Week 7 - February 26, 2009

Today we are happy to announce that we are officially parents! I really can’t believe it!

So we introduce Eli Tariku Kerrigan. Eli means God is uplifted. The stories in the bible of the priest Eli who adopted the great prophet/judge, to be, Samuel as a small boy (told in 1 Samuel), as well as the stories of the prophets Elisha and Elijah (told in 1 and 2 Kings) have been a GREAT encouragement to me during this long wait. These were people of GREAT faith and people who boldly asked God to act in situations that seemed impossible.

We also introduce Caleb Dereje Kerrigan. Caleb means Bold and Faithful-the story of Caleb and Able have also been a great encouragement to me during this long wait. Early on God gave me the verse “He is ABLE to do immeasurably more than you ask or imagine”(eph 3:20). We considered the name Able (as in Cain and Able) but decided instead on Caleb (which has the letters of able) because we were inspired by his story as well and again the theme of FAITH and boldness.

The meanings of their Ethiopian names, Dereje and Tariku both have something to do with history, change, and stories of their birth. I hope to speak with their birth mother in the next couple of weeks to find out more about why she chose these names. It is important to us to keep these names, which signify their RICH Ethiopian history and ancestry.

For me, one of the hardest parts of waiting for a family for these 5+ years has been the fear that I would not be a mother, the fear that perhaps for some reason God did not think I should be a mother. At some point I realized that this was a lie and not the truth at all. God began revealing to me that he had a different plan than what I had originally thought for my family and WOW how wonderful His plan is!

So, here are our children, the first two pictures were taken 7 weeks ago on January 8th when we met them, then the pictures are in order by date up to the picture of all four of us that was taken just last week I chose pictures where Caleb is always on the right and Eli is always on the left so it will be easy for you to see who is who (actually strangely enough it just worked out that way!) In the individual pictures, Caleb is in blue and Eli is in Orange. Both boys are doing very well. Still no major health concerns and both are progressing so well. They could barely hold their heads up when we met them and now they are sitting pretty well without assistance and standing up (when holding on to us), picking things up, looking for them when they drop them etc…The progress has been SO fun to watch. They also are MUCH quicker to smile and laugh, its SO fun. What a gift it has been to have this time with them.

I can’t thank you enough for your prayers. I was so nervous (and so was Sean) and your thoughts and prayers upheld us during this time.