Friday December 26, 2008
Merry Christmas!! We had a wonderful holiday of eating and spending time with family and more eating. There always seems to be an overabundance of food at the holdiay season. Mark and my dad got Ethiopian coffee as a christmas present that I ordered off Ethiopianspices.com. We made it at 6 in the morning as we were opening presents. It smelled really good, it was a little strong for me but everyone else really like it. For those of you who don't know coffee originated in Ethiopia. You can actually buy the coffee beans from this website and when you get them you have to roast them and grind them before you can make coffee. I can't wait to try some while we are actually in the country.
Today we are officially 3 months waiting to receive a referral for our baby boy. As the holidays came and passed (well almost, one more party tomorrow), the presents are unwrapped and put away and the food is almost all gone we realize how blessed we are to have such wonderful family and friends to support us through this adoption process. The holidays were harder this year as we don't have a referral or a timeframe has to when we will but we know that it will happen in God's time. There is a beautiful baby boy he has picked out to join our Forever Family and we can't wait to bring him home. We don't even know who this child is but we already love him so much!
As we start this new year please pray with us that things will start to move a little quicker for the process. There are many changes being made within America World and the program to make it more efficient and better. A new transition home has been purchased in Ethiopia that is bigger and will hold more kids, a physician and a nurse has also been hired to work at this new home. Please pray for the paperwork mountains to move through the proper channels and for families to pass court and also for the babies and kids themselves as a lot of them come into the transition home malnurished and extremely underweight. We look forward to an exciting new year on this journey to bring our baby home.
Friday, December 26, 2008
Thursday, December 11, 2008
Merry Christmas by Third Day
This song Merry Christmas by Third Day was posted on our Yahoo Group we belong to. This song is about a little girl that is waiting to come home to her family. It is such a sweet song that describes how anyone waiting for a referral, waiting for a court date, or waiting for the time to travel to pick up their child during this holiday season feels. I definitely speaks to the feelings in my heart as we await a referral this holiday season. We pray for all the children that are waiting to come home this holiday season. I hope you enjoy this song as much as we do.
Friday, December 5, 2008
Waiting Expectantly
Friday December 5, 2008
We got news this week 7 families have passed court in Ethiopia and will travel before Christmas and will spend Christmas with thier children! How awesome is that. We are praying for referrals for this month, courts are back open and families are travelling, let the referrals roll in. It might sound strange that I am so excited for people that we don't even know passing court and getting referrals. We get excited because children are getting to go to their forever families and feel loved and cared for (plus it moves us up in line to get our wonderful baby boy). It is so funny how you can love someone so much already and you don't know anything about them! But we do!
Anyway, someone posted this article on the yahoo group we belong to and I thought it was a great article and thought I would post it on our blog for all of you to read! Enjoy, keep praying for those referrals and successful court dates, our turn will come before we know it!
Waiting Expectantly
Margaret Manning
Waiting is never easy. In our day of high speed internet, instant messaging, and fast food, waiting for anything seems like an eternity. I remember the days as a child, when the season turned the corner towards Christmas day, how difficult it was for me and my siblings to wait to open our presents. We had such a hard time waiting that we would often coax our parents into allowing us to open some, or all of our presents on Christmas Eve. We couldn't wait any longer, and our parents couldn't abide another day of our whining and begging.
The season of Advent begins a season of waiting. It marks the beginning of the liturgical church year and asks us to wait expectantly for the coming of Christ, the King. Each new Advent season stirs our expectations as we wait. Will we see the return of the Lord in this Advent season? But, it also leads us to a time of
reflection concerning how we wait because waiting, by its very nature, is demanding and difficult for all of us. Like children clamoring to open their presents early because they cannot wait any longer, we often wait impatiently, rather than with expectant hope.
Waiting for God is difficult enough; but, waiting in the wilderness can make the most staid soul waver. The whole history of Israel is a history of waiting, waiting in the wilderness to enter the Promised Land, waiting for a king, waiting in exile for return to the land of Israel, and waiting for God to deliver them from all their
oppressors. The psalmists cry is their cry, and our cry: "How long, O Lord? Will you hide yourself forever?" (Psalm 89:46)
Imagine, then, how their hearts stirred with expectation when a glimmer of promise arose. We can feel the hope rise as the prophet Isaiah cries out: "Clear the way for the Lord in the wilderness; make smooth in the desert a highway for our God. Let every valley be lifted up, and every mountain and hill be made low...Then the glory
of the Lord will be revealed, and all flesh will see it together" (Isaiah 40:3-5). Yet, generations came and went and the years ebbed and flowed with no sign of the promised one. Israel went into exile, and the voice of the prophets became silent. Would there be a way in the wilderness, and a smooth path cut through the desert? Or would God leave his people as exiles in the wastelands?
For over two-thousand years, we have seen Advent season come and go, each year igniting our hopes and expectations for Christ's return. Unfortunately, as happens to so many, we lose hope and heart in waiting. We grow tired and weary, and we, like the false prophets of old ask, "Where is the promise of his coming? For ever since the fathers fell asleep, all continues just as it was from the beginning of creation" (2 Peter 3:4). Our temptation in the exile of waiting is to lose hope, to grow weary and faint. Our temptation is to give up rather than hold on. Rather than fill us with expectation, waiting can dull our hope and desiccate our yearning for God. Yet the Advent season calls us back to watch and to wait in anxious expectation for the return of our Lord.
Indeed, those who wait upon the Lord "shall gain new strength; they will mount up with wings like eagles, they will run and not get tired, they will walk and not become weary" (Isaiah 40:31). May our Advent waiting fill us with hope, renew us with strength, and raise us up with hope in our coming King.
We got news this week 7 families have passed court in Ethiopia and will travel before Christmas and will spend Christmas with thier children! How awesome is that. We are praying for referrals for this month, courts are back open and families are travelling, let the referrals roll in. It might sound strange that I am so excited for people that we don't even know passing court and getting referrals. We get excited because children are getting to go to their forever families and feel loved and cared for (plus it moves us up in line to get our wonderful baby boy). It is so funny how you can love someone so much already and you don't know anything about them! But we do!
Anyway, someone posted this article on the yahoo group we belong to and I thought it was a great article and thought I would post it on our blog for all of you to read! Enjoy, keep praying for those referrals and successful court dates, our turn will come before we know it!
Waiting Expectantly
Margaret Manning
Waiting is never easy. In our day of high speed internet, instant messaging, and fast food, waiting for anything seems like an eternity. I remember the days as a child, when the season turned the corner towards Christmas day, how difficult it was for me and my siblings to wait to open our presents. We had such a hard time waiting that we would often coax our parents into allowing us to open some, or all of our presents on Christmas Eve. We couldn't wait any longer, and our parents couldn't abide another day of our whining and begging.
The season of Advent begins a season of waiting. It marks the beginning of the liturgical church year and asks us to wait expectantly for the coming of Christ, the King. Each new Advent season stirs our expectations as we wait. Will we see the return of the Lord in this Advent season? But, it also leads us to a time of
reflection concerning how we wait because waiting, by its very nature, is demanding and difficult for all of us. Like children clamoring to open their presents early because they cannot wait any longer, we often wait impatiently, rather than with expectant hope.
Waiting for God is difficult enough; but, waiting in the wilderness can make the most staid soul waver. The whole history of Israel is a history of waiting, waiting in the wilderness to enter the Promised Land, waiting for a king, waiting in exile for return to the land of Israel, and waiting for God to deliver them from all their
oppressors. The psalmists cry is their cry, and our cry: "How long, O Lord? Will you hide yourself forever?" (Psalm 89:46)
Imagine, then, how their hearts stirred with expectation when a glimmer of promise arose. We can feel the hope rise as the prophet Isaiah cries out: "Clear the way for the Lord in the wilderness; make smooth in the desert a highway for our God. Let every valley be lifted up, and every mountain and hill be made low...Then the glory
of the Lord will be revealed, and all flesh will see it together" (Isaiah 40:3-5). Yet, generations came and went and the years ebbed and flowed with no sign of the promised one. Israel went into exile, and the voice of the prophets became silent. Would there be a way in the wilderness, and a smooth path cut through the desert? Or would God leave his people as exiles in the wastelands?
For over two-thousand years, we have seen Advent season come and go, each year igniting our hopes and expectations for Christ's return. Unfortunately, as happens to so many, we lose hope and heart in waiting. We grow tired and weary, and we, like the false prophets of old ask, "Where is the promise of his coming? For ever since the fathers fell asleep, all continues just as it was from the beginning of creation" (2 Peter 3:4). Our temptation in the exile of waiting is to lose hope, to grow weary and faint. Our temptation is to give up rather than hold on. Rather than fill us with expectation, waiting can dull our hope and desiccate our yearning for God. Yet the Advent season calls us back to watch and to wait in anxious expectation for the return of our Lord.
Indeed, those who wait upon the Lord "shall gain new strength; they will mount up with wings like eagles, they will run and not get tired, they will walk and not become weary" (Isaiah 40:31). May our Advent waiting fill us with hope, renew us with strength, and raise us up with hope in our coming King.
Tuesday, December 2, 2008
Vaccinations
Tuesday December 2, 2008
We went to the Board of Health today to get our vaccinations started so when we get the call that it is time to go we are ready. We had to get 4 shots each plus I had to get a Tetnus shot on top of that. We are now vaccinated from Polio, Meningitis, Typhoid and we have started our series of 3 shots for Hepatitis A and B. This was a great start to a day for someone who is terrified of getting shots!!! Funny the things we do. Now all we need is that referral.
We have two months down waiting and are into our third month. These three months will go by quickly it is the next 4 to 6 months that I have a feeling will creep by!
We went to the Board of Health today to get our vaccinations started so when we get the call that it is time to go we are ready. We had to get 4 shots each plus I had to get a Tetnus shot on top of that. We are now vaccinated from Polio, Meningitis, Typhoid and we have started our series of 3 shots for Hepatitis A and B. This was a great start to a day for someone who is terrified of getting shots!!! Funny the things we do. Now all we need is that referral.
We have two months down waiting and are into our third month. These three months will go by quickly it is the next 4 to 6 months that I have a feeling will creep by!
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