We are here!!

Hoping it all gets there!

We are here!! Everyone warned us that this trip would be an adventure, and I have to say after landing in Ethiopia only a few hours ago, I can declare that statement as true. The good news is that we started the trip off well. All of our luggage was a non issue at the airport in Grand Rapids and Delta graciously allowed us to check all 10 bags with NO EXTRA FEES or problems. There were even a few that were over the weight limit, and they never said a word. The trip started to turn the minute we left Grand Rapids. We were unable to land in Detroit due to the strong winds of the storm, so we ended up deborting the landing and circling the airport for about an hour. When we finally did land, we sat on the plane another hour due to lightning. It was then that we started to panic. We only had a 1hr layover in Amsterdam and if we missed that flight to Addis Ababa, it could be days before we got here.

We called upon our Lord, and with his help and our speediness, we made our connection to Amsterdam just as they were closing the doors. But, there we sat on that runway for what seemed like another hour. We made it to Amsterdam and we had exactly 30 minutes before our connection to Ethiopia left. AND they close the doors 30 minutes prior. Well, this Mama was determined to get here and wasn't going to let anything stand in our way. We rushed off the plane and made a mad dash to our terminal which of course was on the other end of the airport.

So let me give you a glimpse of what this looked like.....little Janine running probably the fastest she has ever ran in her cute little sandels ( I know, i was told a million times to wear tennies) all teary eyed. The whole time I kept reminding myself that the Lord brought us here and he was clearly begging me to trust Him. I kept repeating to myself, "Just trust him Janine". Luke couldn't keep up and said it was quite possibly the fastest he has ever seen me run..ha! We got to the gate and found that they were waiting for us.....I just about broke down seeing God's hand in even the tiniest of details. We were finally boarded our flight to Addis Ababa Ethiopia.

We arrived, got through customs, met some other adoptive families and humanitarian aids, went to baggage claim only to find that our luggage never made it. We spent the next two hours trying to track it down. Long story short, it should be on its way tomorrow coming through Narobi, Africa. Please pray that we get our luggage-we have almost nothing. I'm going to look pretty bad tomorrow when I meet our baby girl. I'm sure she won't care at all(-: The good news is that we have our camera and video camera, so besides the greasey hair and inappropriate travel clothes, we should be all set. Our driver left thinking we never arrived, since it took so long to figure out where our luggage was. We ended up hitching a ride with a random taxi...it is pitch dark here and the ride to the hotel was very frightening! But, we made it and we are praising the Lord we are here. I'm sure I will not be able to sleep a wink....it feels like the night before I was induced with Kai. We absolutely cannot wait to meet our sweet baby in the morning. I'm sure tomorrow will hold a whole new adventure(-: Good night from Addis Ababa Ethiopia & we love you!

View from our lodge. That is a home down there and the darn dogs that stay up all night and sleep all day.

PS. We have no phone service and it may be days before we have internet connection again. We will do our best to keep you updated. Love & Miss you Kai, Aria &Becket!

ONE WEEK! Getting ready to meet you & see your country....

I really can't believe we will be boarding a plane in just one short week and on our way to seeing our little Princess. After a long year and a half, we'll finally be able to meet our daughter and hold her for the very first time!  It just gives me chills thinking about it. It also gives me chills to think about leaving behind Kai, Aria & Becket for that long. I'm sure they will have a blast with their Grammy's & Papa's and the time will just fly by. There will be no doubt though that I will miss them terribly.

We've been busy preparing, sorting, organizing, packing, weighing (over and over again).  I have about 4 different lists going and seem to be checking things off day by day. Between typing up schedules for the kids while we're gone to running all these last minute errands to finishing up photo albums/thank yous to packing and packing and packing, my desire is to designate as much of this week as I can to our 3 little babes and try hard to get my "fill" before we leave for 11 days. Please pray for safe travels & health for us and our kids for these next two extremely important weeks. I can't wait to share our experience with you all when we return! (Or if we can get a good stretch of internet, I'll be updating our blog, so check in!)

Can you believe ALL of these donations!! Thank you doesn't even come close! And, that' s not all of them.  I came home to another porch full today!

Bringing 31 Bags to Ethiopia! Enat Alem is the name of Tsehaynesh's orphanage. A friend & I sobbingly sorted through all of our infant toys (sentimental times...boohoo) and will be filling the tote with them. 

We had lots of helpers to sort the items.

Organizing baby food was Kai's favorite job(-:

Daddy packing the bags.....

A sweet new friend, Eden, who spent 3 hrs here tonight translating the photo album I made for Tsehaynesh's family into Amharic language.  She also translated a letter to her family, along with a bazillion thank you notes to her nannies. This girl is AMAZING and I'm so thankful I was introduced to her. One of the most beautiful Ethiopian girls I've met yet!

31 Bags & Donations....

One of my bff's with a beautiful heart

Selling cute bags with the proceeds going towards Tse Tse's orphanage. 

And Mama couldn't help but add a little "Africa flair"

Dear T,
Over these past few months, we have been given the privilege to see hearts melted by your story-including our own hearts. So many people graciously want to help you, your orphanage & your country. Last night was one of those nights where friends came together, showed their support and through that we were able to raise some money for your orphanage and they were able to go home with some cute 31 bags(-:  From the people who showed up, to the dear friend that gave of her time & proceeds, to those who have been dropping off donations to give to your orphanage, my heart is overflowing with gratitude. It has been neat to see God's people unite in this cause.

Bringing all of this stuff with us in the next few weeks hits close to my heart. If it weren't for the families who came before us and the work that God did in their hearts, I'm pretty confident we wouldn't have seen all those chubby rolls on your referral picture(-:  Today, I just sit here grateful for the true friends God has blessed us with. We can't wait to show up in Africa with more bags than we can physically handle and formula to last for months...and of course to see the sweet little girl we've been longing to see for almost a year and a half! Love you Tse Tse -you are going to be welcomed home by a pretty amazing group of friends!

We're going to Africa!!!!!

Aaahhhh!!!! I'm still in shock. These are how the events played out today and I couldn't wait to share them with you. I'm just sitting here praising Jesus right now! I've been doing my best to put the timing of our trip out of my mind. Still planning, but trying to find that fine line between longing to meet our sweet girl and just handing it over to the Lord DAILY that she will be home in HIS perfect timing.  His hand has been SO apparent in this whole journey (did I just say that AGAIN!?(:), that I really had no doubts that He had it all under control, I would just sometimes "wonder".

Today I had one of those moments of "wondering". I was making the kids lunch. The thought of Tse Tse came to my mind and I just thought to myself "I wonder when we will get that call." Thinking all the while, it could be several months.  And then God spoke to me clearly asking me to call upon him and pray about it....right then! I listened and bowed my head over the leftover ham sandwiches and cried out to God. Just as I finished my prayer (literally, JUST) the phone rang. As I walked over to the phone, I thought to myself "wouldn't that be something if this was our adoption agency calling?" I looked at the caller id and about fell over. IT WAS AAI!!! I'm SERIOUS friends, this was our call!  As I answered, they informed me that they had some good news and we had a court date! I told her what had just happened, and she said she was in just as much shock as we were. Apparently the judge is on "vacation" for 2-3 weeks and typically nothing gets scheduled. She really thought it would be at least 3-4 more weeks until we were even scheduled. Low and behold, she received word from our Ethiopian contact this morning that Tsehaynesh's birth families court date is scheduled for May 25th and we are scheduled for June 1st. Just one short week later...another miracle as most of their court cases had been at least 3-4 weeks apart (birth family & adoptive family)...delaying things even further. So there we have it-we will finally get to meet our precious little one face to face in just a few weeks! We will probably be leaving MI on May 26th and Luke and I will appear before a judge on June 1st, just one day before our 10th anniversary.

 With this excitement comes many other feelings. These next few weeks of preparation will be just plain exhausting. We have lots to do just locating and coordinating all of our donations, not to mention the thought of leaving our three other little ones home for 10 days just breaks my heart. If you are a mother reading this, you know exactly how hard this is (not just physically planning, but emotionally) But thankfully God has provided us with two sets of amazing parents that are willing to take over our parenting duties while we are gone. For that, I'm thankful.  Please keep our family in your prayers over these next few months. Thank you Jesus for bringing us one step closer to our baby girl! And I still haven't eaten that ham sandwich.....maybe that should be next on my list...oh wait, it's almost dinner time now(-:

ONE MONTH since Referral....and more pictures!

It's been one month TODAY since we got our referral call. And guess what!? We received a HUGE surprise and got a few more pictures of Tse-Tse (her new nick-name)-ha! Now, I could just tell when we received Tsehaynesh's referral pictures that she was a happy baby. Her eyes said it all. And today we received our first picture of her smiling!!! It actually looked more like a giggle. And oh did it just melt our hearts. As my friend said, getting updated pictures is like a double edged sword. You are longing to see more of her and analyze each little detail, but you also realize that you are watching her grow up through pictures. Hard to watch your baby grow up 8000 miles away. I just want to snuggle her right NOW.

We also received some discouraging news....we don't yet have a court date. Apparently, some families have been waiting 6-8 weeks and still don't have a date. We keep calling upon the Lord and ask for Him to do a mighty work SOON so that we can go meet our precious little babe.

AND last but not least, a shout out to my sweet friend, Sara, who thought my blog was just not cool, and volunteered to give it a makeover during her precious & sacred kids nap times these past few days. Now that's what I call sacrifice and true friendship!(-: And boy do I LOVE it. Thanks so much Sara- you ROCK!

Test Post

Just making sure everything is in working order! :)

Missing You...

Lately, I have been running into to so many people from Ethiopia. Just yesterday at the dr's office, the lady that checked me in was Ethiopian and I just found myself staring at the picture of her two sons. She probably thought I was a stalker! I did ask her about her birth country and we ended up sitting there well over 15 minutes just talking. She was the 3rd Ethiopian person to confirm how you pronounce Tsehaynesh's name. Apparently it's: "z-hi-nesh" meaning "you are my sunshine". I just love the importance Ethiopian's place on the meaning of their names. We will certainly be keeping her name-most likely inserting it into her middle name slot.

At Mom's group, a friend came up to me afterwards. Their family is friends with a family from Ethiopia. Apparently their teenage daughter speaks very fluent English & Amharic and said she would be happy to translate any letters we would like to write to Tsehaynesh's birth family! I have been praying about this, and God totally opened that door in a matter of days! Soooo excited to connect with this family.

Right now we are just preparing our home & hearts for this special little girl. The 40+ pg travel packet takes my breath away at times and produces a little anxiety, but I know that once we land in Ethiopia and hold our baby girl for the first time, it will all be worth it. We're living proof that you can miss a person before you've ever even met them! Like crazy!

Thanking God for the little glimmers of hope he is giving to us along the way and the wonderful people he has put into our lives lately. Please continue to pray for the health & safety of Tsehaynesh. Please also pray   for a fast court date & MOWA letter so that we can bring this little pumpkin home!