Lux et umbra vicissum…

This has to be brief because we pay by the minute and I think Michelle is almost done with her email, but I wanted to post something while I had a chance.  This has been an amazing trip.  I met my girls and they’re wonderful!  I’ve helped interview children for adoption, been there to hear how the process works on this end, got to be in on the hiring and beginnings of hospice and sponsorship programs, got sick from something I ate, broke my toe, and met some absolutely amazing people. 🙂  I can’t wait to type more about it and maybe post some pictures. 🙂

Pray for our return flight on Sunday night into Monday morning.  Since my toe is broken, I’m really hoping it won’t be too full and I’ll be able to put it up on the seat next to me to keep the swelling down a bit!

More when I get home…

Our bedroom’s a bit of a mess, but that’s not so different from normal. 🙂 I don’t have enough donations to stuff two large suitcases like I was hoping to, so I’ll take two medium-size cases to make things easier on me. I’ll be able to fit almost all of my personal belongings in my backpack and travel purse, so I shouldn’t have to worry about lost bags. At least, I won’t worry as long as they make it while I’m still there. So far when people have talked about losing their bags when going to Ethiopia, the bags have arrived within a week. Unfortunately, the frequency of bags being lost in the first place is relatively high. So nothing I need for everyday survival will be in my checked baggage. 🙂

I decided to bring laundry soap this time, too. I’ll only be bringing the clothes that fit in my backpack, so I’ll need to wash them a few times while I’m there. I may let the hotel take care of it in Addis Ababa if it’s not too expensive, but in the other areas we’ll be staying I’m not sure they would have any laundry service available. I’ll wash the clothes I bring in the sink and hang them… somewhere… to dry overnight. I’ll let you know how that works out.

For now, mostly what I need to do is switch things from the one huge suitcase into two medium ones. Once I’ve done that it’ll just be a matter of double checking against my packing list to make sure I didn’t miss anything! Wow. I don’t think I’ve ever been packed this far in advance. Ok, so that’s kind-of sad. Oh well.

While I’m in Ethiopia I’m going to try to email Joel occasionally to let him know how things are going, but I don’t expect to be able to blog. Maybe Joel will post some of my emails or something. Anyway, since tomorrow is Mother’s Day I don’t know that I’ll be on much, and knowing that I have a chiro appointment in the morning Monday and the flight out in the evening, I’m not sure if I’ll be on again before I leave.

Wish me bon voyage!

I went shopping today.  I bought a lot of things, but very little of it was for me.  I did buy myself a small sun hat, a pair of cheap sunglasses, and three cheap t-shirts for the trip.  (I haven’t gotten new shirts in a long time… since high school, I think… and I didn’t have many that would match things easily.)  The bulk of my purchase, however, was cloth diapers and their accessories. [Read more →]

Just thought I’d post a quick picture of the bracelets I made for the girls. I’ll give them their bracelets sort of as a piece of promise jewelry… a pledge that we’ll return for them.

Though it isn’t immediately obvious, I used the colors of the Ethiopian and American flags when making these. The Ethiopian flag is green, yellow, and red (the yellow is a gold in the bracelet), and American flag is red, white, and blue. The flag colors are separated by clear beads. I stringed the beads on hemp this time to try to ensure that they won’t break. The hemp is much stronger than the stretchy cord I usually use for bracelets.

I had told Joel some time ago that I was going to take everything with the adoption one at a time at this point unless God showed me somehow clearly that I needed to hurry the heck up.  Which means, mainly, that I wasn’t going to allow myself to be surrounded by paperwork but would handle each piece separately and not get stressed.

And God laughed.

I’ve been emailing back and forth with our case worker about visiting the girls while I’m in Ethiopia, and it’s been a very productive conversation.  But suddenly it took an unexpected turn.  Though often people are waiting for a while for their children to be moved to the care center, for some reason ours are going to be moved there at the end of this week when we haven’t even been expecting it.  Actually, it’s such a shock to us that we verified that we had read our email correctly.   It turns out that they’re moving them figuring our paperwork will be in any day (since the finalization is now complete on our first adoption).  Ah.

…

AAAAAAAA!!!!!!!!!

First off, I feel more than a little guilty knowing that there are families that wait as patiently as possible for their kids to be moved AFTER all of their papers have been in.  We have friends who have waited for quite a while, and we probably know some who are waiting right now.  Why should ours be moved and not theirs?

Second, I feel incredibly blessed in that visiting them will be tons easier than it would have been.  I was going to have a two hour side trip to visit with them for an afternoon or something, and now they’ll be right in the capital city where I’ll be spending the bulk of my time.  And since I’m traveling two days before Michelle, I can use those two days to get to know my future daughters.

Third… ok, so how clearly can God give hints??  Wow.  Ok.  So, when I get back, I’m going to surround myself with paperwork and get it done as fast as possible. 🙂  Hm… maybe we could even put in for our police clearances before I leave.  Well, God… I’m taking the hint, now give me the strength.

A four year old’s idea of good dinner conversation:

“Mommy, why don’t dogs have snot or boogers?”

A four year old’s concept of fractions:

“Mommy, since there are three of us, why can’t you just split it in three halves?”

What the two year old says when she wants to imitate her sister on the piano:

“I’m gonna go do my piano blessings.”

And a six year old’s idea of geography:

“What country is Ethiopia a state in?”

There are several things I’d like to blog about, but I’ll have to do it another time. For now, I’ll just summarize:

* I managed to get all of our plants and seeds in the ground over the weekend except the carrots. I didn’t have time to do them, but I hope to get them in soon.

* I finished Alexis’ butterfly wings. I didn’t get to take a picture of them because I had to send them to school today, but if they come back home at some point I’ll take one and post it. They turned out pretty nice.

* We went to some of Apple Blossom Festival Friday, but we were rather disappointed. Rather than the family atmosphere I had hoped to find, there were more teens wandering around using foul language and people hanging out drinking beer than anything else. And this was in the area with the games and the parade. I don’t know that we’ll bother going to that part of the Festival next year.

* I might be leaving May 12th instead of the 14th for Ethiopia. The flight for the 14th is full right now, but since many of the flights have adoptive parents on them and some of those parents generally end up having to change their travel dates due to uncertain embassy dates (confusing process), I still might be able to get on that one. For now, the travel agent who’s booking the trip for us has me confirmed for a flight out on the 12th and wait listed for the 14th. We’ll see what happens!

It’s Apple Blossom time!  It’s amazing what a big deal Apple Blossom Festival is here in Winchester.  The kids all have off from school tomorrow, there’s all kinds of activities, parades, carnivals, etc., and everything from the banks to the courthouse to the veterinary clinic will be closed!

Since Branwen has preschool on Tuesdays and Thursdays, they did their Apple Blossom parade today.  Each class decided on a theme for their boys and girls, though I don’t think all of the kids stuck with the themes.  I wasn’t sure how Buzz Lightyear fit into any of the themes, for example.  Branwen’s class did princesses for the girls, so we just dug through the dress-up bin and found something acceptable.  She looked cute, as did the other little girls in her class.  I’m not sure what the boys were supposed to be, but maybe they had a western theme.  I know at least a couple of them were cowboys.  Anyway, the kids had a lot of fun parading down the pedestrian mall in the middle of town showing off their costumes to the parents and anyone else who happened to be around.

Other than the time I spent watching Branwen’s parade, I’ve mostly been sewing butterfly wings today.  Both wings are hemmed, and one has gold edging around most of it now.  If I can finish that one, I might leave it at that and plan to edge the other one tomorrow.  I’m doing the edging by hand which I find easier than using the machine, but it does take longer.  And I need to finish the costume by Monday.  Nothing like procrastination!

Maybe I’ll take a picture once the costume is finished…  I’ll wait and see how it turns out before I decide, though.  At least I know that no matter what my stitching looks like, we managed to pick out a really pretty material.  And the nice thing about making stage costumes is they only have to look good from a distance.  Just my kind of sewing project!

God is so good!!!! In the mail today were the papers from the judge saying that Desta and Eli are officially ours by the laws of the state of Virginia, their names are officially changed as are their birth dates, and we can look for Virginia birth certificates to be arriving in the mail for them!!! Hooray!!!!!!

And I should mention that I prayed yesterday that, though I know God owes me no such thing, if He didn’t mind too much He could maybe provide a sign if this upcoming trip really was His will.  The best thing I could think to ask for was that these finalization documents would come, so I did.  We just submitted the final order on April 24th.  Hallelujah!!!   God is so good!!!  Now I’m really psyched!!!

When a trip to Ethiopia with AWOP (African Widows and Orphans Project) was planned for earlier in the year, Joel & I prayed about it quite a bit and determined that we felt a very strong leading for me to go along. That trip fell through for me when the people leading it found good cause to limit their numbers and had to cut down on the travelers. The next trip was going to be in April, but that was called off for other internal reasons. I was told that there might be a trip in May, but it was equally possible that the next trip wouldn’t be until August. And so life went on.

Yesterday I got an email from Michelle Gardner who heads AWOP telling me that she was going in May, and in fact would be leaving in about two weeks. She asked me if I’d like to go along.

!!! [Read more →]