Life Unexpected

We woke up Sunday morning to the sounds of people, dogs, and some kind of religious chanting.  And when I say Sunday morning, I mean around 4:30am!  The guest house we stayed out was awesome.  It was not a hotel, but rather a home with many rooms.  Birtakan was the head of the house and from the minute you stepped in, it was as though you had become family.  She embraced us, celebrated with us, prayed for us, and served us in so many ways. What was amazing was her story.  She had grown up as a World Vision Sponsor Child.  Someone had sponsored her as a child and it changed the course of her life.  She grew this passion for orphans, eventually opened an orphanage, now has a feeding program, and runs the guest house to assist families who are adopting.  She is an amazing woman of God and we are better people having met her. We also had the chance to stay with other families in the guest house which made it an even more awesome experience.  We met a family who had three kids, two of

It's been less than 24 hours since we have been back on US soil and I am already ready to go back to Ethiopia!  I woke up this morning around 5am (due to the awesome jet lag that I have) and couldn't sleep, so I began to look at all of the comments that everyone had left us on our facebook.  I immediately began to cry as I read through them.  God has blessed us with encouragement throughout this journey from so many people and it just blows me away. I also felt teary eyed for my son who is half way around the world waiting for us to pick him up and for all the other orphans we have met who are still waiting to be matched with their forever family.  It's a lot to process and I hope that in the next few weeks, I will be able to do just that...process all that was experienced and felt in a short 4 days.  In the mean time, I am going to do my best to paint the best picture of our adventure. Let me just say, the first night was quite the adventure!  We traveled about 8

I am sitting in Germany right now using the 30 minutes of free wi-fi that this place offers!  This blog writing is going to have to be quick.  I am sitting in Germany waiting for our flight to...ETHIOPIA!!!!  Even as I write that out, I realize how "in shock" I still am.  I haven't even had time to blog about our all Thursday and all that has taken place in the past 48 hours.  So, I thought I would update and attempt to get a blog in before our next plane takes off. Thursday morning I was doing my devotion when my cell phone rang.  It looked like it was the number to our social worker in grand rapids, but I wasn't sure.  It was 8:30am.  I picked up the phone and she answered on the other end.  "So...I just wanted to let you know that you guys have been given a court date.  The only problem is, you would have to travel really soon."  I immediately replied, "Oh, we can travel anytime.  We are ready.  When is the court date."  She answered..."W

I am going to be honest enough to say, "I have had a pity party for myself the past several days."  Seriously.  Last week, we found out that our guardian court date went awesome and that we would be assigned a court date soon.  Our social worker told us to "be ready" because it could come any day and families seem to be traveling fast.  Then on Monday, a friend that I met through a support page had her guardian court date AND got assigned her court date on the same day!  Naturally, my hopes have been high and I am checking my email like every 5 seconds to see if we have been assigned ours and the new is...we haven't yet:( I was running this afternoon and was reminded of two things.  One...it's not even been a week.  Two...I have a thousand things to be thankful for this week.  So tonight, I thought I would stop the pity party and start reminding myself of all the awesome things I have been blessed by this week.  Here goes...a list of things I am thankful

I have somewhat been dreading writing this blog entry for the past week.   The more I have thought about it, the more I have realized that my words probably won’t do a great job conveying my heart.   For the past several weeks, I not only thought about our little Baby B half way around the world, aching and longing to hold him, but my heart has been heavy for his birth mom.   While Wednesday marked the 3 year anniversary of our adoption journey (we signed our very first adoption paperwork May 8, 2010), just two days later marked a day in which Baby B’s mother signed papers to give consent to our adoption. Yesterday was a huge step in our journey.   We now wait to be assigned a court date to travel to Ethiopia, which our social workers says could happen any day.   Technically, tomorrow will be my official Mother’s Day as an “expectant” Mom.   While I have felt “expectant” the past three years of this journey, having an actual face and name makes it so much more real.   Tomorrow

The past month of my life has felt somewhat surreal.  Over 5 weeks ago, we received our referral, and I am still somewhat in shock.  I have woken up every night for the past 5 weeks between 3am and 5am, thinking about my son who sleeps half way around the world.  As I attempt to fall back asleep, I find my heart heavy/excited/anxious/wired.  I think about his caretakers who are essentially taking care of our son until we become a forever family.  I think about the crib he is sleeping in...wondering if he sleeps soundly each night.  I think try to imagine what the day will look like when we meet him for the first time.  I imagine what it will feel like to push him in a stroller down the sidewalk for the first time.  And I have thought a lot about his birth mom.  It's overwhelming. I find myself praying a lot during those moments where sleep doesn't even seem an option.  I find myself praying that God would just surround our little one with his love, grace and care.  I pray t