Ethiopia Update

Keep praying for MOWA, now MOWCYA, it seems that the changes will be good, eventually. We aren't sure how the next couple of weeks will pan out, but it sounds like they will be catching up as soon as possible with writing the letters. With our court date in 2 weeks from today, we might be caught in a little of this, but it will all work out. In the end, God is in control!! So I don't need to worry!!

Here was the email we got from our agency:

We are writing to update you on the current situation in Ethiopia. While meetings between Ethiopian government officials continue, we have seen positive steps. Within MOWA, there have been significant and positive personnel changes which have resulted in overall staff turnover and changes in the adoption unit. This unit is now called the Ministry of Women, Children and Youth Affairs (MOWCYA). We are hopeful and expectant that the new leadership will not only support processing an adequate number of favorable recommendation letters, but also implement policies that will best serve the children. Due to the staffing changes, we anticipate much transition over the next few weeks. However, we expect that once everyone is settled into their new positions, MOWCYA will work to process a higher number of recommendation letters than they currently are able to process.

We have continued to receive optimistic feedback and have seen how the Ethiopian government is very committed to adoption. I hope this information is an encouragement to your family. We will continue to update your family with any confirmed information we receive.



Another adoption agency posted today......
Today we want to update you on the feedback we received yesterday from our foreign staff in Ethiopia, which was confirmed in a discussion with our adoption colleagues in a Joint Council caucus call later in the day.
At this time, all Foreign Staff on the ground in Ethiopia are reporting that MOWA has completed their staffing changes and are now currently working at full capacity to complete those adoption cases currently re-scheduled or assigned a court appointment through the courts of Addis Ababa. Our staff believe this to be around 800 cases they are working at full force to complete with no restrictions on the number of cases processed each day. This is great news! We are thrilled to hear these drastic changes do not seem to be going into full effect.
We are also pleased to report that for new cases moving forward; it appears the original changes proposed by MOWA will not be implemented to the degree of 5 cases a day. At this time it is unknown whether or not MOWA will issue a formal statement regarding how they will process cases in the future, but from all discussions it will not be a drastic decrease from before. Through the continued work, meetings, and advocacy of many Foreign Staff members in Ethiopia, it appears any future changes within the case processing for MOWA will avoid sweeping and disproportionate alterations to the number of cases processed each day.

Newspaper Article About Brad and Churchill Students

The students at Brads school have been collecting pens, pencils, and a few other school supplies for us to take to Ethiopia. The students also had the opportunity to "Jam the Jug" with change to be donated to an Ethiopian orphanage too. One day the students could pay 50 cents to wear a hat to school. So far they have collected over 1,000 pens and pencils and are still filling the jug up with loose change. It so neat to hear students want to help and to hear their excitement for our upcoming trip. The local newspaper went to their school yesterday to interview Brad and some of the students. Here's a link to the article

http://www.galesburg.com/newsnow/x2011272258/Churchill-Jr-High-class-collects-to-help-Ethiopian-orphans

Packing, Unpacking, and Repacking

First, thank you for the prayers! We were fingerprinted last Wednesday! The situation in Ethiopia is finalized yet, but it sounds like it won't be as bad as we first heard. But please continue to pray for MOWA and the Ethiopian officials and that they do their part in fulfilling God's will for these orphans.

We have been packing, unpacking, and repacking for the last 3 weeks. Once we received a court date we started packing. We packed 2 suitcases full of food, diapers, and wipes. Another suitcase has mostly formula and baby cereal, with a few other things crammed in there. Since we plan to stay until we can bring Jacob home, we need to bring everything we will need for us and for Jacob for our stay. Some items are hard (or impossible) to find in Ethiopia or they are just very expensive. We also packed all of Jacob's clothes, then we got a precious video of him and they looked at his clothes and said he was already in 6-9 month clothes (he was only 2 1/2 months at the time). So we unpacked all the 3-6 clothes we had for him, and packed 6-9 month clothes with a few 9-12 month things. I figured it was better to bring clothes too big, than too small. All that we have left to pack is our clothes. I think we will be doing that in the next 2 days. So this weekend we can relax with our friends that are coming to visit and some of my family will be here Sunday-Monday. My friends and church are having a shower for me on Sunday. I can't wait to spend time with all of them one more time before we leave!

Another prayer request

We still need to be praying for MOWA and the process of writing approval letters, but today we have another prayer request. On Saturday we received our USCIS notice of being re-fingerprinted. They scheduled us to be fingerprinted on Feb 23rd. Ugh! Thats the day we leave for Ethiopia. So we are driving 3 hours tomorrow to beg them to let us be fingerprinted early. Please pray they will be gracious and allow us to be fingerprinted tomorrow. We have heard horror stories of people being turned away without any explanation or people at the fingerprinting office just being so rude. We were there last March for our first appointment and everyone was very nice to us, so we are really praying and hoping that is the case again.
Thank you!!!

Please Pray

Yesterday we received an email from our agency asking us to please pray for Ethiopian adoptions and the officials over seeing and approving the adoptions. Here is part of the email:

We are writing to ask your family to join us in prayer for the Ministry of Women and Children’s Affairs (MOWA) regarding the number of cases they will be able to process each day. They have made statements that they desire to decrease the number of recommendation letters they write each day. We understand that because of these statements, the Court and MOWA are in the process of meeting to discuss and work out any potential changes or new processes regarding adoptions in Ethiopia. We want to blanket these meetings with prayer and ask you to come along side us in this.

Please join us in praying for all the orphans in Ethiopia, the government officials, their meetings in the coming weeks, and all the waiting families.

Care Package #2

Care package #2 is off to Ethiopia today!!! Carmen and Garth Druckenmiller are on their way to meet their 2 boys today!!! I'm so excited for them!! Carmen will be staying in Ethiopia until they receive clearance to bring their boys home, so I am looking forward to meeting her in Ethiopia!!

This month we sent Jacob two little outfits, a taggie blanket, two books, a teething ring, and a picture of Brad and I. I made two of the taggie blankets and sent one now and kept the other other to give him when he is with us. After I sent it I read somewhere that they don't like cloth items because of germs, etc. So oh well if he doesn't get to keep it, I tried. He will have the one I kept at least! I am not sure if anyone has shown Jacob a picture of us yet, so I am excited for Carmen to show him the picture and tell him this is your mommy and daddy!!! Thank you for this gift of your time and suitcase space Carmen!!

His package is all packed up!

Precious feet

Aren't these feet so precious? Thanks Monica Munn, we received 8 new pictures this morning!!!!!!! A few pictures we have includes one of his nannies. What a joy to be able to share these pictures with Jacob when he gets older and show him all of the people that loved him before his mommy and daddy could get him home.

I can't wait to take pictures for other families when we get to Ethiopia because I know what a joy it is to receive them of Jacob!!

February Update

Today we received our February update from AWAA. This update included a few more pictures and some information about him. I have read this at least 20 times already, because its about all we know about him.
As of February 22, Jacob is 14 lbs and 24 inches long. He put on 1.5 lbs in one month!! He has been healthy all month too!!! Praise the Lord!! Many families receive word of their child getting an URTI or pneumonia or something and it seems all the kids pass it around and around. But so far Jacob has stayed healthy. A few days after we got our referral, I started thinking about getting one of these emails (because it seems like almost every family gets one at some point) and I think about how helpless we would feel that we can't comfort him when he is sick or help do anything. So we have been praying for him (and all the kids at the Transition Home) to stay healthy! It does this mama's heart good to have not worried about that!
Here is some other information we learned today:
-he eats 5oz of formula 7 times a day
-he can lift his head up while on his tummy
-he is making babbling sounds
-he is happy and content
-he gets fussy when he wants to sleep
-he is active and playful

Oh!! I can't wait to see him!! We leave 3 weeks from today!!!!! I can't wait to get there and have our "meetcha" day!!!!

Today's Surprise

So today as I walked into school a friend told me to come down to the library. Little did I know that there were 25 of my coworkers waiting in our adoption t-shirts to take a picture with me!!!! Two of my friends worked with my husband to order and deliver the shirts without me even knowing. This is a huge accomplishment, because I am always curious about everything and usually find everything out. Brad and my friends were happy they pulled this one off!!
What a blessing it was all day to walk around and see almost every teacher where our adoption shirt and show their excitement for us bring Jacob home!!! I also love all the questions the students had all day. It was so neat to hear some kids that I don't even know say things like "I didn't know you are getting a baby from Africa, cool" or "I want to go to Africa too" or "those are cool shirts" or "Can you take some of my toys to the kids in Ethiopia?"
Thank you to all my coworkers for all your support, not only today, but every day that you ask about our process or ask to see pictures of Jacob- it means the world to me to be surrounded by people who genuinely care about us. I am very thankful that Brad and I work with people who share in our excitement each day!! I can't wait until we have Jacob home and we can bring him to school to meet everyone!!!

Becky came late so we got a picture with her too! There were about 3 other teachers I didn't get a picture with, but thank you to all of you too!!


Thanks to Angie, Erin, and Brad for pulling off this surprise! What a wonderful way to end a wonderful week!!

Tickets Booked

Yesterday we got our tickets booked!!!!!! We will be leaving on March 23rd to fly to Ethiopia!!!! We will get into Ethiopia March 24th and meet Jacob on March 25th!!!!!!!!!!!!!!! Less than 4 weeks!!!!!! Each step makes this feel a little more real and is more and more exciting!!!!!!!! We also line-up a house-sitter. It makes me happy to know that someone will be staying at our house and feeding the cats while we are gone.
I already have 1 tote packed with donations. This weekend I plan on packing some food, medicine, and supplies. We have a long to-do list, and I am ready to start checking things off!!!!!!

Court Date!!!

We are beyond thrilled to know that we have a COURT DATE!!!!! Our court date is March 31st!!! We will be leaving sometime the week before to meet our son!!!!! I can't believe we will be holding him in our arms in ONE MONTH!!!!! Now to make travel arrangements....

The funny thing is Brad and I were both doing the same things today that we were doing when we got the referral call. I was reading with the same student and Brad was at the same TCI training. Weird! I told that student that he was my good luck charm and he thought I was some crazy lady crying and squealing at a phone call, LOL!!!!!

Can you tell that I am excited and like to use !!!!! to show it?? haha! We are coming Jacob!!!!!!!!!

Every Bump in the Road

It is awesome to be able to look back on the last 1 ½ years through our adoption journey and now see why we had each delay and bump in the road. There have been many times that we have felt so helpless and unsure why things were taking so long. It was frustrating to wait for papers to be signed or approved that were just sitting in a pile for months. But each bump or delay put us in God’s perfect timeline that led us right to Jacob. He wouldn’t have been ready for us if we had all our papers in earlier, so we are thankful that God had the timing thing under control so He could build our family with the exact right child.

We got some new pictures from the Garrison Family yesterday. Oh, he is so precious!!! He has changed so much since the photos that were taken a month ago. It’s so nice to know that other families can meet and love on our children while we are waiting for a court date. But it also makes us more anxious to get over there. We can’t wait to meet him ourselves!! Come on court date…