We're coming home!

It has been quite a week and it is only Tuesday night. On Friday we were disappointed to find out that the US embassy was not open until Tuesday so we had four days to wait until we could find out how much longer we would be here (Monday was another national holiday). I was very nervous as our updated visa approval was apparently not in country last week even though the National Visa Center stated that it was sent twice, once on January27th and then again on February 26th at our request. The embassy needs this paperwork to give the kids their US visas. Anyway I was very worried again and wondered what God might have for us now. Would we be here another month, waiting for this paperwork? Last night as we prayed I realized that it was very likely that we would not be able to fly home this week.

Three things needed to happen that were not at all guaranteed:

1: We needed to be one of the first 50 people to have blood drawn at the embassy and because another requirement is to have a doctor first look over the kids, we had to first go to a clinic for this appointment, THEN go to the embassy for the blood work-this would mean we would be arriving at least 3 hours after it opened…

2: The embassy would need to have our approvals from the national visac enter.

3: The embassy would have to expedite our case and schedule an appointment for us this week, usually the appointments are at least a week out.

So we were not especially hopeful last night but we also were feeling very ready to go home, so we prayed, please Lord go before us, open the doors that only you can open, and HE DID! I still can hardly believe it, we get to bring our babies home!!! It was a long day though-doctor’s visit at a clinic, then across town to have the boys’ blood drawn at embassy (ooh first needles on these kiddos), then talking with the embassy about an interview appointment, back across town to the doctor’s office for immunizations (second needles, these they really didn’t like), out to lunch, then to the house of hope to fill out more paperwork for our embassy interview on Thursday (Caleb and Eli will be 7 months old on Thursday).The kids did great but were very tired and grumpy when we finally got home.The visas should be issued on Friday morning and we are planning on leaving that evening. Wow!

We also had the opportunity to meet with the boys’ birth mother on Monday.We got up early and left around 6am. We dropped the boys at the House of Hope (first time I have left them during the day, this was not easy) and drove to Asela to the orphanage where they were dropped off in October. It took about 4 hours to get there, about 3 to get back, and we stopped for lunch on the way back so it was an all day trip. The birth moms do not always show up but we were very thankful that this mother did decide to meet with us. It was quite an experience and one I am still processing. We were not allowed to exchange any information or gifts with her, but we were able to ask questions, video and take pictures of her to show the boys. She is a wonderful, kind, strong, beautiful very young woman and I am eternally grateful that we were able to meet her.

We found out that even though the boys are from Asela, which is where the Oromia people group (mostly) live, she is Amhara, as is their biological Father. The Amhara people are from the North and many generations ago some of them moved south to take advantage of the rich farmland in the south.The Amhara people are strong, have survived in the mountainous/nonfertile part of the country forever. They also are the royal class (going back traditionally to the Queen of Sheba who visited Solomon in the bible) and have had ties to the Jews going way back. The Amhara people also converted to Christianity very early on and traditionally are loyal Ethiopian Orthodox Christians. The history of Ethiopia has become very fascinating to me as well as the Ethiopian Orthodox Church here which is very dominant.It has a lot of Jewish influence, more than Catholicism or Protestantism (due to the early Ethiopian ties to Judaism). Today though the Protestants here and the Orthodox people seem to look down on the other-I think in many ways it is like Protestants and Catholics in the states.

Anyway it has been a full couple of days but the Lord has continued to lookout for us at every step. Thank you again for all your prayers. I cannot express how thankful I am that we have had the opportunity to be here for the past two months. I will miss Ethiopia and many of the wonderful people I have met here. I also know though, that we will be back, half of our family was born here! I also though am very excited to come home. It will be SO nice to sleep in my own bed in less than a week, and see all the people I miss from home…