklyn's Meningitis and Hep A vaccines at her pediatrician , and we all have to go back for the Yellow Fever vaccine next month which will be another $450 dollars. PLUS! We are researching whether or not the boys need to have the Typhoid vaccine. Jason and I also have to go back for 2 more Hep B shots next month with the Yellow Fever, the boys have to have their Hep A and Flu shots, and then we all have to have the Hep A and B boosters again in 6 months. Geeze!!!

All worth it though! I feel like I've done a hundred push ups. . . think I'll go take some Advil.