It's official!

Well, we had our phone appointment with AGCI and it went great! We were highly impressed with the time she took with us to answer our questions and how thourough she was with her information. The great news is that we can be only on a boy wait list and they are now Hague accredited!! These were the only two things that gave us pause so now that those are cleared up, we're in! We have decided to adopt using AGCI so the process begins. Neil has to get a doctor's documentation about his Melanoma so that Ethiopia doesn't reject us with the word "cancer". She said it shouldn't be a problem as long as we have dr. documentation on record. Then it's filling out a financial worksheet and doing our phone orientation before we officially sign the contract. WOW - this is really happening! I will tell you that we are so excited but so nervous! We are trusting that God's hand will be with us all the way and give us exactly what we need at exactly the right time. He has always been faithful so there is no reason to doubt Him now. This is going to be a huge leap of faith and I look forward to how He will be working through us and everyone else who will be on this journey with our family.

Neil told his parent's last night and I had talked to my parent's on Friday. We'd tried to tell everyone we could but I was bursting at the seams to announce to our church family and friends so last night I was up sending email after email! I asked for specific prayers for our baby boy who is probably already concieved and for his birth mother. To be with her and baby brother's health. To be with her as she is probably having to make the hardest decision of her life to give up her child. I couldn't even imagine. Our joy is someone's heartache...

Children's HopeChest

SO excited to become part of this awesome organization!

Your financial commitment of $34/month provides for the most basic needs of children in the community. HopeChest will assist in providing food, water, access to basic medical care, education and discipleship. While $34 cannot meet all the needs of a child suffering through extreme poverty, it does provide significant help.


In our community-to-community model, all funds are "pooled" together so that if one child does not have a sponsor, they will still have these needs met. Your contribution of $34 a month will go towards providing food, clothing, and access to medical care, as well education and discipleship.

A Taste of Ethiopia

We traveled to Austin on Thursday to visit Billy and took him to try a highly recommended Ethiopian restaurant, Aster's. It was super good! A little tiny building but super clean and everyone was so friendly.

You could tell that a lot of the people were regulars. Most everyone ate with the forks but I noticed that there was a couple to the right of us who were only using the injera bread. Couldn't tell if they were only using their right hands or not (didn't want to stare!) My first taste of Ethiopian cuisine was split yellow peas with injear bread in my right hand. Very tasty... the injera bread has a very unique texture and taste. Kind of sour and spongy. I loved it as it kind of neutralized some of the spice. Billy and Neil were not fans. Claire wasn't either but I'm glad she at least tried it! She did enjoy her dance with Uncle Billy after we were wrapping up our meal.

We all (except Claire) loved it and would definitly go back for their buffet or even just a meal now that we know what we liked. My favorite was the stewed carrots and cabbage and the stewed tidbits of beef. They used a lot of onion, garlic, tumin and even cinnamon. Berbere is a spice that is unique to Ethiopian food and makes things spicy!

Eden attracted a lot of people and I'm so glad because we met an interesting man who happened to be from San Antonio. He asked if we'd been there and he hadn't either but loved Ethiopian food! He had a young man from Ethiopia live with them for seven years while he was going to St. Mary's. So they have a lot of experience with the food eating it all over country including Paris where this young man's family now has a restaurant. Cool! He said to me, "Oh! And you're eating it just like they do! But your left hand would be in your lap." SO cool that he noticed and gave me the tip =) Of course I was holing Eden's food with my left hand so I had a good excuse. (I did break out the fork because I was going through the bread like crazy). I should've asked him after they ate how it compared... darn! We even parked next to them. They had ACCD faculty sticker so maybe we'll run into them again someday.

We would recommend Aster's to anyone and will be going back. Wish they had a restaurant here in San Antonio so we could try it more often.

It was so nice to visit with Billy and for him to spend some time with the girls. With our car space, he had to camp out in the back (which is something we NEVER do) so ever since, Claire is telling everyone that Unlce Billy sat in the back. Guess it made an impression!

Oh! Love the pictures of this photographers experience at a restaurant in Nashville. Here is the link because it really depicts the food in a fresh, cool way:
http://darlingjourney.wordpress.com/2010/01/24/second-times-the-charm/

Our first bump

Yesterday I found out that Ethiopia change their adoption process immediately so that adoptive parents would have to travel twice - first to appear in court and met their child and another time to actually get your child and finalize everything. We were thrown for a loop a little bit thinking about how that might change things for us. I can't even IMAGINE already being in the process and then getting word of this change. Especially to those who have their court date right around the corner. I know that every adoption will have it's curve balls and faith building blocks.

Surprisingly it didn't really change too much for us and how we feel about being called to raise a child from Ethiopia. We look at it as an opportunity to travel more, to know more about the counrty and to get to hold our baby even sooner. Of course the idea of leaving our baby behind is heart aching but to kiss and hold them and look them in the eye to SAY "I love you" will be amazing. We'll see who gets to travel because it will probably only be one of us. It will be hard on us both no matter what the decision.

God-incidence

I heard this word on another blog where the women was making reference to all the times she saw God's hand in her life. I certainly don't believe in a coincidence so I love this word! Over the past three months I've had a ton of God-incidences and I'd love to write them down so I can remember them!

The first and most specific and vivid happened back on January 11th. God put me at the right place at the right time! A few weeks before was when I first came across a blog called "Our Hearts are in Ethiopia". Neil and I started following it as they had just gotten back with their first baby boy. My best friend Kate was the mother's roomate in college for one year and I had met her at least once a loooooooong time ago. But I still felt connected knowing someone mutual =) Through her blog I learned that Ethiopia adoption was growing and becoming more common. I went to a ton of blogs from theirs to read a lot of people's stories. I was growing fascinated by the country and loving these dark brown eyes I was seeing over and over again. On January 10th I remember thinking "We could be these people! We could really adopt from Ethiopia." Wondering what kind of community they had in San Antonio, I searched but didn't find much of anything.

Ok.... now onto Jan 11th. Claire had her first swim lesson that day and as I was getting Claire ready for her lesson (in the wrong area mind you), I overheard a woman telling one of the coaches that they were going to be missing lessons. They were traveling to Ethiopia to pick up their daughter they just adopted. WHAT?! Did I hear her correctly?  So once I got Claire in the right place, I told the lady that I didn't mean to listen but heard she was adopting from Ethiopia. We talked about their story for a little bit. They started their process adopting from Taiwan but switched about a year ago. She was in a rush to get out so she gave me her email, blog site and phone number. I've been following their blog ever since and I've never seen her at lessons again. So cool.... God really encouraged me through this meeting with a total stranger that I felt oddly connected to. They are now back with Evie and adjusting with having three kiddos under the age of 5.

Well, because the earthquake in Haiti happened that week, there was a TON of adoption talk all around the media. Every time I turned the TV or radio on they were wondering what was happening to all the kids. I saw a special on Oprah, GMA and a 20 minute segment on Dr. Phil - that's a huge amount of time to discuss adoption in Haiti. All this kept coming at me for about three weeks and every time I learned something new. Something else to consider or pray about.

Jan. 26th I started corresponding with Sara Matheny when I found out they were wanting to start the adoption process too! I was so excited to know someone personally who was going through things now and to exchange some research. They were looking at two of the agencies I was really looking into and even considering Ethiopia. Sara and her hubby Philip went to church with us way back BC (Before Claire). They were just expecting their first so I guess that was almost 5 years ago.

I've been so overwhelmed with reading and asking for agency packets from everywhere trying to see which one is the best for us. It's so hard. I feel pulled to different ones for different reasons. AGCI is one that I feel emotionally tied to because it is the agency that "Our Hearts" used and it was my first agency to really learn about. They have a wonderful program from what I read and they have been so good about following up with me with a phone call and now with two emails seeing if we need help or have questions. I like that. So... Feb. 22nd I went to work. I walked into the choir room and Dianna said "First of all, we are all God's children...." Yes, she said that in a public school =) She was having on of her heart to hearts with the 7th graders. Basicly telling them we are all equal. And as I'm trying to get everything ready for lessons and wave my first student down to come to me, she said "I hope you adopt this idea...." It caught my ear and I thought how weird is that?  I don't know what it all means but I know God works through people. I'm not basing any decision off of it but I do find it interesting and a fun story!

There are other little things here and there. A song that comes on the radio. A new campaign on KLOVE about meeting the needs of the oppressed. Mostly it's something that I read on another blog... I could go on and on.

I love it when I see His hand and prints all over our lives and I especially love sharing what He is doing in our hearts. Just the past week I feel like we've probably made the decision to go with Ethiopian adoption we just haven't officially made it so! We just speak as if that's what's going to happen! I'm getting so excited!

Why Ethiopia?

WHY ETHIOPIA?

~ One in ten children die before their first birthday
~ One in six children die before their fifth birthday
~ 44% of the population is under 15 years old
~ 60% of children in Ethiopia are stunted because of malnutrition
~ The median age in Ethiopia is 17.8 years old
~ 1.5 million people are infected with AIDS (6th highest
in the world)
~ There are roughly 4.6 million orphans in Ethiopia
~ Per capita, Ethiopia receives less aid than any country
in Africa
~ Half of the children in Ethiopia will never attend school.
~ 88% will never attend secondary school
~ Coffee prices (Ethiopia's only major export) declined 40-60% from 1998-2002
~ Ethiopia's doctor to children ratio is 1 to 24,000
~ Severe drought struck country from 2000-2002
(first year no crops, second year no seeds, third year
no animals)