We leave tomorrow!

We leave tomorrow to meet our little guy.  We're anxious about the trip itself but are so excited to finally meet him.  Thank you to our family who is taking care of Kendal while we are gone.  It makes it a lot easier knowing that she is being taken care of.  She knows all about both of our trips, so feel free to ask her.  She'll tell you all about it and her brother.  So, please pray for safe travels for us and that Hagirsa feels how much we love him.  We won't get to see him much on this trip but at least we get to hold him for a small amount of time.  Hopefully our court date passes and then he will be our "son" on December 3rd!!

Thank you, thank you, thank you

We just wanted to thank those of you who came to the pancake breakfast on Saturday.  We are so grateful for your donations and those of you who worked and helped to get it ready.  Thanks Kevin for making the slideshow for us.  It turned out beautifully.  Thanks to my mom, Kevin and Kendal for helping us set up the night before.  Thanks to Kris, Kevin, Pa Sills and Kreg's co-worker for cooking all morning.  The pancakes were good!  Thanks to the Veenstra family who did dishes and served food.  Thanks to Leslie for taking the donations. Thanks to lots of you who cleaned up as well and to Harderwyk Ministries who let us use the facility.  We made $99.00 for Yeselalem Minch Orphanage feeding program (through coffee sales) and lots of you brought items we can take directly to the orphanages next week.  We have the two suitcases of donations filled to the brim.  I'm buying a scale tonight so that we can get our 50 lbs worth of stuff in each suitcase!  Most importantly, thanks for all your prayers.  They have been answered by way of an 11 month old little boy.

By the way, "H" is feeling better!  Can't wait to see him soon.  We leave one week from today!

Please pray for H

We just got an email from Bethany yesterday saying that "H" is vomiting and has diarrhea.  They are giving him two kinds of medication.  Please pray that he will feel better very, very soon.

Eleven Months Old

Our little guy was eleven months old on Friday.  He weighs 15.5 pounds and his motor and gross skills are awesome and on target for his age.  We are so thankful for that.  We will get to see him almost a week before his birthday so I bought a bib on Saturday that says, "Birthday Boy."  I hope they let me put in on him for a photo op and to sing to him.  We leave two weeks from tomorrow to go meet the answers to our prayers!

Home Study and Ethiopian Update

We just had our last home study (prior to adoption) on Wednesday.  Everything went really well.  We had some questions answered about traveling and just got to talk a lot about our little boy.  One comment she made was that Ethiopia takes care of their children better than any other country they've worked with.  Kendal showed Belinda (our case worker) his room and told her how much she is going to help when he gets home.  Kendal can't wait to be a big sister.

Last night I met at Panera Bread with about 15 moms.  They either had their children home, had just gone to Ethiopia or had court dates like ourselves.  It was so nice to ge the "real" story about what will happen when we get there.  I got to see video of the orphanage where he is at.  One video had them all singing songs with the older kids in the orphanage leading the songs.  Even the babies were getting into it and clapping.  The kids all seemed so happy.  It's comforting that when we leave there in between the court date and embassy date, that he will be taken care of and is happy.  We also got to get the inside scoop as to what to bring with us.  Things I wouldn't have thought of like diaper bags (for us because you can't put anything down their toilets), nasal spray (because it's so dry), peanut butter and syrup (they love it and I guess it's really expensive there), and just lots of little things I wouldn't have thought to bring.  I'm so thankful to have the chance to talk with people who were JUST there!  They got to play and hold our little guy.  Okay, 24 days before we leave!!