The Countdown is on Again!!!

We got word this week that our new court date is Monday, April 6th! Not as soon as we'd like, but we are happy to be counting down again and actually have a date. I've heard of people with May dates so glad it is not then! There are 5 families from our agency who are in the same situation and we all have the same date. We've even started a countdown clock on-line-43 days-yes, waiting does make you crazy!!

Yesterday, we had to go get re-fingerprinted at the USCIS office because our fingerprints expire April 4th- 2 days before our court date. There are a few more paperwork issues we have to take care of because of the longer than expected wait, but nothing too major. It will all work out!!

Lisa & Dave

No news yet...but lots of blessings!!!

No news yet of a new court date. There were about 8 of us in our agency who had court dates postponed and one of the families got a new date for March 26th. We are really hoping to hear this week of our new date and to start the countdown again. While this has has been extremely hard and discouraging, we try to look for something positive to focus on-One of the families from Hope is visiting her daughter in Ethiopia and she spent some time with our kids last week. She explained and assured them that they have a family and we are coming for them soon, but the process is taking longer than expected. She shared they are doing well and are happy. We are so grateful that this has been shared with our kids. We often think about their perspective of adoption and how much they really understand and how confusing things must be. Once they are home, it will be a distant memory!

Another amazing blessing-the basketball team at Dave's school was putting together donations for us to bring to Ethiopia and one of the girls shared our story with her mom. Her mom shared the story at her workplace and they all got together and supplied us with tons of amazing donations for the children and orphanage. From shoes to medicine and clothing-truly amazing!! We are so appreciative of all of the support and graciousness of people, many whom we have never met, who are touched by our story and of the children in Ethiopia. These kids have touched many people's hearts and they don't even know it-how wonderful!!

Hoping and praying for good news this week!

Lisa & Dave

Thank Goodness for Good News!!!!

Yesterday was full of wonderful news and then unfortunately, a bit of bad news. Let's start with the good news!! My sister, Elizabeth had her twin boys yesterday-Patrick and Zachary!! It has been a long haul for her, an unlike our paper pregnancy she has been on bed rest since week
10 and in the hospital for the past month and a half-Ugh!! Mommy and baby boys are doing as well as expected, considering due date was in March! Patrick had a little difficulty breathing and had to go to another hospital that had a NICU so we are hoping he will be back with mom and Zachary very soon. He is showing signs of improvement hourly!! We are so excited to add them to our family!! Please keep them in your prayers!!

The bad news...our court date has been postponed. I received an e-mail yesterday that MOWA (Ministries of Women Affairs) is moving this week so they are not making any recommendations and therefore they are not able to hear any court cases this week. We are hoping that we will be rescheduled quickly and that seems like the logical thing, so we will wait to hear something. Basically, it could be next week or in 4 weeks-we really don't have any idea. There were a bunch of us who had court dates this week (all of our Adoption Agency's old timers who have been waiting a LONG time) so we are all pretty upset about this news. Thinking positive and hopefully it will be real soon and we can put this behind us! We know once we have our kiddos at home, it will be a distant memory! So thank goodness for our wonderful family news today and please keep us in your thoughts and prayers for a speedy new court date.

Lisa & Dave

Pay It Forward!!!

What a heartwarming and touching day it was! The staff at Dave's school threw us a shower and collected TONS of donations for us to bring to Ethiopia-formula, medicines, school supplies, clothing, and lots of other goodies for the kids and orphanage! I think we may be able to fill a truck with all of the donations. They even made us shirts with our family picture with the kids-we can't wait to wear them on "Gotcha Day" when we pick up the kids!! It truly is amazing how caring and supportive everyone is! Thank you so much for your genorosity!

In the evening we went and spoke with a large group of kids from the local 4H club. They do a community project as part of their club and they wanted to collect donations for the kids and orphanage in Ethiopia as part of their service project. We shared about life in Ethiopia and how they don't have much, but they are some of the happiest people we have ever met! They asked great questions and seemed very touched by this opportunity. Each child is going to fill a ziploc bag full of goodies for the kids and we will bring it with us when we travel. It is so nice to see kids helping kids-it's contagious!!

We feel so blessed to have so many friends who support us and our mission to help those in need in Ethiopia. Winston Churchill said it best... "We make a living by what we get. We make a life by what we give." Thank you from the bottom of our hearts!

4 more days until court-please keep us in your prayers.

Lisa & Dave

Happy Birthday!!

Happy Birthday to Daniel and Yordanos!!! So...today is Daniel and Yodanos' birthday of record. Since we don't have any record of their actual date of birth, Ethiopia gives them a birthdate, which is actually the date of their first medical exam for adoption-January 16th. Can't wait until we can celebrate with them!!

We also plan to celebrate "Gotcha Day"- this is the day that we actually get the kids! We plan to celebrate this each year by doing something special with the kids and also by giving them a gift from Ethiopia so they will remember their birth country and culture. We already have enough gifts from our first trip for both of them for about 8 years and will pick more up when we go again.

14 more days until court...Woo Hoo!!!

Lisa & Dave

Pictures!!!

We got some of the best pictures yet tonight!! A fellow adoptive parent just returned from Ethiopia and she was kind enough to go visit our kids and bring lots of donations that we sent with her. Well....she got the most amazing pictures!!! It was funny...I had so many things on my "to do" list for tonight, but nothing mattered once we started looking at the pictures. We looked at them a dozen times...since there was over 300-it took a while!! Daniel looks so different in these pictures-he is in tons of them and is always smiling, giggling and playing. Usually, he is pretty quiet and reserved, but not in these pictures-it is really cute!! And Yordanos...full of facial expressions as always!! Wish we could post a few, but not until we pass court!

16 more days until court...keep us in your prayers. January 30th is the big day.

Lisa & Dave

Come and Play!!!

Dave and a few friends built this swingset/fort for the kids in December-isn't it great? We can't wait to see the kids play on it! It's pretty neat-it has a fire pole for them to slide down and a pipe (dug underground) on both sides so they can talk to each other from both sides of the swingset!!

Thank you Tommy, Dave and Fred for helping build this-the kids will love it!!

20 Days until court....

Message from Ethiopia

We received a message today (below) from one of the adoptive parents from our agency who went to go visit Bethel Orphanage. How exciting-we can't wait until she comes home to get updated pictures and information!!! Boy do we miss our kids.... We'll be there soon!!

I was at Bethel today. I have lots of pictures to post when I get home. The kids had a blast trying on all the shoes and clothes. It was like a giant fashion show. They are all fantastic. The caregiver Mame is wonderful. If your kids are there, they are lucky. The air is clean, they have grass to play in and lots of open space. They are also all doing great in English.
Donna

24 Days until Court..but whose counting?

Yes-we are counting down the days-it felt so good to get below the 30 day mark!! January 30th is the big court day! Hopefully we will pass on the first try and travel late February! Keep us in your prayers!!

Today is the day that Christmas is celebrated in Ethiopia! Pretty neat-we got to send our kids as well as all of the other kids at Bethel Orphanage a Christmas present!! One of the families in our adoption agency was traveling to Ethiopia on 1/2/09 and she had room to take donations with her and was planning to go to Bethel. On our drive to NY for the holidays, we made a slight detour to Pennsylvania and dropped of 22 pairs of shoes and lots of shirts for her to take to the kids! Thank you Donna-we really appreciate it!! We were hoping to have our kids home for Christmas this year, but this is the next best thing! She was planning to go today to Bethel so we are anxious to hear how her visit was and of course to get new pictures of the kids!! It's amazing how content a picture and little information on your kids can make you (at least for a few days or so)! More later....

Court Date-YAY!!!

We found out today that our upper court date is January 30th!! We are so excited-can hardly believe it! On CLOUD 9!!! It was funny because we have been waiting to hear if we passed lower court and then got the news today that obviously we passed lower court and even have a date already for upper court! Communication in a third world county can be sporadic so sometimes we don't know what is going on. This is basically the final thing before we can travel. What makes it even sweeter is that Susan & Becky (other Bethel moms) have the same court date as we do. It would be so wonderful if we can all travel together since our kids have been together for a while (over 2 years) and we have all been on the adoption journey together! If we pass on Jan. 30th, then we will travel about 4 weeks later-probably the last week in February!!

Keep us in your prayers...we couldn't have asked for better news-we are truly blessed!!

Lisa & Dave

November Update!!

November has flown by and has been filled with good news for us!! About 2 weeks ago, we got word that all of the paperwork in Ethiopia is complete for Yordanos and Daniel and they were ready to file for a court date. The paperwork has been filed for about 2weeks, but we still haven't gotten a court date. Hope to hear this week. We know we have to go through lower court and then upper court and then we can travel. We are thinking February/March that we will travel to pick up the kids, but one never know until you pass court!

We also received some amazing new pictures of the kids from Heidi & Greg, who were visiting their new daughter at the same orphanage. They are growing so much-it is hard to see, but we are happy that they are healthy and doing well. Of course, we can't post them now, but as soon as we pass court, we will post some!

A few pictures I will post...my wonderful girlfriends and I decorated/decoupaged letters of the kids name for their rooms. They came out wonderful and we had so much fun doing it!!

Please keep us in your thoughts for a speedy and successful court date!!
Lisa

Top 13 for Adoptive Parents!!

Saw this on one of the Hope families blogs...thought it was cute! For those adopting-you will so relate!!

YOU KNOW YOU ARE AN ADOPTIVE PARENT WHEN...
1.The fact that there are 143 million children without a parent to kiss them goodnight has made you lose sleep.
2. You realize DNA has nothing to do with love and family.
3. You can't watch Adoption Stories on TLC without sobbing.
4. The fact that, if 7% of the population adopted 1 child there would be no orphans in the world, is convincing to you.
5. You spend free time surfing blogs about families who have experienced the blessing of adoption.
6. It drives you crazy when people ask you about your adopted child's "real" parents.
7. You had no idea how you would afford to adopt but stepped out in faith anyway, knowing where God calls you He will provide.
8. You have never taken an airplane ride half-way around the world with a child you just met.
9. You believe God's heart is for adoption.
10. You realize that welcoming a child into your heart and family is one of the most important legacies you could ever leave on this earth.
11. You know what the word "Dossier" means, and you can actually pronounce it!
12. You have welcomed a social worker into the most private parts of your life.
13. You shudder when people say your child is so lucky that you adopted them, knowing full well you are the blessed one to have him or her in your life.
-Author Unknown

October Update...

No new major news on the kids! One of our fellow Hope families who is adopting a little girl from Bethel is traveling to Ethiopia on November 1st to meet her! She was nice enough to take a package to the kids for us! Since she lives in Germany-we sent the package out last week to be sure it gets there in time! We sent both Daniel and Yordanos an album wiht updated pictures from our trip in July! It was so neat to make an album for both of them with all pictures of the four of us! Also sent a few other things-doll, pencils, books-lots of fun stuff! We can't wait to get some updated pictures and information from her visit! Hopefully we'll have some good paperwork/court news by then too!

Ona sad note, one of our Hope families who recenbtly brought their 2 boys home from Ethiopia suffered a major tragedy this past weekend. Their youngest son Samuel is very critically injured. We met them while we were in Ethiopia in July.
This is from their blog:
Samuel was injured today in an accident involving the tractor. He was airlifted from the park behind our house to Children’s Hospital in Milwaukee. We need prayers.
Currently he is still in surgery and will need many, many more. He has lost one leg below-the-knee and the other they are trying to save to the ankle. One arm is broken near the shoulder but the elbow is more critical - open fractures with tissue damage/missing.
His pelvis is also fractured on one side. His buttocks and back are injured and he needs a colostomy. If he continues to do well in surgery tonight that will be performed now.
His vitals are good. He was awake up until surgery where we were able to kiss him.They have set up a website where you can stay updated if you would like:http://www.caringbridge.org/visit/samuelphillipson
Please join us in praying for this family and for Samuel. Samuel's picture is above.

Adopting Older kids...this is precious!

This poem was posted on my yahoo adoption group! It was written for one of our members about 10 years ago when she was adopting her older boy. It is really precious as we think of our kids, Danny and Yordanos who are now 6 and 8!


The Waiting Child
By Debbie Bodie
I saw you meet your child today You kissed your baby joyfully
And as you walked away with her I pretended that you'd chosen me
I'm happy for the baby, yet Inside I'm aching miserably
I want to plead as you go by Does no one want a child of three?
I saw you meet your child today In love with her before you met
And as I watched you take her out I knew it wasn't my turn yet
I recognize you from last year I knew I'd seen your face before
But you came for a second babe Does no one want a child of four?
I saw you meet your child today But this time it was something new
A nurse came in and took MY hand And then she gave my hand to you
Can this be true? I'm almost six And there are infants here, you see
But then you kissed me and I knew
The child you picked this time was me!

Still Waiting...

We received word this week that we probably won't have the kids home for the holidays. They have to first go through lower court (because they don't live in Addis) and then upper court. Lower court takes about 6 weeks and then they will apply for an upper court date and this will really just be a formality. They are predicting January-March the latest. So...we wait!

So...we are occupying our time with some new things while we wait! We just bought an Amharic 101-104 DVD that will teach us the kids langauge! This should be fun and will help us a great deal with communication when they come home! Also, we are finishing the touches on Danny (have to get used to calling him this-they call hime Danny in Ethiopia) and Yordanos' rooms. We just bought some letters (for their names) to hang on their walls. We are going to decorate them! My friend Jodie (master of everything) decoupaged one of the letters and it came out awesome! We are planning a girls day to decorate the letters-should be a blast! In October we are going to Dave's sister/husband, Cindy and Jim's place in Texas-we are looking forward to it!

The waiting is hard, but at least we know there is an end soon and the kids are well cared for in the meantime. Above is a picture of their school room at their orphanage. They attend school daily and are learning English, Amharic and Math! I was amazed at how much English Yordanos' already knew and could write!