Wednesday: Good Deeds Day, Part Two

When I returned to Chris and Isaiah at the Guest House, I found out that Isaiah had had his first major melt-down. While he was eating, something triggered him, and he morphed into a major tantrum-throwing toddler. I heard that Chris handled it so well, but it was just a bit unsettling for him, considering he had to face it alone. We were going to face several of these, usually when Isaiah was tired and didn't get his way. We also saw how he was grieving in this process. His cries went beyond "I'm-not-getting-my-way-cries", so it was helpful to remember that this was his way of coping with all of these changes. Isaiah ended up falling asleep and taking a good nap, so that was good!

After his nap, we headed to go visit Levi from Drawn from Water. If you haven't looked at their ministry, I'd encourage you to do so. God has led them to work with several tribes in southern Ethiopia. These tribes take part in an ancient ritual which includes ending the lives of any children they deem "mingi" or cursed by throwing them in the river. Thus, Drawn from Water seeks to rescue these children before they are killed.

While rescuing the lives of these innocent children is definitely a priority, their top priority is spreading the gospel among the tribes. Levi explained, "There is such spiritual warfare out there. Really, the only long-term answer is Jesus transforming their lives." (paraphrased as I remember it!) Lale, a native of one of the tribes who is a Christian, is the link to these people. He has started a church, and I think I remember Levi saying that over 50 people have been baptized! Wow. It just sends shivers down my arms every time I think of how Jesus wants to rescue these precious people from such fear and evil.

In the meantime, Drawn from Water continues to try to rescue the innocent children. They have recently been blessed to find a great deal for a new orphanage. Here is the new facility in Addis. But, if you are like me, you are probably more interested in what is inside! Levi gave us permission to take any and all pictures. First, let me show you some of the inside of the building. Here is the kitchen where they make the meals. This first picture shows where they make the injera.

Here is the other side of the kitchen. Here are some of the bedrooms, shown by Levi and Jessie's son. Here is Levi with their youngest daughter. She was once "mingi", but she now is part of their family.

Here are their other two daughters, playing on the tire swing outside.
One really fun "errand" we got to be a part of was delivering some goodies. Each year, Chris challenges his students to be a part of some sort of service project. One of his students this year is passionate about books, so she conducted a book drive. She gathered about 300 books and sent a bunch of those with us to deliver to the kids at the orphanage. I wish we would have been there when the older kids arrived from school because I know they would have been so excited! As you can see, the kids who were there were pumped!
Here is their son with one of the little girls. They were showing us their new pet, a little puppy who had a lame leg. Next, this sweet girl followed us to the rooms so that I could take pictures of the little kids who were there. (I didn't get any pictures of the older kids because they were still at school.) Here is one little girl. Isn't she so sweet?
Here is another with one of the nannies:

I just can't explain how amazing it was to see these little lives that have been saved. Levi and Jessie--and another couple or two--have given up their comforts in the U.S. to go serve. Life is not easy there. After just three days, we were ready to come home! But, they do it so that they can be the hands and feet of Jesus.

As with every non-profit organization, money is always an issue, so they are trusting God to provide all they need. Do you want to be a part of saving and caring for these sweet lives? If so, just go to their blog. You can be a part of it. Give if you can and be blessed.

Wednesday: Good Deeds Day!

Wednesday was a day full of doing favors for some special people. First, I met up with a new friend, Sarah, and headed back to the CWA girls home because she had not gotten to see where her new daughter had spent the past 9 months. We met Helen (above), and she graciously took us to the home, even though they were in the middle of moving everything to Acacia Village! It was a sweet time for Sarah because she saw where he daughter had slept. The print-out was still on the wall, so she got an extra keepsake.

Next, we ventured about five minutes away to the orphanage where Isaiah had been. I met a friend via blogworld who just received referrals for their two little ones, and they are at the same orphanage! I was sooooo excited to be able to take pictures of their little ones. I wish I could post some of them, but we have to wait for the courts to officially make these two sweet kiddos part of the Diaz family! I am just thankful we could be a little part of the journey for them.
These stairs lead to what was Isaiah's room for five months. I loved being able to get a few extra pictures of his temporary home. We went to the top floor to see the Diaz's two little ones.

Here is a picture of the outside of the orphanage. It really is a very nice facility.
This is Sister Asayech, the director of the orphanage. She does a great job with this home for the kids, and I am so thankful for her.
Next, we wound our way to the other side of Addis to the America World Child Center because I wanted to take some more pictures and video of our friends', the Flemings, baby Elias. Oh, how I hate to block out his precious face, but I wanted to show just a peek! He is just precious, and I am so thankful that I was also able to bless my friend with new footage of their little one. (They just got their court date, so they will be traveling to go get Elias in less than a month! Yeah!!!)
It was such a treat to get to run these "errands"!

When I returned back to the guest house, I found out that Isaiah had thrown the first of what would be several major tantrums. It was always hard to figure out because they would start at pretty random times. I was thankful that these first ones didn't happen on the airplane. We had a few days to figure out what helped him most before traveling for 24 hours!

I'll finish the second half of our fun day soon!

September 21: Embassy Day

Tuesday morning, we had to wake up bright and early because we were being picked up at 7:00 a.m. to head to the U.S. Embassy to apply for our visa to take Isaiah home. We were in a unique situation because most families go to the embassy on Tuesday and wait until Thursday to receive their visas. Then, most head home on Thursdays. Our situation was a little bit different because the embassy was closing on Wednesday for the rest of the week for remodeling or moving or something. They had told us they would try to get our visas completed by Tuesday evening; however, they were not going to promise! So, if we didn't get them that day, we would be staying a little longer in Ethiopia!

So, to help the process, we were able to go early. We arrived and were the first big group. We made our way into the waiting area. We were prepared for a long wait; we had heard it may be a couple of hours. Fortunately, there is a little play area for the kids, so that helped. It had a slipper slide and play house with some toys, so that entertained Isaiah for a bit; although, he was a little overwhelmed by it all. After about an hour or so--I really think I lost track if the time--our group started being called, one family at a time, up the stairs. We were able to go right to the window to be interviewed instead of waiting in the upstairs waiting room.

When it was our turn, we made our way up. The lady was so nice. I had expected the opposite, so it was nice to be pleasantly surprised. She asked us some basic questions about the adoption and then said they would try to get it processed by that night. We headed back down the stairs and outside to wait for the rest of the families.

Yeah! This last hurdle seemed to be finished. Now, we just had to wait for the actual piece of paper saying we could take Isaiah to the U.S. :) Unfortunately, three families in our group ran into some issues, so they had to stay until noon or something. I felt so sad for them. The rest of us went ahead and returned to the guest house to eat lunch. Here we are when we returned to Ethiopia Guest Home, tired but thankful that all of the logistics were finished!

Our friends were finally able to finish their process, so they arrived back late. The guys had planned on going to do some quick shopping for all of us wives since we were not supposed to take out the kiddos. They got a late start, but they headed out at about 4:00ish. Sometime in there, the visas arrived! Yeah! They returned at 5:00, and three of our travel families/friends were heading back home that night. They had to leave at 6:00! It was a whirlwind afternoon, but we got them all sent off.

I just have to take a second to thank Jesus for orchestrating the process so that I would have a friend to walk through the entire process with me. Shannon and I met in the summer/fall 2009 when we had both just started the waiting process. I had gone on the prowl for other CWA families. We discovered each other and started forming a CWA support group via e-mail. Many of our new friends proceeded through the process ahead of us, and we were so excited when it would be our turn. For different reasons, our processes did not go as planned, and they both stretched out far longer than we hoped. One silver lining has been that we have been able to journey this entire process together!

So, it was so bittersweet to say goodbye that Tuesday evening. I am so thankful that we were able to pray each other through the past year and see each other to the completion of our adoptions!

Shannon, Mark and Addia!

When we traveled to Addis the first time, we met up with the Graves Family and the Erickson Family. We have also become fast friends, and we were thrilled that we got to travel with them a second time!

Meggan and Bereket

Noah, Susan and Seth

This was one last picture of our travel group, minus a few parents! At least we got all the kids! (That is Kristy on the right. There will be more about her and her twins in the next two days' recap!)

Here are a few parting shots of Isaiah as we mourned the exit of our sweet friends! :)Isaiah's favorite toy was the alarm clock!

Celebrating with Friends at CWA (Revised)

After leaving the orphanage, we headed right over to the CWA offices where all of our friends were getting their kids. It was a sweet time for us because it was the first time we had gotten to see their kiddos.Julie talking with Shannon

Susan with her little bundle

Meggan and Bereket

After we got the kids, we had to sign a bunch of paperwork. This was a little crazy because we already had them! But, it went pretty quickly since we had most of our embassy paperwork completed.

All of this wore out the kids, so it was back to the Ethiopia Guest Home to relax and get to know each other more.

Isaiah in his glasses.

He loves the telephone! His first English word we heard was "hello"!He also likes to "cheese" when he sees the camera.

He seemed to like his bath! He likes reading sports magazines with Daddy!
We could tell he was somewhat overwhelmed with all the changes, but he seemed to handle it all as well as can be expected from a 16-month-old. Here is his tired look!This first day together was pretty sweet.
We were just so excited to finally have him.
How sweet it was to see a little someone sleeping in this crib. :)

Gotcha Day!

Oh, how I have yearned for the day when I could do this post! I have watched endless videos on others' Gotcha Days, and it was finally our turn. The whole experience was so surreal. I wish there was another word. I'm sure there is. I just can't think of it now. As we woke up, I felt nervous, excited, out of breath, fidgety, like I was in a dream, weird--in a good way!
We had arranged the room to be ready for Isaiah because, after all, we were bringing him with us this time! There would be no leaving him at the orphanage. We would see him and take him with us. It still gives me shivers to think of it.

When we arrived at the orphanage, we drove up to the now familiar black gate. It all seemed so normal in a way since we had already been there numerous times. We thought we would have a camera man there to film everything, but it turned out that he wasn't. So, sadly, we don't have that moment on video. But, I did manage to snap this picture--the first view we got of Isaiah!
Yes! He was holding out his arms to us. I don't know if he did that to everyone, but it made this Mommy so happy! It seemed like he remembered us. This video was taken right at I picked him up and after Chris had had a chance to hug him.

First picture with Daddy.
This video shows his first moments with Chris.

We spent a few minutes getting to know each other again. We were able to give him a drink. We played with the picture book again. The orphanage staff gave us some valuable gifts: a scrapbook and a CD with 100 pictures of Isaiah during his time in the orphanage. Wow. I was so amazed at how they went above and beyond for us. In these are pictures of his first birthday party. Yes, they had a birthday party for him. There are also pictures of his play time. This was so great!

Then, it was time to change him into different clothes. Some of our friends reminded us that this is so similar to when we are adopted by God into His family. He has to strip us of everything we have in order to give us the good stuff. We would never want to imply that the clothes Isaiah had while in the orphanage were not good. They were. It was just a symbolic act to us.Here he is. . . ready to go!
And, just like that, we were off! We made our way out of the building, through the courtyard, out the gate, and into the van taking us back to the CWA transition home where all of the other families were meeting their kids.
Isaiah was now our child, legally and physically.

It's Time to Travel (Recapping our Second Trip!)

It was a Tuesday morning. We were hoping that we would hear that day if we were going to be able to travel to Ethiopia for the September 21 Embassy Date. I was getting ready for my small group, and it was actually going to be our first meeting! Raegan and I were just getting home from taking Jackson when the phone rang. I actually missed it because I was on my cell phone, but I heard enough to hear Patricia's (CWA case worker) voice! I quickly called her back, and she told me that we were cleared to travel!!! We had the option to go for September 21 or October 5. Of course, I told her we would go this week! So, I hung up the phone and tried calling Chris. He was outside doing p.e. with the students, so I couldn't get a hold of him. So, I called my sister because she needed to get a plane ticket to come to Kansas! At this point, women were starting to arrive for our small group! Oh yeah. I was supposed to lead a group this morning. Yikes!

I kept trying to get a hold of Chris and finally got him. He was so excited, and he affirmed that we would leave this week. So, I finished leading group and then worked to get a hold of our travel agent to book tickets and start packing. . . our clothes and little boy clothes!The next few days were a flurry as we tried to get organized for going to Ethiopia. Then, on Thursday, Melissa arrived! It was so incredibly good to see her. We hadn't seen her in over 1 1/2 years. (Too long!) She had been waiting with us to get this call because she had committed to come watch our other kids while we traveled. We originally thought this call would have come last year, so the months stretched into 1 1/2 years. So--it was good to see her!

She was so kind to help me with my final nesting project and plant a few bushes. :)

Saturday morning, we were packed and ready to head back to Africa.

Here is our last family picture of 5!

In Washington D.C., we met up with our travel partners and friends from our first trip. It was so sweet to meet again, just 6 1/2 weeks after saying goodbye.

After a long flight, we arrived in Addis. Zewdu picked us up in the CWA van, and we all piled in. He took us all to Ethiopia Guest Home, and we made ourselves at home! We were one day away from getting our kids!