Meet Our Kids!

It's official! The court proceedings in Ethiopia went as planned. We're officially parents - again.

Meet Netsanet (pronounced Net-sonnet, age 5) and Mekdelawit (pronounced Meck-della-wit, age 3), the cutest girls anyone could ask for. We're keeping their given names. For all practical purposes, though, they'll be known as Neti (Netty) and Meke (Mee-Kee). We've got very little information about their history. We know that both parents "died of sickness". Perhaps AIDS? We don't know. However, Neti and Meke both tested negative for HIV. They've been in the orphanage since April.

We're scheduled to travel to Ethiopia on July 6-14.

Tomorrow

Remember this date: Tomorrow.

That's the date when we'll finally be able to post pictures and names of our girls online (provided everything goes OK in Ethiopian court).

Travel Dates

Well, it's not as soon as we were hoping but we're going to be traveling to Ethiopia sometime shortly after Independence Day to pick up our girls. Our appointment with the U.S. Consulate is on July 11. We'll probably leave on July 5 or 6 and return on the 14th.

It's nice to finally have a date even though it is still a ways off. One good thing, though - the timing of this will allow me to participate in our youth group's mission trip to Detroit from June 27 through July 3.

By the way, after our court date on May 31 we'll be able to post pictures, names, and other biographical information about our girls. I know some of you have been anxious for that!

Not Much New

For those of you waiting for new news...we probably won't hear too much until after our court date on May 31.

However, we are exploring the possibilities of leaving a few days early for Ethiopia to visit the work of Nazarene missions. If you haven't heard what's going on in Ethiopia, here's a quick article I clipped from OM International (Operation Mobilization):

CHURCH GROWTH IN ETHIOPIA, SUDAN
Explosive church growth and evangelism in Ethiopia and Sudan has caused Nazarene missionary Howie Shute to call this "the greatest movement of God that I have seen in my lifetime. Churches are planting churches that are planting churches." The Nazarene south central district (including Ethiopia and Sudan) reported 200 churches in the last 1 1/2 years. In addition, more than 50 Bible study groups are in the process of becoming churches. "There are evangelists on the road and in the bush everywhere, all planting Bible studies and churches," he said. "They continue despite a lack of money." The denomination expects to plant more than 400 new churches this year while the Ethiopian leadership has a target of 1,000 new churches. "Pastors and congregations are being persecuted, but they are faithful to God's call to preach this message," Shute said. "The great miracle of Pentecost was 3,000 new believers in one day, but we have had 20,000 in one day praying for their sins to be forgiven!" [EVANGELICAL NEWS/HORN OF AFRICA NEWS 4/06]

Court Date

Just heard today that we've got a court date in Ethiopia scheduled for May 31. That means that we'll probably be traveling to Ethiopia at the end of June.

Some of you have been asking about the itenary while we're in Ethiopia. We haven't seen anything for sure but here's a blog from another family adopting through our agency. It has their general travel schedule.

Garage Sales Work

At least ours did. Not only did we get rid of a bunch of clutter, we raised $1100.

Simple is Difficult

A bit of advice...

If you ever want to simplify your life by getting rid of your old junk, do anything but a garage sale.

Off to bed. The fun really begins in a few hours.

Super Sisters

I should have posted this earlier in the week. On Thursday Bethany and Kailey started the series of immunizations necessary for them to travel with us to Ethiopia. They each received two shots in each arm. Evidently, these shots hurt! BAD. By Thursday evening neither of them could even lift their arms. Bethany was hurting enough that she stayed home from school on Friday. This is a kid who won't ever miss anything.

Not looking forward to my visit to the health department next week!

The String Continues

This is becoming almost too predictable. If you haven't read about our finances click here and follow the links backward. Today was another in the string of many just-in-time money miracles God has performed in this adoption process.

At the beginning of this week we decided that our older girls would travel with us to Ethiopia to pick up our younger girls. I have since done a quick check online for airfare. Round trip this decision will cost us around $3800.

Today was our denomination's annual district youth convention. I've been on the district youth leadership team for the entire 8 years I've been in Ohio. A month ago I resigned all four of the positions I held, effective today. My #1 ministry for this entire year will be DAD!

Without my knowledge the District Superintendant declared our family's adoption as the Youth District Missions Project for 2007. They sent out letters and emails to all 60+ churches on the Northwestern Ohio Nazarene District.

Today they handed me a check for $1000. Once the checks from the churches clear they'll be sending another for $2500.

Wow.

Do We All Buy Stupid Junk?

Good Grief!!!

Today we're working on getting all our ducks in a row for what has become the "adoption fundraiser garage sale." Several church people have found out and have volunteered to help out in whatever way possible.

(If you're planning on buying stuff from our garage sale, ignore the next paragraph, please!)

I'm struck by the amount of junk we've bought over the years. We "really needed it" at the time. Now we're selling it for pennies on the dollar.

I hope we spend our money a little bit more wisely in the future.

Passports

Yesterday we took the girls to the post office to get passports. Nothing much new has happened. Still waiting to hear when our court date in Ethiopia will be.

Six Waals in Ethiopia

We've made a decision. Our daughters will be traveling with us to Ethiopia to pick up our other daughters. We told them today. They're super excited! They got their passport photos taken today. Rhonda will be working on immunizations later this week.

Ethiopian Food

Today we traveled to the Red Sea and ate Ethiopian food with our Toledo soon-to-be-parents-of-Ethiopian-children friends. (They only live 15 minutes away and are adopting two from Ethiopia. How cool is that?)

It's my first experience with injera, Ethiopian bread. No utensils. You eat by pinching the food with the bread. Injera is a spongy, sourdough-tasting tortilla of sorts.

The website is much more impressive than the restaurant itself. It seats about 25 people in tight quarters. Except for two other women, we were the only families there for the entire night. But the food was good. Our kids weren't too impressed. We bought them crazy bread from the pizza joint next door.

We did find out interesting things about our kid's names (which we cannot post because of confidentiality). Their names mean Mary and Freedom. And we've been pronouncing them right...mostly.