Lux et umbra vicissum…

We’re getting close.  Our home study update is almost done, and it won’t be long before we have all of our dossier together.  Then comes the real faith test: to send in the dossier we’ll need to have more than $15,000.  Right now we have maybe a couple thousand that we’ve saved.  (We’ve already paid for various adoption expenses out of our pockets, such as the home study update, the initial agency fees, etc.)  Here’s the way I see it right now…

This adoption is God’s will.  The Lord has given us some pretty convincing affirmations of that along the way, and I don’t think most Christians who know our story would deny it.  So going on the assumption that God’s will is known in this case, I think we can also assume that God will see it through.  Does that mean we have no responsibilities when it comes to making things happen?  No, not necessarily.  Certainly, our first responsibility is prayer.  I remember a pastor once saying that praying was like plugging into the power source – it makes things happen.  Our next responsibility is to seek out ways the Lord would have us raise the adoption funds.  I’ve been working on the jewelry again, I brought things home from Ethiopia to resell to raise some funds, and we’re trying not to spend money unnecessarily.  I put off writing a letter to friends and family because I knew many people had given to our last adoption and I didn’t want them to feel put upon to give again.  While I was in Ethiopia, though, I felt the Lord leading me to begin drafting such a letter.  The confirmation for me was when some friends indicated that we should send one out because they would love to help again.

Seems to me that when God wants us to do something for Him, He’ll provide a way.  No one is forced to participate in that process, but the ones who choose to are always blessed.  If not one single person responds to our fund raising letters, God will manage the adoption somehow, but many people will have missed out on a blessing.  Now, don’t get me wrong, not everyone is called to give to every good God-willed project.  However, I do think that people are missing out on a lot of blessings by not considering and praying about giving in specific areas.

So if I have your address, you may be getting a letter in the near future. 🙂  Please pray for us in any case, that this adoption would happen in God’s timing and that He would give us peace as we wait for the funds to come in.

As a reward for reaching their “advanced reading” goals, the kids at my daughters’ school were allowed to take part in a “Fear Factor” event that the staff set up out in back of the school. Now, this is an elementary school. They couldn’t do anything too traumatic or dangerous. So it was mostly stuff like sticking your hand into a jar of meal worms to get a prize at the bottom and retrieving rocks with your toes in ice cold water. There were two cool stations, though, and I got to be at one of them. [Read more →]

The Hotel Room in Hosanna

There is one “western” hotel in the area, and we have a room in it.  I haven’t caught the name of it yet.  I’ll have to ask Michelle again.  [It was called Hotel Hossanna as I discovered later.]  It’s somewhat… interesting.  Michelle told me it was only built a couple of years ago, and yet there are parts of it that are already falling apart.  Our bathroom is a good example.  The bathroom door no longer has a latch, so it’s good that Michelle and I are comfortable with each other.  The toilet has had the tank cover and flusher removed so that you need to put your hand in the tank (not quite into the water) and pull up on the flushing mechanism to make it work.  It doesn’t fall back into place, either, so once enough water has gone through you have to push the mechanism back down.

The shower is interesting, too, though I think it was made that way rather than deteriorating to this point.  There is no bathtub, nor is there a shower curtain.  There is a small step up to a slightly raised area of floor in which is a drain.  (Thankfully, there is also a drain in the main part of the floor since it would be impossible to contain the water as you shower.)  Above the raised section of floor, a thin pipe and shower head stick out of the wall, and a little ways below that are the hot and cold water knobs.  A water heater is attached to the opposite wall, and a small light that sometimes comes on with a noise of various electronic parts attests to the fact that it’s doing its job…

Yet the shower that I took was rather less than satisfying.  The water heater may be heating something, but whatever it is it doesn’t seem to be water for my shower.  Make no mistake, the water that came out was ever-s0-slightly tepid, but it began as a trickle and stopped altogether when I was ready to rinse off.  I had to laugh as I stood there and pondered my situation, and I was very glad that I had decided not to put conditioner in my hair!  I waited for several minutes, hoping the water might come back on, but to no avail.  Finally, I stepped down from the raised section of floor and stood by the main floor drain which was near the sink.  I managed to rinse myself reasonable well by cupping water from the sink in my hands and dumping it over my body.  Why was water still running in the sink, but not in the shower?  Oh, heaven only knows!

Thought I’d post a picture of Eli’s cake from Monday.  Joel’s been out of town for business for a couple of days since then, so my parents are helping me out.  Joel will be back tomorrow and I’ll be back onto a more normal schedule.  I’ll try to pick up typing up the journal entries then.

Paperwork is going, but I’m out of stamps so it’s stalled briefly.  Done soon, I hope!  Last home study visit scheduled for the week after next.

Hosanna

The people here rarely see feringie [white people], so we cause quite a commotion when we go out. The children stand back and stare, giggling, until one gets bold enough to run up and say, “What is your name?” I tell them my name and ask them theirs. They usually respond, and then they run away giggling having exhausted their supply of English. [Read more →]

I brought home a lot of things to sell this time to help support our adoption efforts (mostly baskets and other woven articles like trivets and coasters), but I also brought home two lovely souvenirs for myself. One was a broken toe. It was doing much better the other day, but yesterday I had to do a lot of things and it’s not hurting pretty annoyingly again. The other is some sort of digestive critters, either bacterial or parasitic. I’m now on a medicine that will basically kill anything and everything in my digestive track to try to get rid of whatever it is. The doctor told me I’d better start eating plenty of yogurt. 🙂 I’m also taking probiotic capsules, so between the two I hope to keep the good bacteria alive and kicking while killing any nasties that have taken up residence.

Now that our adoption is fast-forwarding a bit, I’d appreciate extra prayer. Here are a few specific requests:

Funds – we need to send in our dossier soon, and we don’t have the roughly $15,500 that’s due with the dossier. We really can only scrape together a couple thousand of that at this point. Please pray that God would bring the money in somehow.

Van – we’re still praying to find a good, inexpensive 12 passenger van.

Paperwork – that things would move quickly through the various agencies that need to do background checks, authentications, etc.

Thank you for your prayers!

[Since I can’t post their names yet, I’ll call my future daughters L and B.  I’ll also remove parts of my entry that were mostly notes for another family on their own daughter or things that say too much info about L and B.]

I spent much of the day – from 11 AM to 5 PM – with L and B.  The Lord was good and I did have some time to connect with B [who doesn’t speak English]; I let her and L try to teach me Amharic. 🙂  They couldn’t stop laughing at my attempts!  I also spent a lot of time watching B play.  She’s athletic and seems to enjoy any game with a ball.  L mostly stayed by my side.  She’s very sweet and quiet.  Well, by quiet I think I mean thoughtful.  She likes to read and have times by herself.  She gets tired of the noise at the orphanage sometimes and tries to find a quiet place to sit.  I told her that our house gets noisy, too, but not quite as noisy as the orphanage!

L really seems to want to bond with me.  That should help the process a lot.  She said she wished I could just stay at the care center while I was in Addis, and she told me she’s happier when I’m there.  She’s a very sweet girl.  I’m concerned that she may be trying too hard to please, though, and might not be willing to tell me when she’s unhappy.

B is sweet, too, but more shy than her sister.  I think she’ll do well with the children in school because she loves to join in games, but I’m afraid getting to know her heart may take a while.  She’s full of fun, that much was obvious!

[Portion removed]

Oh, and when asked their ages, L says she is 13 and B is 8.  We’ll see what the courts decide to put on their birth certificates.

[Portion removed]

L very much wants me to come back to the care center while I’m here, but I told her I didn’t know if I would be able to.  I’d like to make it back one last time before we go so that I can say goodbye.  I wish I could bring them home with me.

After talking with L, I’ve been thinking more about dating and courting.  I wonder if it would work to mix the two.  Could a boyfriend be required to court her until we’re comfortable with them going somewhere together?  Especially if the “dates” were with a group rather than alone.  I don’t know.  We’ll need to think about it soon, though.  L is already a young lady.  And a very lovely one at that.

A Dumb American’s Experience in a Half-Western Hotel

When I first arrived at the Ghion hotel, I wasn’t quite sure what to think. The front of the building was certainly impressive enough. There was a winding drive that rambled in different directions amid beautiful landscaping, and the whole front of the hotel was lined with lights so that it had a feel of both grandness and a certain sense of welcome.

On entering the lobby, I was aware of some of the first difference between this and a western hotel – or at least any hotel I’d stayed in before. Whereas I was used to seeing large lobbies with sweeping registration counters, this lobby seemed small, though grandly designed, and the registration desk was really only large enough for two people to stand comfortably side by side (though I’m quite sure that more than that manage at times.) [side note: the lobby was actually bigger than I realized, but since we arrived so late some of the lights were off… also the registration counter did have a wrap-around section that I hadn’t noticed at first]

I do not count among my talents the ability to understand folks with thick accents. This is always an embarrassment, and so it was at the front desk. At first we had to make sure I actually had a reservation (there was some uncertainty), but that was handled by Getachew, my wonderful driver and friend in need. However, once it was settled that I did, in fact, have a room, he headed out to go to his own home and I was left to fend for myself. *sigh* The man at the desk was telling me something, but I hadn’t a clue what it was. At first I tried having him repeat the information, but after he had repeated it twice and I still hadn’t understood, I decided to take the, “Um… oh… ok…” approach. At which point, looking slightly resigned, he motioned to two porters to take my bags. I didn’t have the will to fight for my bags, so I resigned myself to the fact that I’d be tipping them for a job I could have done myself, and we proceeded to my room. It was only after I had entered the room that I finally realized the man at the front desk may have been telling me how much to pay him. 😛 [I decided later that he may have been telling me what time they served breakfast…]

My room was a bit of a puzzle in itself. On walking in, my able porters immediately deposited my bags and turned on the television. I tipped them and they left, at which point I took a more thorough look around the small space. There were two twin beds, each with a small nightstand, a small desk with an internet plug and ashtray on top, and a small TV stand with a little TV. There was also a nice-size bathroom and a sizable wardrobe. All in all, it was perfectly satisfactory for my needs. When Michelle gets here she’ll use the second twin bed, and really we’ll mostly be here to sleep and maybe type or write.

But then I faced my first conundrum. The TV seemed loud and I wanted to turn it off, but gosh darn it where was the power button? There was no remote to be seen, only a small sign on top of the TV stating which channels were what (there were six of them). I started playing with the little round buttons on the front of the TV, none of which were marked, and before long I had learned which ones were channel up and down and which were volume up and down, but nothing turned the darn thing off. I turned the volume down a bit and walked away in defeat determining to try again later.

I then went in to use the bathroom only to be unable to find the flush handle for the toilet. I was beginning to get frustrated and was starting to wonder whether the bucket which I had taken for a trash can was in fact there to provide a means of flushing.

At that point I stopped and reminded myself that I had had very little sleep and things would probably make more sense in the morning.

I did finally manage to turn the TV off. The button was recessed and, being black on black, hard to see in the dim light. The morning then revealed to me that the little knobby thing that seems to be lying loosely on the back of the toilet actually lifted up to flush it. I raised my arms in victory upon this discovery.

Another time maybe I’ll write about the large windows in the shower and the man sweeping the path outside with a large frond of some kind, but right now I need to go pay the poor front desk man for my room and exchange some money. Then I’ll be ready to find out when I can meet my daughters. 🙂

Refueling in Rome

Local time – 12:55 PM   EST – 6:55 AM

We’ve been sitting for a bit now, so I’d guess we’ll be taking off again soon.  We just stop to refuel, get more food and drinks, take on a new crew…  and I think I saw someone come through with things from cleaning the bathroom.

This plane is different than the ones we flew on on last year’s Ethiopia trip.  I think it’s a little smaller (7 seats across in a pattern of 2, 3, 2) and it seems older.  The seats are more worn, more of the tray tables and cup holders are minorly broken, and – much to my chagrin – there are no screens on the backs of the seats.  Not long after take-off they started an in-flight movie shown on the TVs that are placed at regular, though not exactly frequent, intervals above the aisles.  I think the move was “Facing the Giants”, but I’m not sure because I was in the bathroom when it first started.  I tried to watch it for a while but eventually gave up.  I found that I was either straining my eyes to see the TV a ways in front of us or I was craning my neck to see most of the screen that was almost directly beside us.  The whole exercise began to make my head hurt which in turn started me feeling motion sick, so I decided to stop trying.  It was just as well, because partway into the movie it cut out for an announcement and they never turned it back on again.

I am happy to report that, though this may be a different airplane, it too has the toilet held together with tape that says “Evidence – Do Not Tamper.”  I’m beginning to think of that as a rather quirky feature of Ethiopian airlines and I would have been a bit disappointed had it not been there.  Unfortunately, the toilet paper dispenser was also broken and had not been taped, and the soap dispenser left much to be desired – namely, soap.  I had to content myself with extremely well-rinsed hands until someone thought to put a small bar of soap at the back of the sink.

I have a window seat this time, and I was noticing that the game of finding shapes in clouds can be done in reverse.  As we approached Rome, I could look out at the patchwork of lands, and a group of trees might look like a dancing girl, a grouping of fields may look like a whale spouting, and the varying shades on a hill may give the appearance that a giant is resting his hand there.

People on this trip so far have been very kind.  Actually, I started to get the idea that I must look particularly naive because of how many people decided to help me.  From the man at the ticket counter carefully explaining my boarding pass and where I should go next to my seat mate who assured me that I would do just fine on my trip, everyone has been taking care of me.  Just another one of God’s blessings on this journey.  The blessings are overflowing!

You’ll read the obituary in the papers soon. “Woman missing after paperwork avalanche – presumed dead.” So, meeting our girls really put me in turbo mode. There wasn’t a whole lot I could do before, but now that our first adoption is finalized everything else can be done… and I’m trying to do it all at once. Somehow I’m thinking this is going to push me over the edge. But how can I take things one at a time when I know that the girls are waiting and all they’re waiting on is our paperwork??? It’s a tough one.

I’ll type up some of my journal entries from the trip later. Michelle had originally said we wouldn’t be interviewing more children this trip, but when people hear that she’s coming they start coming out of the woodwork. By the time we left Ethiopia we had interviewed over 100 new children for adoption. Crazy stuff.

I can post some of my generic photos when I type out my journal entries, too. I can’t post many pictures of the kids since that’s considered a breach of confidence or something, but I got lots of other pictures – ones of the countryside, the hotel rooms we stayed in, and some local people who didn’t mind having their pictures taken.

But that’ll be a little later. Right now, it’s time to go spend a good hour or so with my manila folders and lots of forms!