Contentment in the chaos

Pictures and Praises

2010-01-26T16:54:00.012-05:00

There are so many good things that happen in a day. I hate to just focus this blog only on the negative. So here are some pictures of our children and a little description of each of them. We have certainly been blessed!!

This is Se. Who is now 16 and in 11th grade. She is lovely, very creative and seriously into horses, photography, knitting and spinning. In a few weeks she will be joining her Dad on a short term missions trip to Ethiopia where she will be staying in an "at risk" home for street girls. There she will be teaching them how to spin wool into yarn so that they can earn a living from the resources around them. The girls in the home already know how to knit and they make and sell scarfs. We are hoping that by taking them a spinning wheel and teaching them to spin, they can cut out the middle man and make more of a profit. The homes are run by an amazing retired missionary couple. We were blessed to have them spend a few days in our home in November. While here we learned so much about what street life is like for teen girls in Ethiopia and Se was really convicted that she should go and help. We know this is a HUGE leap outside of her comfort zone. She has travel to South Korea when we adopted L but this is a third world country and she will be totally immersed in the culture. We are hoping and praying that this will be a huge growing experience for her.

This is M who is 14 and in the 7th grade. She is very organized and loves to keep things neat and clean. She loves school and quickly masters new concepts. She is very social and loves being with her friends...What more can I say? She is beautiful, generous, affectionate and intelligent but as I've posted, only when she feels like it. She has certainly had her ups and downs in the last year but we hope as time goes by she will stay on the up side and desire a connection with us.

This is our resident comedian, Sj. He is 12 and in the 6th grade. Sj struggles with dyslexia. He has come a long way with his reading this year and we are so proud of the effort he has put into it. He has always been a curious boy, taking everything apart so that he can see how it works. Thankfully he can can now put together most of what he takes apart. He definitely has his Dad's mechanical abilities. His current passions are Legos and Tae Kwon Do. His crazy sense of humor keeps us in stitches.

This is A, She is 11 and in 5th grade. Our wild child! When you first meet her she is shy, but once she warms up, watch out! She is hilariously funny and some of the things she comes out with keeps us rolling in laughter. It has been such a joy to watch her grow and blossom in the love of a family. She is one of those kids who can accomplish anything she puts her mind to. She tackles things riding a two wheeled bicycle and ice skating with vigor and quickly mastered them. She has an ear for music and language. English is her 3rd language and she can switch back and forth between all three with ease. Nothing seems impossible for her. The most impressive thing about A however is her heart. She has an amazing compassion for the poor and hurting. Her desire is to be a Doctor someday so that she can help people.

This is M, He is 8 and in 2nd grade. He has come so far in the last year and we are so proud of him. He still struggles with self control and getting frustrated easily but is maturing into a nice young man. He loves to play chess and has taught most of his siblings how to play too. He has a HUGE heart and wants to be a missionary someday.

This is our L, She is 6 and in the 1st grade. The word mischievous only begins to describe her. No one can begin to predict what she will do next. When she isn't trying to slide down the laundry schute or get away with some equally crazy scheme, she can be found outside picking wild flowers or playing with the barn animals. She currently loves anything to do with the ocean, if we can find a way to harness her energy for good instead of evil, she may become a famous marine biologist someday.

This is B, he is almost 5 and our little cowboy. He even sleeps with his boots on sometimes! He has an obsession with anything Toy Story. He is our deep thinker and comes up with some pretty funny stories. At least once a week he tells us that we need a new baby in the house because K isn't much of a baby anymore. He is all boy but still Mommy's cuddle bug. He has one volume and that is LOUD!

This is Little M, She is 4. She has done beautifully here since day one and is always happy. She is our little score keeper making sure everything is even. When she first came home, if someone gave her a piece of candy she would try to bite it into 9 equal pieces so that each of her brothers and sisters could have some. She is an amazingly compassionate little girl, always the first one on the scene to rub a back and give kisses when someone is sick or hurt. She is a real sweetheart, but her mothering has the tendency to drive her brothers and sisters crazy.

Last but not least, this is our little miracle K. She is 2 and cute as a button with her bouncing red curls. She is quite the talker and can hold her own amongst the bigger kids. She has a great sense of humor and keeps us on our toes. She loves her baby dolls and can always be seen walking around with one in the crook of her arm in what we call "the head lock hold".

One step forward 5 steps back

2010-01-26T16:29:00.002-05:00

Well, I guess I spoke too soon. Since I posted last, things have been horrible here. I know this behavior is subconscious to M but we can clearly see how after she opened up she sabotaged herself by being miserable and nasty again. It's the old I'm going to reject them before they can reject me. We are so weary of the constant changes in moods from one hour to the next. I know being moody is all part of being a teen but holy moly this is exhausting!! The worse part for us is how M's hurtful comments hit their mark with the other children and how she tries to manipulate her Ethiopian siblings and turn them against us. The difference in her moods are like night and day. When she is in a good mood, she is the most loving, kind and giving person you could ever meet. She just radiates happiness and is beautiful. When she is in one of her bad moods, even her appearance is different. She is rude, demanding, mean and miserable. We can never predict what will set her off and how she will respond... We have seen these bad times get farther and farther apart and the good times last longer over the last month or two but the depth of her anger during these bad times really shakes us all to the core and affects our entire family. I pray every day that God will give us compassion towards her and help us to reach her and to show her how much we love her.
We have tried to find a consular but we haven't had any luck finding one we feel comfortable with and who has any kind of adoption or attachment training. It's all very frustrating.

Sibling conflict and a praise

2010-01-24T09:24:00.009-05:00

Sadly, our two oldest girls barely acknowledge each others existence. From the moment M (14) entered our house she has been intensely jealous of Se (16). No adoption books that I have read prepared me for the kind of sibling conflict that can arise in adopting an older child. I realised that it would take time to develop relationships but I never dreamed we would be almost at the one year point and still struggling. All of our other children are aware of the tension between the girls, in fact the other day, A (11) came to me and asked why they never speak to each other. It grieves me to no end that two of my children can't even tolerate being in the same room with each other.
I've come to the conclusion however, after countless hours of talking to both girls about this, that there is nothing we as parents can say or do to make them like each other. Only God can change their hearts. In many ways I understand Se's reluctance to trust M. Every time she has tried, M will be nice for a day or two and then turn on her. Se hasn't been perfectly innocent in all of this, she has made mistakes too, but I would say that 95% of the problem has stemmed from M and her jealousy.

I do have a praise I want to share...
The other day, M sat down beside me on the couch and talked for over an hour. She shared every detail she could remember about waiting for us in the orphanage, meeting us and her first few days home. She told me how much she had wanted to meet Se and how nice Se was to her. (I was shocked by this and excited that she remembered) Then she told me about children in the orphanage who waited for months for their adoptive families to arrive only to have them get there, see the child and change their minds. I'm sure there was a lot more behind those instances than what M told me but to a her, it boiled down to another rejection. She shared with me that she was afraid we would get to Ethiopia and then decide we wanted a different child too. Then her eyes filled with tears and she said "I'm so sorry for the way I treated you Mommy. I love you!" and she gave me a big hug. I was SHOCKED!! M has never once apologized to me for ANYTHING! I know she really had to humble herself to be able to do that. I was happy that she apologized, but even more so that she finally opened up to me. She has shared lots of stories with me about her life in the orphanage and before, but never any of her feelings or fears. I Know these fears can be paralyzing and I continue to pray that over time she will open up more and more. Meanwhile I am praising God that M has gotten to the point where she can admit she has been wrong and sincerely apologize!
The next day M came to me and said "Mommy, I never say thank you. thank you for doing school with me, thank you for cooking good food, thank you for my clothes and stuff. I love you." Another shock! I am hoping that this is part of that magical "one year home" mark that everyone talks about!

Surviving an older child adoption

2009-12-30T11:26:00.002-05:00

It's been months since I've posted on my blog. I'm not sure if anyone still reads it but I wanted to give an update and talk more about adopting an older child. I also find it helpful to myself to come back and read where we have been so I can gauge just how far we've come. I've been silent for months now because things have been really overwhelming here and once again, I didn't feel I had any thing productive or nice to say. I have since decided that even if what I say isn't nice, some of it needs to be said just to get it off my chest and those of you considering this path need to hear it so you can be prepared. As older child adoptions go, ours has been difficult but not as bad as some of the horror stories I've heard. A (11) and M(4) have done absolutely wonderfully and have not had any issues what so ever. I think a large part of that has to do with their personalities and the amount of resiliency they have.

M (14) on the other hand did well at first but once the reality of the permanency of her situation sunk in, her behavior has continued to decline. I have hesitated writing about all of this, partly because I do not want to embarrass M... but I am to the point where I believe that there may be someone out there who needs to hear it. Maybe it will strike a chord with someone... maybe it's you and you are going though the same thing... maybe you are considering adopting an older child and this will help you to know what to expect. I know that God has us go through things for a reason and many times it's so we can share our testimony and help someone else. My heart is totally sold out on adoption and my intention is not to scare anyone away from it.
I am going to be painfully honest here in hopes that what we have experienced will in someway help someone else.

We basically had 4 months of hell with M. Jealously, stealing, lying, cheating, anger, manipulation, you name it, some or all of it was all a daily occurrence. She was so hateful and rude to me, it got to the point where I didn't even want to wake up in the morning and face another day knowing it would be more of the same. I reached the point where I was so beaten down that I honestly didn't care if she left our house and we never saw her again. I felt blank inside. My dear husband was so stressed out trying to meet the needs of M, Se and myself that he could hardly sleep at night. We felt like emotional hostages in our own home. The manipulation abilities of this child are really unbelievable, J and I both had to be on guard every minute of the day. At one point we actually listed her behaviors on paper to help us to see all the little games she was playing. We had to work really hard at not letting her come between us as a couple and to remain connected to each other. Thank God for my Mom who watched the kids so we could have a couple of date nights, where we could talk openly and with out interruption. We tried to find a counselor in our area but failed. It felt hopeless to me, but I'm so gald we persevered.

As we read books on attachment, things started to make more sense and we started being able to see things differently. We got so we could see the bad behaviors cycling and we could predict what she would try to pull next. Journaling all of this was essential to my sanity and my ability to take it all in a less personal way. I found that many attachment books have the same thing in common, and that is encouraging the parents to detach themselves and not react. The experts say that a child who is hurting will try to hurt others in order to make themselves feel better. In the book When love is not enough by Nancy L Thomas, she talks about this and how we as parents view these unacceptable behaviors. If we view them as a threat, an attack on us personally, our other children, our home or our possessions, we come to think of the child as our enemy. If we respond in anger, the child feeds off from that and is therefore getting there need to hurt others met (I know that seems sick but it's really a subconscious thing). If on the other hand, if we view the child's behaviors as a warning sign (like "danger") we can strive to maintain a proper sense of perspective. If we can see them as waving warning flags that say "help me!, help me!" we can look at them with compassion instead of anger and that can enable us to react in a way that will make a positive influence on their life instead of adding to the negative.
I honestly have to admit that I viewed M as a threat and an enemy. I felt justified in my anger towards her because I had done absolutely nothing to deserve the way she treated me. I could not tolerate the way she would manipulate the younger children, telling them not to talk to me and Se (16) and not to love us anymore. My mother bear came out every time that happened!! I was so drained and depleted, the only way I survived all of this was to cry out to God on a daily basis and beg him to fill me and give me the grace to get through one more day.

Over and over again, God would bring me to Romans 12: 9-21 these are the words that spoke to me... "love must be sincere" , "honor one another above yourself", "bless those who persecute you", "be patient in affliction", "do not repay evil for evil" and most of all "heap burning coals". In the foot notes of my bible it says that "forgiveness breaks the cycle , even if the other person never repents, forgiving the person who has offended you will free you of a heavy load of bitterness." M has never once apologized to me for anything, not for lying, stealing , cheating, treating me like dirt... forgiving her even when she is not showing any repentance has been an extremely difficult thing for me to do. Maybe that's pride on my part, I don't know, but God has been doing an amazing work in my life.

The healing of my heart has been slow and over time as I am learning to forgive and look at her as a hurting child instead of an enemy. One thing that really helped me was to sing (and trust me, I am not a good singer !), Micheal W. Smith's song Mighty to Save spoke volumes to me. I started singing it out loud every time I could feel the tension and anger building inside of me.
It's funny how that worked, because then M would start singing it out loud too and it wasn't long before she had it memorized and it became her favorite song.
I started to think of ways to "heap burning coals" on M as a game. No matter how nasty she was to me or how she tried to insult me, I would try to smile and reply with "thank you!". After awhile I noticed she was using this same tactic with her siblings as they teased her or irritated her.
J and I had to start getting really creative with our discipline and tried to instill reality type of tactics with her. We recently made a list of desired behaviors (for all of our kids) and the consequences for breaking our house rules. This has taken a huge load off from me and has helped me to respond in a way that is fair to everyone and to do it in a way that is calm and not out of the frustration of the moment. We have been trying to bring scripture into every disciplinary discussion so that we can show M that we aren't just being hard on her or picking on her but that God has clearly written these things in His word as a way to guide us so that we may become "blameless and pure children of God". Slowly but surely, all of these things are working.
M still will not open up to us about her relationship with her birth mother or her life before the orphanage. But we pray that in time, she would come to look at us as Mom and Dad and she will trust us enough to open up to us. Meanwhile, consistency is the key and it's exhausting.

Things are much better than they were but no where near perfect. Christmas was actually quite difficult. We just had to keep reminding ourselves that her behavior towards us was just a reflection of the pain she felt inside and it wasn't a personal assault on us. We pray that next Christmas will be better and that the year 2010 will bring healing for all if us.

For those of you who read this and pray for our family, Thank you, seems like such a small thing to say...Your prayers really mean the world to us!!

Beth ~

Ethiopia

2009-08-20T05:40:00.002-04:00

My husband is in Ethiopia this week. He is there on a planning trip to set up a missions trip for February. If you would like to read about his travels, please check out his blog www.marchingoutministries.blogspot.com

On the home front, things have been extremely difficult with M (13). It's been a long week with out Dad and Mom is feeling totally exhausted. Please continue to pray for our family and for M's adjustment. I really expected this kind of stuff right off the bat, I never dreamed it would come at the 6th month home mark. I don't know if it's because she is comfortable enough with us now to let it all out or because she has finally realized the permanency of this situation, what ever the case, she one angry kid and it's all directed at me and our oldest daughter Se (16).

I keep praying that this too shall pass...

Beth ~

A family picture and some recent thoughts

2009-07-30T23:48:00.003-04:00

Yes, in case you were wondering, we are still alive and kickin! We are at the 6 month home mark with the girls. The last month has probably been the hardest, adjustment wise. It’s been one of those months where I figured if I couldn’t say something nice, I shouldn't say anything at all, so I have remained silent. M (13) is still struggling to find her place. When I can remove myself from her grumpiness long enough, I can totally understand her behavior and why she acts the way she does but often times I find it hard to stop taking it personally long enough to think about the psychology of things. The majority of our issues revolve around fairness and her perception of how each person is being treated and how many things each person has. She has kept a running tally from the moment she came into our house of everything that has been said done or purchased for each child and has equated our love by this. She can’t seem to understand that we are a single income family feeding and clothing 11 people on a very limited budget. We have tried to convey to her that we can only buy things we need, not everything we want and that “things” are not the most important part of life. What matters is that she has a family that loves her and accepts her unconditionally. It’s hard for us to comprehend how a child can go from 0-60 on the material scale and still be found wanting everything in sight, but this is after all America we live in and I guess it’s no wonder. There is also still ongoing conflict between Se( 16) and M. The battle for top dog wages on. M gives the term sibling rivalry whole new meaning. It may be hard to believe we would have any trouble with her by seeing her picture above (she is in the front row), because when she is happy, she is radiant. But like any other teenager, she has mood swings, unfortunately hers are compounded by the fact that she is finding her way in a new family and new country with a new language.

I don’t mean to sound negative or down on M, we love her dearly... but she is a wounded child and it can take months or even years to build a trusting relationship. I know things could be way worse than what they are I hesitated mentioning any of this on a public blog because someday I want to be able to share this with the girls and I don’t want to embarrass them in any way. On the other hand, perspective adoptive parents of older kids should know that this is hard work. It isn’t all roses and sunshine every day. Each day I wake up with a prayer on my lips, giving our children to God and seeking His wisdom and direction. More days than not, I end the day feeling like total failure. I long for a peaceful household, maybe that is a crazy dream for a mom of 9 children. Hopefully I will be able to look back on all of this a year from now and barely remember the growing pains that we are going through. I know spiritually speaking, for me, growth always brings a measure of pain. Well, maybe not the growth as much as the pruning that God does before he allows growth. I just keep trying to remind myself that the fruit of all this will be well worth the pain and I pray that it will be for M as well.

Over the last several years, I have been gravely convicted that although we long to have children and we personally have gone through many trials to have them, it often isn’t long before we find ourselves getting frustrated with them. I have witnessed moms, who I know for a fact love their children, talk about them and refer to them as if they were a burden. It’s heartbreaking that once children start to interfere with our agendas and our ambitions, they somehow lose value.

I read a book recently that really impressed this on me even more and has brought about a paradigm shift in my thinking. A paradigm shift is a change from one way of thinking to another, a revolution, a transformation… a metamorphosis. I think the majority of us do not give our children the dignity and respect they deserve. The book was Too Small to Ignore by Dr. Wess Stafford, the President of Compassion international. I found it to be an excellent and convicting read. Dr Stafford shares a lot of compelling stories that relate his childhood growing up in Africa as a missionary kid to how children are raised here in America today. He really hits the nail on the head when speaking of the value of children and our future, if we don’t wake up soon and make some changes. He talks about how when a child is born, all heaven rejoices and breaks into shouts of praise. He describes each child as being “born into the world loved and full of potential to bring joy to the heart of God. A little flame flickers deep within the child’s being it reflects a dignity and worth made in the image of a God almighty. Meanwhile Satan and his evil hosts stand ready to pounce and destroy that life as quickly and completely as possible, knowing how that will break the heart of God.”

I was so taken back by this; I guess I never took seriously the spiritual battle that rages over our children. I read that and had to think, how many times today did I become irritated and angry by the children’s interruptions in my agenda? How many times did I convey to them their worth? How many times did I remind them that they were created in the image of God? It makes me think of that little song, this little light of mine, I’m going to let it shine. Are we letting our children shine? Or are we letting Satan puff them out?
In the book, Dr Stafford describes the abuse he endured as a child in the hand of the staff at a mission school. It really had me thinking and wondering…How do these wounded children survive the attack of Satan and grow up to be healthy, productive adults who break the cycle of abuse and pain. I think of this when I look at M, we don’t really know all that she has endured, but she has obviously felt rejection and pain. She has a heart that has been wounded and she is grieving the loss of all that she has ever known. When I look at the stages of grief: shock, denial, anger, depression and acceptance, I recognize her going through these stages. I look back at the pictures of when we first got home and I can see that look of shock and fear on her face. I can pinpoint times when she has seemed to be in denial and right now I honestly think she is in the anger phase. I even told her the other day that she never seems happy lately unless she is provoking someone to fight with her. I get frustrated by my own angry, self preserving, defensive reaction to this and I feel truly humbled that God would give a sinner such as me such a huge responsibility. I can only pray that he will continue to give J and I both the strength and wisdom we need to see us through the next two phases with M.
I recently also read a book called Reckless Faith by Beth Gukenburger who is a missionary with her husband in Mexico ministering to orphans. (Also an excellent read!) I really think she was right on when talking about how children who are deeply wounded overcome the pain of their pasts and move into that acceptance phase of grief. She brings out how in Joel (1:4) it talks about the locusts “After the cutting locusts finished eating the crops, the swarming locusts took what was left! After them came the hopping locusts, and then the stripping locusts, too!”
she tells how she sat down with their twin daughters who they adopted at 15 yrs old and shared with them that the locusts of their lives were things like abuse, neglect and lies but the book of Joel goes on to say in 2:13 “ Don't tear your clothing in your grief; instead, tear your hearts." Return to the LORD your God, for he is gracious and merciful. He is not easily angered. He is filled with kindness and is eager not to punish you.” The key is returning to God. When I read that, I thought boy do I fall short of measuring up to God ‘He is not easily angered. He is filled with kindness and is eager not to punish you.’ I’m not saying I’m eager to punish her but I sure struggle with being quick to anger!
She goes on to say the “locust repellent” for these wounded kids are phrases like: “You are valuable, you are special, you have a destiny, you count, you are gifted, you were created for a purpose and God has a plan for your life.”
As we convey these truths to M, we pray that she will begin to believe them and that she will not only move past this anger phase of grief but wiz through the depression phase and settle into the acceptance phase filled with the knowledge that she is special, and that we really do love her (even if we can’t buy her everything she wants) and most of all- that God does have a plan in all of this. He doesn’t make mistakes, His plans are perfect.
If you are reading this, please continue to pray for our family. We really appreciate every prayer that goes up on our behalf!!

More pictures..

2009-06-11T14:45:00.009-04:00

Just some more pictures of flowers and hairstyles.

M (13)

M and K (almost 2)- M loves K so much, she is such a huge help to me!!

A (10) with her dolls.

M (3) She is such a cutie pie! The flash makes her look really bald between her braids, it really doesn't look that way in person.

L (almost 6) with M

This is of all the kids (except Se 16 and Sj 11 who were at a friends house) sitting at our breakfast nook table. J built this custom table and benches to fit into this nook. The table it's self was made from a piece of oak plywood so it's 8 feet long and 4 feet wide. It's hard to reach across to wash, but a prefect fit for our large family.

And.. last but not least, this is M (7) looking handsome in his first pair of glasses.

Hair, hair and more hair...

2009-06-06T10:19:00.013-04:00

As you can tell by looking at our photos, we have good hair days and BAD ones! I am a hair dresser by profession but had never really worked with black hair, so the girls have been my guinea pigs. It took a while to get the hang of braiding but now I think I can do it pretty good and I am enjoying experimenting with lots of different styles. M(13) and A (10) can both braid beautifully and Se (16) has also learned to braid well. We joke about opening a salon just for braiding.

Every Saturday afternoon the girls wash their hair and I braid it. A few months ago we relaxed M (13) and A (10) hair so now M likes to wear her hair down a lot. It looks good for the first day but then every day after that I am after her to do something with her hair, otherwise it's standing straight up 4 inches off the top of her head and she looks like she stuck her finger in a light socket. We usually braid M(3) hair on Sunday morning because her hair is short and doesn't stay in well while she is sleeping. The older girls hair will stay looking nice for the whole week (especially if they wrap it in a silk head scarf) but M(3) usually gets several styles a week. She is very good about sitting still and always looks as cute as a button!

Here are some pictures of their latest looks (or should I say locks).

M (3)

This one was done by Se.

M (3) and A (10)

More of A

M (13) looking cool in her shades.

We took before and after pictures of a lock of M and A's hair when we relaxed it. I had never used a relaxer before and was very nervous about doing it. I didn't want them to have straight hair, I just wanted it easier to manage. We used a kit from Walmart and I was very pleased with the results.

M (13) before...

And After...

This is right after it was done, it looks like some pieces are straight but they curled up after it dried giving her a much looser look with more defined curls than before it was relaxed.

A's hair is extreemly curly as you can see by the picture. It's nice to be able to get a brush through it and it makes braiding so much easier!

A before...
A after...

This is A with her hair down and only the top braided.

Pictures of spring

2009-06-05T19:54:00.007-04:00

Just thought I would share with you what spring looks like here on the farm. As you can see by these pictures of flowers and spring garden plants, Se (16) is quite the photographer.

She also took all of the animal pictures. We have lots of baby animals right now including piglets, lambs and chicks. Thankfully, our Ethiopian girls have gotten over their fear of animals and they are enjoying life in the country.

Se's baby, Rascal Flatts

Three little girls picking corn off a cob so that they can feed the piglets.

This is the little guy who A (10) named Pistachio.

This is Se's favorite bunny named Moochie.

This is Wesley the lamb.

B (age 4) our little farm boy.

M (3) and K (almost 2)- best buddies.The other day J and Sj (11) gave the girls their first ride in a canoe on our pond. M (13) was scared half to death (you can tell by her posture), but once she got in, she enjoyed it. She has no desire to ever go swimming in the pond once she saw how huge the fish are. She is deathly afraid that they will bite her. For now, we are glad the girls have a healthy fear of the pond.

This was A's (10) canoe ride. Out of the two older girls, She tends to be the brave one, but getting in the boat was a stretch for her.
Here is a picture of A with her first big catch (a catfish). She was excited that she caught it but thoroughly disgusted by being that close to a fish. She was relieved when it got thrown back in the pond and the threat of eating it for dinner was gone!

Easter pictures

2009-06-04T23:24:00.006-04:00

I haven't posted any pictures in the last month because we have been having problems with my camera and this computer but now we have it figured out so here are a bunch of Pictures from Easter.

These are of the kids coloring Easter eggs. This was an entirely new concept for the girls but they caught on quickly.This is a picture was taken on Easter morning. It was freezing cold outside but Daddy had them all run outside so he could take a picture. The results were pretty funny!

Month four funnies

2009-06-03T23:00:00.003-04:00

We have been home with the girls for almost four months now. We are amazed at how many things they have learned and by how many things they still need to learn. Grasping things that are abstract is very difficult for them. For example, phrases we use flippantly like "it's pouring cats and dogs" really throw them for a loop. Animation is another thing that they just can't seem to grasp. We have spent countless hours talking about whether a character in a movie is real, animated or digitally enhanced. We have shown them video clips on how animated movies are made but they still can't comprehend it, it's just too abstract. When we first came home, we tried to introduce them to movies gently, we showed them movies like babe and homeward bound. Looking back on this, we probably terrified the poor children!

Speaking of being terrified, the other night A (10) walked into the bathroom just in time to witness Se taking out her contacts. The poor child ran out into the loft and fell to the floor screaming. It took a good 20 minutes to assure her that Se wasn't actually ripping part of her eye out. We run into things like this almost daily. Explaining things like water having depths over their heads and the breadth and depth of the ocean is almost more than they can comprehend. We can't wait to take them to the ocean someday!
Sometimes I get sad when I think of all the things we have missed with them but then I am reminded of all the "firsts" we have experienced in the last four months. The girls are amazingly resilient. They have come half way across the world to live in a strange land with STRANGE people and they have done it with out question or fear. They are three of the bravest people we know!

I have tried very hard while writing this blog not to embarrass the girls in any way because someday they might want to read this but this was just too funny!
M 13 is so incredibly innocent for a child her age. We have had to have a couple of talks about where babies come from and things of that nature... Well the other night she asked if boy and girl animals got together the same way people do to make a baby and when we explained to her that they did, she literally fell on the floor laughing. How refreshing innocence is in this day and age!

The girls language acquisition has come along tremendously but now we hear our homemade 4 year old saying things like "me want more- this one" and "watzzzz diz?" Tonight at the dinner table A (10) was entertaining us, as usual and she was trying to see if M(3) could remember walitania, the language that was spoken at the orphanage. After a few minutes of speaking it and watching M's blank stare she blurts out " oh no, I think we've lost her!" We all died laughing!
(opps, "died laughing" is another one of those phrases we can't say!)

The farm animals continue to be another source of entertainment, we now have chickens named Wafflie, Pancake and Syrup, and pigs named Pistachio and Captain Jack Sparrow (no, we did not let them watch pirates of the Caribbean!). Oh, and I can't forget Wesley and Buttercup the sheep.

Life is never boring!

Kirby- by J

2009-05-29T23:24:00.002-04:00

Now what or who is Kirby?
Well surely you have had that knock on the door, only to find that desperate sales person trying to sell you a Kirby Vacuum. Well if you haven’t, you don’t know what you’re missing. This episode took place last Saturday, while Beth was out doing the garage sale thing. I was just walking out the door to play softball with all the kids when this woman met me at the door. I told her our house was less than 6 years old, only has 1 rug, and has an Electrolux Central Vac., and by no means was I going to buy a Kirby. She continued to explain that she was breaking in a new sales person who was trying to win a spot for a vacation at Lake George, and really needed to demonstrate the vacuum to as many people as she could this week end to qualify. I had been put in a tough spot; to play ball with the kids or sit through a sucky presentation (get it vacuum, sucky?) about a Kirby vacuum. Well no contest, ball was certainly what I wanted and the kids too, but as I thought of what Christ might do and to just let her vacuum our only rug in the house to help her out, well… what the heck. So I gathered all the kids into the living room for our free rug vacuuming. I thought that I had made it very clear that we really just wanted to get this over with quickly and go play ball, but I guess when you are in training, you have to go through all the 850,000+ steps on how great a Kirby is. All of the children found this very interesting for maybe the first ½ hour, but after that they came to me one at a time quietly asking me if we could go play ball.
To make this wonderful experience memorable, I must tell you that all the kids were fighting over who would run the Kirby, and show just how dirty our rug was. Our new daughters all took place vacuuming as well as she changed from one filter and attachment to the next. As we entered the second hour, I was hoping that all the children realized just how important school, learning a trade and college really are, as I hoped they would never want to do this for a living.
As the 1 ½ hour mark approached, the lead sales person returned and asked me what I thought of this wonderful vacuum. At that point I really wanted to take a nap as (M 13) was doing in the chair across from me, but I told her it was very impressive in which she asked me if it was only $500.00 today would I buy it. (I thought to myself that this woman had either fried her brain with all the cigarettes she and her co-workers smoked, or she has spent too much time next to this wonderful sucking machine and had lost some of her grey matter through the filters.) Anyway I think she was shocked when I told her if it was only $100.00, I wouldn’t but it today. (I thought I made this all this perfectly clear, as those of you who know me know I usually tell it the way it is, plain and clear.) Then get this, she asked me why not? WHAT??? I’ve got 9 kids for goodness sakes in an almost brand new house with a central vac., HELLO!!!! The economy, the price of food and gas??? Oh well, enough said, 20 more minutes to pack all that Kirby stuff up, and leave. What an educational thing for all of us, and she was gone before Beth came home to be humiliated from the dirty Kirby filters left behind. (Se 16) and I had a good laugh though, as after the women left, I took out our Electrolux and revacuumed the rug with (Se) listening to the hose to hear all the dirt being sucked with our already paid for vacuum – Thank You!
But what makes this whole story really great is 3 days later as when we were trying to explain to our new daughters that a social worker was coming to the house for a post placement visit. As we watched their faces trying to understand what we were saying, (M 13) interrupts and asks…
“Bring Vacuum?”
So from here on out, if your coming to visit, you’d better bring your vacuum!
J~

Update

2009-05-21T10:03:00.002-04:00

No, we have not fallen off the face of the earth!! Once the weather broke, we have been so busy doing outside stuff, we have hardly had time to be online. A lot has happened in the last month.. M(13) ended up getting another terrible eye infection. Not only did her eye swell shut, she had large painful abscesses all over her torso. At one point, she was so sick we were sure she would have to be hospitalized but thankfully she was allowed to remain at home. Because this has happened three times in the last three months, the Dr thought it might be MRSA (the drug resistant staff infection) but after several cultures they were able to rule that out and determine that it was just a severe staff infection. She has just finished a month long round of antibiotics so hopefully that has kicked this thing once and for all. I have to say that although all this sickness has been terrible for M to go through, it has allowed us to get close to her. Bonding with a 13 yr old is so much harder than bonding with a three yr old. Through all this M has allowed us to comfort her and love on her in ways that she probably wouldn't have if she hadn't been sick.
Of the three girls, her adjustment has the hardest by far. We know the things we have gone through are mild compared to stories we've heard from other adoptive parents, but difficult for us non the less. I personally can't imagine going through all the changes she has had and then to add puberty on top, it's really no wonder that things have been a bit rocky at times.
I had other adoptive families tell me that the hardest period of adjustment was between the 3-6 month home mark and I would have to agree. I think the first few months home, everyone was on their best behavior. Now it's all out there! All of our children are trying to find where they fit into the pecking order. M has gone from being the oldest in her Ethiopian family, to being the second oldest in our family and that has been a hard pill for her to swallow. Our days seem filled with petty bickering. Putting out all the little fires that spring up between the children just drains me. J and I have had to become very creative in our discipline because we don't want to only see obedience, we want to see a change of heart. The other day I sent the children outside to rake the freshly cut grass and put in on the garden. I was inside the house making them lunch and the sounds I could hear floating on the breeze through my open window were not the sounds of the birds singing...but the sounds of 9 children bickering, whining, crying and the constant hum of "I'm going to tell mom!" My heart sank...Somedays I just long for peace.... I prayed and asked God for wisdom on how to handle this and this is what came to me. I set the table and on each child's plate placed a dry crust of bread (fortunately I had a whole loaf of crusts because I was saving them for a breakfast casserole) In the center of the table I placed a steaming pot of homemade chicken and rice soup, a basket of fresh baked biscuits and a jar of homemade strawberry jam. As the children came into the house I could hear "yum!" "What smells so good" etc...I asked the kids to wait in the family room until lunch was ready. J came home just then, so I quickly pulled him aside and filled him in on the plan. He was immediately on board and thankfully took over. We had the kids come to the table and as they sat down we heard "what's this, I don't like the crust!!" " I want a biscuit!" "can I have jelly on mine?"
Once J got their attention, he told them that they could go ahead and eat their crust while he shared with them the verses God gave me. Proverbs 17:1 Better a dry crust of bread with peace and quiet than a house full of feasting with strife and Philippians 2:14 Do everything with out complaining or arguing so that you may become blameless and pure children of God.
J talked to them about our expectations and they were totally silent as they ate their crust. When he was finished and we were sure that each of them understood what we were trying to say, we let them eat the soup and biscuits. Things have been better since then, when ever I hear the beginning of complaining or bickering, I offer a crust and for some reason it stops immediately. ;-)

Please continue to remember us in prayer. I think many times people pray for adoptive families as they are going through all the excitement of travel but once the children are home for several months, it is assumed that all is well and the family is forgotten. Now is when we need your prayers the most!!! We are in the throws of adjustment and parenting 9 children it is both emotionally and physically exhausting. We know we are doing the job God has called us to do but it can be very discouraging at times. We would love your prayers. Thank you!!

Adventures in Ethiopian cooking

2009-04-10T14:20:00.004-04:00

Last weekend, I decided to give the girls a treat and try my hand at cooking an Ethiopian meal.

Ethiopian cuisine characteristically consists of spicy vegetable and meat dishes, usually in the form of wat (or wot), a thick stew, served atop injera, a large sourdough flatbread, which is about 50 centimeters (20 inches) in diameter and made out of fermented teff flour. Ethiopians eat with their right hands, using pieces of injera to pick up bites of entrées and side dishes. No utensils are used.

I was able to purchase some teff flour at a local health food store. It is a very fine grey colored flour made from the teff grain which is grown only in the mountains of Ethiopia.

I was given a recipe for making injera by one of the Ethiopian case workers at CWA. She was so sweet to share her recipes with me, although I'm sure I didn't cook things the way they were suppose to be done. I went into cooking this nervous and filled with anxiety. I really wanted to do it well for the girls sake and make something not only editable but that they would enjoy. the recipe called for mixing the teff with a little water and yeast and fermenting it until it grew white mold... Well, I couldn't bring myself to go that far with it, so I let it ferment for about 2 days. Then I mixed about a cup of this 'starter' with some corn flour and water. The result was this living breathing bowl of grey goo. I didn't tell the girls what I was doing but when they walked into the kitchen the second day and saw the bubbling bowl of goo, they got all excited and they knew it was going to be injera.

I have to admit, to me it smelled pretty bad but they kept putting their faces over the bowl, inhaling and sighing. I'm sure to them it smelled all yummy and familiar.

While the injera sat bubbling and fermenting on the counter, I made what is know is Niter kibbeh or clarified butter. Many Ethiopian recipes call for a few tablespoons of niter kibbeh, but since none of the girls will touch butter or anything made with butter, I decided to make it using 1/2 olive oil and 1/2 canola oil. The recipe calls for butter (oil) onion, garlic, ginger root, cardamom, cinnamon sticks, whole cloves, fenugreek and turmeric. Every thing is slowly cooked in a pan for several hours and then the spices are drained out. So it basically ends up being a spice infused oil. This really smelled amazing while cooking and I've found I like using it in many things and even on pasta.

After making the oil, I picked out the cinnamon stick and cloves and used the onion and garlic for a base of a dish called Yemser Alicha which is a mild lentil stew. This recipe called for red lentils, chicken stock, niter kibbeh (the infused oil) onion, garlic (which I used from making the oil) grated ginger root, and berbere. Berbere is a red spice that I purchased while in Ethiopia. It is very hot and the girls love to eat it on everything. This smelled really good and tasted good but I had a really hard time getting past the texture.

Lastly, I made a dish called Tikil Gomen. It was basically cabbage, carrots, onions and garlic fried in the infused oil and mixed with a little tomato paste. (yeah, veggies!)

When it came time to cook the injera the girls informed me that it had to be poured in a circular fashion. I got out my big electric griddle and a measuring cup and they laughed at me. Apparently in Ethiopia, injera is cooked over an open wood fire and poured from a gourd.

(silly me!)

After much fussing, they decided that a gravy boat would be ok to pour from. I was hoping M (13) would take over but she insisted that Mom should do it. (darn!)

I started pouring a small circle in the center of the pan and both girls started yelling "No, No Mommy!!" and motioning that I was doing it wrong at that it was suppose to be poured in a large circle slowly moving towards the center. You really wouldn't believe how much excitement it brought when I did it right and lifted the first injera from the griddle.

If you've never tried injera..... well lets just say, it's an acquired taste. Everyone was brave and tried bite.... but no one swallowed it. ;-) The girls on the other hand loved it all and sang my praises for days.

In case you are wondering what the rest of the family ate, no worries, our oldest daughter Se made pizza. Yum!

Some new pictures of our bunch

2009-03-27T16:23:00.007-04:00

2009-03-23T20:27:00.002-04:00

2009-03-22T22:45:00.001-04:00

(J)
Tonight I gave a presentation to our church on our trip to Ethiopia. I’m not sure how many were there but I would say well over 100. I presented not just our adoption, but the 143,000,000 Orphans portion as well as the need in the city of Addis Ababa and the country of Ethiopia as well. I tried to show how God has broken my heart for the lost, needy, poor, hungry etc… and hopefully conveyed those feelings in a way that will change and call more of our church into action. I would pray that this is the spark that will ignite the wildfire for people to step out of their comfort zones, putting all human reasons and excuses aside and just follow Gods calling. It’s all about faith. It’s all about compassion. It’s all about giving up ourselves to be the living sacrifice, so Gods will can be done. May He move mightily and may we look back next year at this time, and give Him the Praise He deserves for what He has done through us. May He look at us and Say “Well done thou good and faithful servants”!

Life with the older adopted child...plus some pictures!

2009-03-21T23:05:00.006-04:00

I just thought I would share what life is like with older adopted children, for those of you in the process or those of you considering adoption. All adoptions experiences are not the same, but ours has been truly amazing. We feel so blessed to have these girls in our lives!

Generally, things are pretty smooth but we have our occasional bump in the road. Food has been an issue from day one. It's hard not to take it personally when every meal is met with pouts, and "no Mommy, Please NO!" (warning, Ethiopian children are world class pouters!) The first several weeks home were the hardest. A(10) would only eat bread, rice, bananas and oranges. She ate grilled cheese a few times and was fine with that until she saw me make it, then wouldn't touch it. It got to the point where every time I was cooking, I had to have the other kids distract M and A so they wouldn't see what I was doing, because one they saw how it was made...forget about it!!! (cue the mission impossible theme song...) "Sj, if you choose to accept this mission... go see where the girls are, and distract them, I'm going in..... to cook dinner"

We had kind of a stand off one day where I gave A the choice of eating what I prepared or eating nothing. The stubborn child chose nothing. It was a long day of pouting and being grumpy but I held my ground - I figured it was time she learned the house rules- if you don't eat at one meal, you get nothing until the next meal. Well, let me tell you, she was one hungry little girl by the time dinner rolled around. It was a really tough lesson for her (and me, what a long day!) but it's almost like she felt more secure once the boundary had been drawn and she knew where it was. She has been great ever since and has not refused to eat again. As time has gone on, all of the girls are trying more foods and finding things they like. M (13) is even starting to help in the kitchen and has been teaching me somethings about the foods in Ethiopia. That's one of the great things about adopting a teen. She has shown me how to cook a couple of things that A really likes and that has been a huge help. M (3) has been pretty easy going with food and will eat just about anything but the two older girls will only eat beef, and then only if it's cooked in some kind of sauce and served over rice or pasta. If you put slices of meat on a serving tray, they won't touch it. You can slice up the very same meat and put in sauce or gravy the next day and they absolutely love it...it's crazy!! They both will not touch chicken, turkey, pork or vegetables. A hates anything chocolate and ice cream (if you can believe that!!!! The other two girls love chocolate and ice cream).
The funny thing is that tonight I made chicken and rice soup, they both saw that it was chicken (because I cooked a whole chicken) and M even helped cut up all the veggies but they loved it and each had three bowls full. It's enough to drive a person crazy!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!! It would be funny if it weren't so infuriating!

Many people have asked us how the language acquisition is going. Personally I think it's going great. We've been home about 6 weeks and they can understand most of what we say. They still can't speak a lot and we pull out the Amharic/English dictionary several times a day to look up words, but they are learning. When M(7) was in speech therapy, we use to count how many words he said in a sentence. I find myself doing that with the girls. I think they are up to 4-5 now. They will say things like "Mommy, what is this? " (mostly when I'm cooking :-) ) and "Can I have more please?" (that one has taken some work (wink)) This is a huge improvement from our original English phrases (learned from endless hours of UNO) "Skip you!" and "Pick up two!"

School is still going well. I've really struggled with the little ones interrupting. K (21 months) M (3) and B(4) have been such a distraction and I was really getting frustrated everyday. I came up with a plan that we started this week and so far it's working beautifully. I've hired Se (15) to teach pre-school to them for two hours every day so I could get the bulk of our work done. It's been such a relief to be able to teach the kids with out all the extra noise and a small child or two tugging at my pant leg. So, while Se has them up stairs, I'm down stairs with M (13), Sj (11), A (10), M(7) and L(5).
I've started a new course with them called Spell to Read and Write by Wanda Sanseri. It basically has the children memorize the 70 phonograms (letter sounds and blends) and 28 spelling rules. By doing that, they should be able to read and spell anything. It's suppose to be really good for ESL learners as well as dyslexics (like Sj). I'm also teaching them all how to write in cursive at the same time. We've been at it for a week and so far so good.

As far as we can tell, A (10) had no prior schooling but she did learn some basics from the missionary in the orphanage. She knew her letters and sounds and how to add and subtract single digits. She is moving right along and in the last month has learned how add and subtract 3 digit numbers, has memorized 30-40 sight words and can read easy reader books (bob books)
M(13) has had quite a bit of schooling. When she can read and write in English and although her comprehension was poor at first, today she read a short story and answered several questions in complete sentences. She can add, subtract, multiply and divide, but was never taught fractions or how to tell time. We've been working on telling time this week and I plan to start fractions with her next week. Both girls wiz through their school work and are hungry for more. They take great satisfaction in finishing work sheets and get very discouraged when they get something wrong. In Ethiopia, only the privileged get to go to school, so succeeding is ingrained into them. Every day they ask "School Mommy?" and in the back ground I can hear the groans of the other kids. I don't know when my other children lost their enthusiasm for school...but I hope M and A never do. School is just another one of those things we Americans take for granted.

We've really only had a few behavioral issues and as I look back on them, most of them have been more cultural than adoption related. In Ethiopia, if a child is told No, they will just keep asking different people until they are told yes. Well here in our house, no means no and that's it, you don't go ask Mom, if Dad said No. So there have been a few situations where this has come up. Thankfully we knew about this ahead of time and although it's frustrating, it's to be expected. The only other thing we have experienced is immaturity but when we think about the life these girls have had, they really haven't had time to just be kids and regression in the adopted child is a very normal occurrence no matter what the age.
I think the reason why things have gone so well, is because we have a large family and there just isn't a lot of down time to sit and think. Also, the girls have each other and they comfort each other. I was terrified to adopt three at once, but it has really turned out to be a good thing. I can't imagine being a child and going through all of this alone with no one who spoke the same language. The resilience of these children is truly amazing!!

I haven't posted many pictures recently, so here are a few new ones. I've got a lot more but my computer has been acting up and making them difficult to load.

The other night we had all the kids outside just before dark. I was taking pictures and I thought this one was so cute of K (21 months) and M ( 3). The girls were just standing there and suddenly M just couldn't resist K's chubby little cheeks for a moment longer because she grabbed her face and kissed her. K of course quickly pulled away but I was still able to catch the moment with the camera.

The other day I taught M and A how to make homemade bread. They really enjoyed making it and eating the fruits of their labor!

This is just a cute picture of A(10) with her hair down right after a shower. She looks adorable with it down. She has a ton of hair and it just falls into tiny ringlets when wet. We usually spend every Saturday afternoon or evening braiding so it's all beautiful for church. I was really overwhelmed by her hair at first because she has so much of it, but now I've gotten so I can braid well and I really enjoy it. Even though both of the girls can braid each other's hair and their own, they always want Mom to do it. I think it's just one of those nurturing things Mom's are suppose to do. :-)

Se has gotten really good at braiding too. We jokingly keep saying that we need to open a salon just for braiding.

Thanks for reading,

Beth ~

Finding contentment in the chaos...

2009-03-11T13:31:00.008-04:00

Tomorrow we will be home from Ethiopia for one month. It's hard to believe a month has gone by so quickly. The girls are still doing wonderfully. Last week was a nightmare of medial issues, 3 of the kids had problems and two are still on antibiotics. Poor M (13) had a very severe eye infection that spread to both of her eyes and her lymph nodes. She was very sick, in a lot of pain, and her eyes were completely swollen shut. Then she had an allergic reaction to the antibiotic, which covered her entire body in a itchy rash. Our hearts just ached for her, it was a rough couple of days compounded by a lack of understanding of the language and several scary Dr's appointments. On top of all that, Daddy had to be out of town for a couple of days... it was hard, but I'm happy to report that M is recovering well and we've all survived.

Oh, I almsot forgot to mention that unfortunately, two of our lambs did not survive. :-( and Se was heart broken... Did I mention it was a rough week?

On the eve of our one month home anniversary, we find ourselves searching for contentment in the midst of all of the chaos. For us, the journey to Ethiopia started just over a year ago. It has been a year filled with ups and downs, excitement, joys, trials, miracles, you name it.
The anticipation of getting the girls and traveling to Ethiopia was like being wrapped tightly in a blanket, of both fear and excitement. It seemed as though we were wound up tight and then quickly spun in the opposite direction as we arrived home. The result has left us spinning and wondering which direction to take. Ethiopia left a deep and lasting impression on our hearts and minds. (I'm sure that most adoptive parents feel the same.) The reality of life at home with nine children has taken over and although our heart are still in Ethiopia calling us to action, we can barely muster the energy to usher the kids into bed each night. The daily drudgery of cooking, laundry, dishes and diapers have left us exhausted and searching for something more.... Not in the sense that we need more to do, but in the sense that we have been awakened to this huge need and almost daily we are asking ourselves "where do we go from here?" We look at the size of our family (and grocery bill) and wonder if we could possibly do this again. We find ourselves weighing the cost of adoption and wondering if we should do it again or if our money would be better spent supporting families so that they can stay together.... Not that we have any money, mind you...
At the mention of adopting again, you (the reader) might find yourself shocked that with 9 kids we would even consider it. We've been told that with 5 adopted children, we've certainly done our share for the cause. But as I've explained to several people, I feel like Shindler, at the end of Shindler's list when he is crying and saying "If I only could have saved one more"... It's a terrible feeling to have.... A few years ago, we started praying the prayer that Bob Pierce (the founder of World Vision) prayed, "let my heart be broken by the things that break the heart of God" .......

I guess this is what it feels like to have our hearts broken.

J has been dreaming of returning and doing some sort of missions work and we have been praying about it and weighing the cost of that as well. He has a lot on his mind about this and hopefully he will post something soon and share his thoughts.

The need for help in Ethiopia is so huge, you really can't begin to grasp it unless you've seen it, and Ethiopia is just one small country...We are so blessed here in America and we don't even have an inkling of what that means. It sickens me that right now there is more food in our dog's dish than most of the people from 3rd world countries will eat in a week....

J and I came across this youtube video the other night, it has got to be the most heart breaking thing we've seen. Please watch it with an open heart..

Could God be calling you to action?

Tonight we discovered dress up clothes!!

2009-02-24T21:28:00.005-05:00

The laughter never ends....

At least I hope not!!

Does A remind you of anyone in that wig??

Tina Turner maybe?

More of life at home and on the farm...

2009-02-24T07:38:00.006-05:00

I haven't had much time to post in the last few days (I wonder why? lol!), a lot has happened. Things are still going great with the girls. We've had a few moments, but they have been minor and all part of the game. Over all, they have done amazingly well and we still can't believe how smooth things are going. The girls have continued to experience many new "firsts" over the last week since they've come home. We've introduced them to play dough and that was pretty funny. I made it blue because I thought it would be less tempting to eat. I think they all tasted it anyways.... It's not something you want a second taste of! All of the kids (minus Se) played with it for hours.

One day for lunch, Se introduced the girls to making soft pretzels They really enjoyed eating their creations and bread continues to be their favorite food. For awhile meals were a nightmare for me. Cooking for 11 at every meal and trying to make something everyone would like and could eat was a real struggle (especially with my gluten intolerance). The girls were very picky at first but now they are starting to try more things and meal prep has become a lot easier. Our grocery bill is going to be huge! We consume a ton of bananas! I've been keeping a little chart of what the girls like and don't like, they came across it yesterday and had a good laugh over it.

On Sunday we took the girls to church. They were warmly greeted and given lots of hugs (probably more than they ever wanted!). I know it must have been uncomfortable for them but they handled it well. After church we stayed for a pot luck dinner that was for a couple who are moving away. The kids all jumped rope and then A (10-formerly Y) Came to me and said her first sentence in English, "Mommy, let us go!" Lol!! We left church and went to the farm of another couple from our church who raise Sheep. Poor A got car sick just before we got there but luckily we had a bag and every things was contained.

At Christmas time we had wanted to get Se (15) a lamb, she is an avid knitter and we thought that would be a cool gift, she could grow her own wool. At the time however, we just couldn't swing the cost of it. Well the couple from church called and said they had too many bottle lambs to care for and wanted to know if we would be willing to take some off their hands (for free!). They also thought it might help keep the girls busy and that they would enjoy it. We were so blessed by this! Se has always wanted a lamb and we thought it would be great for all the kids.

Well, once we got over the car sickness, we went into the barn. There was a long aisle way to stand in front of the sheep pens so we weren't right in the pen with them, which was a good thing because A would have freaked! There were tons of mama sheep and over 100 baby lambs. It was loud with the bleats of all the sheep and the girls were pretty scared at first.

After we were there a while, M (13) warmed up to them and started feeding them little handfuls of corn. We kept trying to get A (10) to feed them but she would get a handful of corn, get it a half inch from their face then quickly jerk her hand back and scream " No Sheep!!" Lol!

M (3- formerly B) and K (20 months) clung to Mommy and Daddy and wouldn't make any attempt to pet the sheep. A- said her sentence again " Mommy, let us go!" then A and M both got into the front bench seat of our 12 passenger van and the lambs (all 5 of them) were put in the very back. I don't think that A realized that we were bringing them home with us because the first time they made a little bleat, her eyes got absolutely huge, and when I held up 5 fingers, I thought she was going to die!! She kept shaking her head saying "no,no,no". The ride home was hilarious, the kids in the back were screaming "Oh no, it pooped!!" and I was up front interpreting "Sheep Kaka" to the girls, which was followed by lots of laughter.

I tried to take pictures yesterday but it was kind of hard, with 5 sheep, two grandparents, one Mom and 9 kids in a 12x12 horse stall. Especially when one of the children (namely A) was screaming her head off any time one of the sheep moved. That girl better get over her fear of animals soon, you can't live on a farm and be afraid of everything!!

Here is a picture of the little girls being pulled to the barn on a sled. You can tell that M (3) in the middle wasn't loving the cold.

Here are the lambs, Their names are Shaun Sheep (after the sheep in Wallace and Gromit) Rosebud, Buttercup, Polly and Esther (get it, Polyester?!) :-)

This is Grandma with M, She didn't love the barn too much either!

Last night after we got all the kids ready for bed, we sat out in the loft (this is like a library area with book shelves, a couch and chair) A had an old telephone and she was pretending to talk to Se. This is how it went... (try to imagine their accent, it's so cute!)

A- "hello"

Se- "hello, how are you?"

A- " I am 10 years old"

Se- "No... How are you?"

A- "WHAT?" (every time she didn't understand the question she would scream WHAT really loud. She sounded like an old lady, it was so funny!!!)

Se- "how are you?"

A - " WHAT?"

Se- "how are you?"

A- "Oh, I am fine thank you"

Se- " What is your name?"

A- " WHAT?"

Se- "What is your name?"

A - "WHAT?"

Se- "WHAT IS YOUR NAME?"

A- "WHAT?.....George Bush!" ha ha ha ha!!!!!

It was hilarious!!

We started school (very lightly) yesterday, mainly because we thought the kids needed more of a schedule and a routine, especially since Dad was going back to work. They've been kind of wandering the house aimlessly during their down time. The hardest part for me has been juggling 9 kids and keeping K (20 months), M (3) and B (4) from constantly interrupting us. The older Ethiopian girls M (13) and A (10) did very well with what I gave them. M can read in English and write very well, but her reading comprehension could use a lot of work. She has the neatest hand writing! She also does well with addition, subtraction, multiplication and division. A -can read a little, but can write very well in English (copying something). She can do addition and some subtraction.

I've started by just giving them some simple math work sheets and by doing some Explode the code with them. I am also having them do copy work and read to me each day. I am using Phonics pathways with A to help teach her to read. I'm sure once she picks up more English, she will take right off with her reading. Next week we will go into our full school schedule adding back in the Tapestry of Grace and Science. (pray for me!) ;-)

Pictures

2009-02-18T15:43:00.002-05:00

Here are a bunch of pictures taken yesterday. This is all six of our girls! Just imagine the cost of 6 weddings....Yikes!!!

See no evil, speak no evil and hear no evil. Lol!!

Y and Mom

Yesterday was B's (in the orange shirt) 4th birthday. Among other things, he got a big boy bike.

Life on the home front

2009-02-16T14:15:00.008-05:00

Just wanted to give a quick update to let you know how things are going now that we are home. This is a picture of everyone smushed together on the couch, except Se who was sick the first day we were home. Thankfully she is feeling better now.

We continue to be amazed by how smooth things have gone. The girls are affectionate and sweet. We feel kind of like we are waiting for something to go wrong... Could it really be this smooth and perfect? We are enjoying watching the children interact and build relationships. There have been so many "firsts". The airport was a hilarious adventure with it's escalators, moving walkways and automatic flush toilets. Every new experience brought gasps, squeals and giggles.

Once home, we have had many laughs...the first taste of Jello, meeting the barn animals. Y has been especially fun to watch as her eyes get huge and she giggles over everything.

B (3) is willing to try any food you give her and pretty much likes everything, the older girls however are much more picky and not willing to experiment. The girls have braided every dolls hair in the house and have even done Se's.

B (3) and K (20 Months) continue to want all of Mommy's attention and desire to be carried every where. They are so cute together and hard to resist. B has been so sweet with K and more than willing to share her new Mommy. If K cries, she runs to find her a toy to make her happy. I've really been amazed by how well she has done. She doesn't like to take naps and has drawn on several walls but that's been the worst of her adjustment.

This is a terrible picture of me, but cute of the girls and a good example of what I look like now that they both want to be carried all the time and I have no time for makeup! I'm going to have huge muscles if we keep this up!!

Uno has been the entertainment of choice around here lately. That Y has become quite the cheater, She will yell "eat" and point to the table to distract Sj then quickly flip through the deck to find a draw 4 card to use on him. It's all been done in fun with lots of giggles but we know we need to continue to direct her to use her powers for good. Lol!! She is quite the prankster!

M is nothing short of amazing. She is sweet and affectionate. Always willing to help with the little ones or to clean up after dinner.

We feel so blessed and pray that this feeling will continue. We know that older child adoption can be difficult and unpredictable and we pray that the Lord continues to bless our family as we find a new sense of normal for our family.

mIsc pictures of the girls...

2009-02-15T15:12:00.006-05:00

Our last two days

2009-02-15T06:33:00.003-05:00

Our Last Two Days –Thursday February 12th and 13th
J~
Well here’s what the last 2 days had in store for us.
We made arrangements for Beth and the 2 other ladies from the other guest house to get out and do a little shopping in the morning. While the 3 of them were out, the rest of us started picking up and packing our suitcases. After packing, even though Beth was only gone maybe 1 hour, every time we heard a vehicle we all hurried to the balcony to see if it was her. But no such luck. So we all played and lounged around until it was time for lunch. We ate lunch without her, which only proves that women can shop for a long time no matter where they are. Though that may be true, the fact is that they probably spent at least an hour or more in traffic. Her shopping trip was very productive as well as educational.
For today’s shopping trip the interpreter was Rolina, as John was not available and Ahkee (sp) had his engagement today. Rolina took the 3 girls back to the same area that we were at on Sunday. Beth said that she wanted to purchase a duplicate item of what she bought on Sunday, but the price had doubled from 50 Birr up to 100 Birr. But she took a stand and told them that she was not going to pay that! Finally after much back and forth, he conceded and said “repeat customer, 50 birr”. Good job Beth!!!
Before they returned back to the guest house, the driver and Rolina took them to Ahkee’s engagement. They couldn’t take pictures, but were warmly welcomed and got to meet his beautiful bride and relatives. This just gives you another picture of the warm, love and openness of the Ethiopian people.
When Beth returned back to the guest home, she was warmly greeted by all the girls who just couldn’t wait for her to get there. She had her lunch and we proceeded to finish packing and get everyone showered before we leave. The clock started clicking down as we were being picked up at 6:30 to head out to the Airport. We really didn’t need to be there until 8:30, but another family’s flight was an hour earlier than ours, and the agency wanted to save a trip if possible. So with less than 2 hours before we were to be picked up, we were invited to the Ethiopian Coffee Ceremony downstairs in the common room of the guest house. Realize that none of us drink coffee, and we really didn’t want to either, but not to offend anyone we went. It was pretty neat how they prepare the coffee right in front of you, roasting the beans over a little fire, burning incense and offering sweetened popcorn and roasted barley mixed with a few peanuts to eat. Well the time had come for me not to offend the Ethiopian culture so I took my first sip of the home roasted Java. Needless to say, my first thought was YUCK!!!!!! But I hung in there and took a few more sips. Beth convinced me to add some sugar to make it taste better and she was right. Now it tasted like Sweetened Yuck!!!! I really don’t know how you coffee drinkers do it. And speaking of dewing it, Mountain Dew would have won my vote hands down. At least it doesn’t taste like burnt who knows what. Anyway, we made it though the ceremony and no one died, Praise God!

Next up was dinner, which was kind of like goulash, and we were back off to packing.
We finished packing with just enough time to get a couple pictures of the Chef, Door and Grounds Keeper, and Sewdu who was driving us to the airport. We paid our bill and the group gratuity to the guest home, and then gave some special tips for those who went the extra mile for us. These included the Chef, Interpreters’, Sewdu and the one I will never forget; the door and grounds keeper, Here’s why. Here is a young man who stays and sleeps in a little building smaller than our kid’s playhouse. He answers the gate to the guesthouse every time some knocks, carries luggage up four flights of stairs, cut the guesthouse lawn with an old pair of hand operated hedge trimmers (that’s right. On his hands and knees, clip, clip, clip, and then brushes it away with a little hand broom) He would occasionally stop for a moment when the girls encourage him to take a turn jump roping, or would kick the ball with them. Just a real nice guy. But why I will always remember him is because when I gave him $10.00, you would have thought that it was a million bucks. As he hugged me tight in his arms I thought he was going to cry as he asked God to bless me and my family! He was so grateful; I wished I could have given him more. It was like no one had ever done anything like this before to him. I’m so grateful that God laid him on my heart to give him the tip, and now I’m the one who feels like a million bucks. It’s truly amazing that the more you give, whether of yourself or monetarily, the better you feel. I pray that God will truly bless this man.

The man in the white shirt is the CWA driver Zewdu. The man in the blue shirt with the white stripe is the gate keeper at the guest house.

When we arrived at the airport, we were surrounded by small children once again trying to sell us gum at 40 Birr or 40 cents a pack. Well we didn’t have any more Birr to give as we donated the balance to the Children’s Drop In Center, so I gave the one child an American dollar instead. We got everything inside the terminal and then proceeded to wait for 4 hours for our flight. When we went through the Metal detectors, Beth set B down to take off her shoes, and when she did B started to scream like she was going to be abandoned by Beth, which just brought tears to Beth’s eyes and ripped her heart out.
We got our luggage checked and tickets confirmed after about the first hour and a half, and headed up to the gate with about 2 hours left to go. I sat on a bench with all the luggage while Beth took everyone else store to store to kill time. Upon her return to where I was, she informed me that she had several cases of men eyeing our girls. She placed herself in between one man and the girls giving him a look that only a protective mother could give ( claws out, baring teeth, and I’m sure a bone chilling growl) and proceeded to stare him down, until he asked how she was doing, and then broke his stare. This was probably the only thing that made Beth ready to leave Ethiopia. Now with both of us stirred up, we were ready to protect our girls like never before and get them home ASAP.
Our flight from Ethiopian to Amsterdam was pretty much uneventful. No one got sick and just about everyone slept except me, although I did sneak a couple of short naps just trying to get myself back on our time. We landed in Amsterdam right before sunrise. Beth wanted to purchase some flower bulbs for her mom before we left but they started checking passports and Visas a ½ hour before the stores opened up, which put us into a secured area.
When we boarded for Detroit we had a couple of nice gentlemen offer their seats to me as I was separated from Beth, S and the girls by one row. I took them up on it and they proceed to share with us that there too were in Africa traveling into very remote areas showing the Jesus Film. How cool was that? I asked them what church or organization they traveled with and the one guy told me the Central Wesleyan Church of Wisconsin. Well it turns out that this one man was the Senior Pastor of this church and was even in our county in NY speaking to local Pastors (including our own Pastor), not too long ago. It also turns out that our sister church, in which my mother and father in law attend, have a pastor and his wife that started out in these guy’s church. It certainly is a small world. They were very excited for us and also very excited in how they saw God at work with the Jesus Film.
When we landed in Detroit an hour early, we had 3 hours to go through customs, immigration, baggage claim and recheck, security and get to our gate. This shouldn’t have been any problem except by the time everyone in front of us got thru immigration, not to mention the other 1000 people that got off of 4 – 5 other fights got thru before us in other lines. We were left with about ½ hour to get and recheck our bags, get them thru customs, get ourselves thru security, and then get to the other side of the terminal. You have got to be kidding me! As soon as we cleared security, I check the TV monitors and located our gate, C4. I left Beth with the girls at the top of the escalator, and told them to hurry, as S and I tried to reach our gate and have them hold the flight. We ran almost the entire way with our carry-on luggage, my computer, and my belt in hand as I knew it would save time not to put it on until after we got to the gate. Yeah right!!!! I actually think we lost a few minutes as I couldn’t run full speed desperately trying to keep my pants up. I’m sure a made a few 200 or so people laugh as they watch me run by hoisting my pants up, lugging my carry-on and my computer bag. S and I just made it to the gate as we heard over the PA system that the flight to E will start boarding at gate C4. Oh Boy, just in the nick of time. Beth and the kids came shortly after, all panting and gasping for breath. Our flight to E was less than hour, but the last 5 minutes was the bumpiest of the entire trip, but praise God no one got sick.
We were warmly greeted at the gate entrance by L’s family, and shortly after that by Grandma, Se, and the rest of our children. In both cases the tears and hugs flowed freely. What a joy to be reunited. Believe it or not, 4 out of 5 pieces of our checked baggage actually made it through on our flight. The last piece was delivered on Saturday afternoon. Naturally it was the one with all the stuff that Beth had bought for the kids, but only one day late was okay with us.
On Saturday morning after everyone getting between 8 to 10 hours sleep, the girl slowly blended into the activities with the rest of the kids. By the afternoon the noise level of the house had reached its pre-Africa level of screams, squeals, and crying, that Beth and I were well used to. Beth is now walking, talking and sitting, with B on one hip and K on the other. What a picture that is. Se is now very sick and we think that she just finally relaxed enough to let the sickness overtake her. Her and Grandma did an excellent job keeping everyone and everything flowing as near to normal as possible. A great big thanks from the bottom of our hearts go out to them.

As I sit here Sunday morning, thinking back over what I may have missed or left out, I keep thinking of how God was so awesome through this entire event. I know that we will never be the same as we go through each day. When I look at the food that we scrape into a dish for the dog, I think of the starving women with the baby on her back pointing to her mouth for something to eat. Every little quarrel over a toy just brings me back to all the children with absolutely nothing to play with. When I look at our 3 new children it brings tears to my eyes to think what they may have been through up to this point. I pray that the joy, gentle spirit, love, kindness, happiness that they are showing now will last forever. I pray that the rest of the children will be patient as the girls learn our language and continue to blend in. I pray for Se as to fell better and to get through the awkwardness of trying to express her happiness through the language barrier, and just trying to come up with things to say. And I pray that the love M has for hasfor her new bible will be contagious to her sisters and will never stop growing, as she was clinging and reading from it last night as I kissed her goodnight. The hug she gave me brought tears to my eyes, as it seemed to say “thank you so much”, but it is I who is so thankful for her, Y and B, and to God who has to lead us down this trail covered with everyone’s prayers and support.
We have truly seen the hand of God move mountains, and to think it was just about 1 year ago that Beth came to me and said those precious words that brought me to tears, ”J, I think God is calling us to adopt again”. Thankfully we were wise enough to follow his call, and not turn our backs. I pray that He would forgive me for all the times I was too selfish or too busy to listen and obey His call. I am saddened by what joys I may have missed out on. I hope and pray we will not miss anything else He sends our way, and I pray for all of you that read this would be sensitive to His callings. His callings that will certainly take you out of your comfort zones into the unknowns, but certainly bless you beyond anything you have ever experienced. It would be my prayer that your heart would be broken by the many things that breaks our Father’s heart in Heaven and you would be given the eyes of God to see whatHis callings he sees. Don’t just sit back and make excuse; Get up and step out of your boat, because it’s the only way you’ll ever experience the tremendous joy of walking on water.
My God bless you all, and thank you for coming along side of us on our journey!
Love, J

Update #4

2009-02-11T11:26:00.006-05:00

Embassy Day – Tuesday February 10th, 2009 11:31PM

J – Today once again we could hear the call to prayer and the children piling into the school grounds next door or across the street as we awaken. As I stood and watched from our balcony, I am once again amazed in how happy the children are just to be in school. (Which by the way seems to start somewhere around 7:00 AM and end around 4:30 – 5:00 PM) Boys and girls all dressed in their green uniforms, running jumping and squealing with delight. How happy they are just to see us on the balcony and wave to us. The only thing that seems to make them even happier is when we make eye contact with each individual one and wave back to them; of course this just makes them wave even harder which catches their friend's attention and then they start to wave and everything starts all over again. This could go on forever except they must start classes sooner or later. Some of them have seen us take pictures and they beg for us to take their picture even though we can never show it to them. At one point I asked S and Friend L, how many balls, toys, guns, light sabers etc… did they see in the kids hands. Of course the correct answer was ZERO!! Unbelievable that maybe 250-300 kids could have that much fun and happiness without any toys, psp's, computers, video games, I-pods, mp3's, and even without a basketball or soccer ball. Oh how spoiled we Americans are!

These little boys come running as soon as we step out onto our balcony. They beg to have their picture taken even though they will never see it. They pose and make faces, always with huge smiles, loving the attention.

Even though there are many children in this school, there are still many walking the streets. I talked with the guest house worker named John (Great Name), and he told us that these children are most likely paying maybe $14.00 a month to attend. A Pretty good deal by America's standards, but very expensive by Ethiopian's standards as the average income for an Ethiopian person is $105.00 per YEAR! That's right, per year. We spend more than that in 1 trip to Aldi's. UNBELEIVABLE $105/year!!!
The Ethiopian Government does provide "Free schooling", but not as good of an education. He believed that some of the children we see on the streets may be in the Government schools on a semester break, but others are homeless or have to help their parents to survive. I have made arrangements to visit the "Drop in" center on Wednesday with S and friend L, to share the Gospel through an interpreter using the wordless bracelets. I pray that some will come to know Christ through our visit!
After breakfast which seemed like deep fried French toast, we once again jumped rope and kicked soccer balls around for fun. Boy oh boy, those girls can jump rope!

B did not sleep well, but was happy when she woke up and found her sunglasses again. She is such a charming little girl!

CWA picked us up at 2:00 PM in their Sprinter van, and we stopped to pick up 2 other CWA families whose Embassy appointments were at the same time. That meant 17 of us in the van including the driver and Robel. A little tight and a bit on the sweaty side. P.U. After we passed though tight security, we moved upstairs were we all sat with about 20 other people. NO WINDOWS! Double P.U!!! Robel told us it would take about 3 -4 minutes for each family, but 1 hour later we headed out to fresh air. YEA!!!!!
The time extension was because of a new worker. She was very nice, but a little slow. These appointments are nothing for any of you to worry about if you haven't had yours yet. Robel briefs you very thoroughly, so nothing to fear! Robel also prepares all your papers before hand and makes sure they are all there. Robel is nothing short of Wonderful!
As we were driving to and from the Embassy, Robel answered many questions for us very clearly as his English is excellent. He also spoke to the girls in Amharic asking them if they would like the American names that we picked out and explained the meaning of each name as well. The girls were very excited!!
Along the way and back to the Embassy, I took many pictures except for the man laying dead in the road, either hit by a car, truck or bus, or who knows what. How sad that no one has moved him out of the way. But I did try to take many pictures of automotive repair and parts stores. My students will just not believe it. I'm having a hard time believing it myself. Needless to say, I have never seen anything like this city in my life. There was a sick looking horse standing in the middle of an intersection that everyone was driving around. I made a joke about having horse for dinner as it was very close to our Guest house, but it wasn't so funny (actually it was hilarious) when we had meat for dinner tonight.(The first time we had meat since we've been here) Of course they said it was beef. Ha Ha Ha!!! I Love It!
I did ask Robel what we American's can do for the people of Ethiopia in which he said "that was a tough one". He continued after some thought and started with what we were doing with adoption was great. He also said if we could sponsor children so they could go to school, as education is greatly needed. He was very pleased that we knew and supported Compassion International and World Vision as they do a great work here. He told us that he has applied for scholarships in Sweden to get his Masters Degree, but he wants to return here to help his people as soon as he is done. Like I said, He is a wonderful Guy!
He says everyone in Ethiopia wants to come to America, but he loves helping everyone with their adoptions, and seeing these orphans go to wonderful homes. What more can I say about Robel?
Well that's about it for today, everyone is doing great except you can pray for one family that is here that is having a snafu with their paperwork with INS/Homeland Security in Chicago. Please pray that everything will fall into place for them and they can finish and come home with their child this week.
Thank you all for your prayers, they are truly being felt and seen in action.
Love,
J, Beth and the rest of the crew

PS. as of sending this email, We witnessed to 20 children at the drop in center, and they prayed to ask Jesus into their hearts. Pray that it would last a life time. Praise God!!!!!

These two pictures were taken the night before. The weather here is beautiful 75-80 degrees during the day. At night it cools down into the 60's. To the girls, that was chilly. It felt wonderful to us!

Jumping rope with Dad!

Update #3

2009-02-11T11:14:00.004-05:00

Monday at 10:30 pm Ethiopia time.
After a restless night sleep we woke, got dressed and ate breakfast. Zewdu the CWAE driver came and picked us up to take us to the care center. We stopped by the other Ethiopian guest home to pick up the other two adoptive families. The one family had their new one year old baby with them. He was absolutely adorable and their first child. The other couple has six grown children, 15 grand children and were starting all over again by adopting a sibling group of 3 who were 3,5 and 6. Everyone was chatty and excited. We drove a few miles and arrived at the care center administrative office. As we were pulling in, we could see M in the window. J barely made it out of the car and M was hugging him and crying (he later told me that she was kissing him and repeating "I love you Dad"). Y did the same to me as I got out. They were so beautiful! Even more so in person than they were in their pictures if you can believe that! After several minutes of intense hugging we switched. M (the child who I've worried over for months, wondering if she would even want a new mom... ) hugged me and cried and cried, she would pull back and say "Mom", stroke my face, kiss me, fuss over my clothing buttoning my top two shirt buttons, then hug me tightly again. I could help but cry with her. Thank you Lord for such a direct answer to prayer!! J and I switched back and forth a few times between M and Y, I suddenly wondered where B was, she was just taking it all in, J kneeled down next to her and all of the children came to him (the children the other family was adopting) So he hugged all of them too. B wasn't as friendly but she warmed up to a lollipop that our friend L gave her. S and friend L had been busy the whole time taking video and photos. It was really a mass of confusion but so unbelievable…nothing could have prepared us for that kind of welcome. It was nothing short of a miracle and an answer to our prayers.

We then went into the office and sat down at a table. M and Y sat on our laps. Then M jumped up and brought us an envelope, in it was every letter and every picture we had sent them. M went through each picture and named each person (and we sent a ton!!). She would look at the picture of J and I and say "Mom" and hold my face between her hands and kiss me, then say "Dad" and hold his face in her hands and kiss him. She knew who each person was and every time she would hold up K's picture she would kiss it. She even knew who Grandma was and would ask "grandma at home?" She also knew who pickles the dog was and wanted to know the cat's name.
We started to do our paper work with Robel and all of the children gravitated outside. friend L had brought a blow up beach ball, so they were all playing ball. She taught Y how to use her camera so Y was taking pictures of everything. Every few minutes M would run into the office to hug and kiss us. It was so cute! We shared with Robel how we were so afraid that she wouldn't want to come with us and that she might resent us and he laughed and said "Oooh No, M come to me every day and ask 'when is the court date?' 'When is my family coming to Ethiopia?'
We then went into another room with the consular. She told us about the girl's personalities, she really didn't tell us anything we hadn't already heard so we didn't hear anything new. I know we will regret this, but we could not think of a single question to ask her. Oh, now wait a minute, she did tell us something new…Y gets car sick (and will most likely get plane sick)….great! We ended up grabbing a plastic bag for the drive home just in case but nothing happened. (J acted out what the bag was to be used for. She laughed and shook her finger no at us.)
We then all piled in the van which was full on the way there but now had 6 more people in it, actually 7 counting the staff person who hopped in and we drove a short distance to the Girl's home. Everyone was laying down taking a nap. We kind of disrupted things, especially when I gave M a big bag of lollipops to pass out. She seemed so happy to be able to give her friends something. We could tell who her favorites were because she kept going back to give them more and more. Poor B had to see the nurse because her finger was infected. The nurse cleaned it out and made the poor baby scream.
When we went into the little girl's room (ages 2-3) they all stood up in their crib and held their arms out to us. We gave them hugs and lollipops. They were so adorable! M and Y showed us their beds and we took pictures of them laying on them. As we said our good byes, the girls were hugged and kissed by the nanny's. It was obvious that they were well loved.
We made a quick stop to the Boy's home and disrupted their nap too. I think we only saw the younger boys because there weren't too many there.
Once we were back at the guest house, we gave the girls their new shoes, back packs, jump ropes and sun glasses. We ate a quick lunch of rice and vegetables and went out into the small court yard to play. The girls loved their jump ropes and we all had a good laugh as J and Y had kind of a competition seeing if he could do everything she did. He did fine (or maybe I should say GREAT for a guy his age!) with straight jump roping, crossing over, jumping on one foot and switch foot but she almost got him by squatting while she jumped. He did it though!...It was a proud moment! I think Y is just a little bit competitive. (Wink)
B loves bubbles, hates raisins, hates taking showers, is cute as a button and has warmed right up to me. I worried that M and Y would mother, her but so far they haven't. Oh and she is also a talker. I can't understand a word of it, but it sounds very clear and she will repeat most of what I say.
Y is quieter but very smiley. She seems like a real sweet heart and eager to please.

M has been our biggest surprise, from the way she greeted us, to the amount of English she knows. She sat down with friend L and wrote in frined L's journal that she was 13 years old, in the 7th grade, that she has 5 sisters and 3 brothers, that she likes cats, likes dogs and hates snakes (a girl after my own heart!!)
I know we still have a lot more to discover about these girls, but what an amazing day we've had we are so incredibly blessed and we can't wait to get home and introduce them to everyone. Thank you all for your prayers, they mean more to us than you can possibly know!!

We brought a Jenga game and it was a great icebreaker. They girls loved it and when they weren't playing Jenga, they were stacking the blocks and building roads with them for toy cars.

Update number 2

2009-02-08T13:51:00.005-05:00

These are some of things we saw as we drove. The picture below is of some people and donkeys who were in the median. The one below that shows a typical scaffolding in Ethiopia. We couldn't get over the idea of standing on something like that.

Beth- Sunday evening 8:00 Ethiopian time. We are getting very frustrated with not being able to call home or get internet connection. I never dreamed it would be this difficult! We have no micro wave in our room so I am very limited in what I can eat. I had tuna on my homemade gluten free crackers for lunch I'm so glad I brought a lot of gluten free food. Breakfast at the guest house was some kind of hot cereal (oatmeal?) and bread with jam. I had heard that they serve mostly carbs here, I guess they weren't kidding. We spent the morning dividing our orphanage donations and getting our suitcases settled. S was feeling peaked and looked pale. We met our driver Getachew (sp?) and our interpreter…I wish I could remember his name (such a great guy!) in the common room at 11 am. We were excited about going shopping. We told them we were interested in buying some traditional dresses for the girls and we were off riding in one of Addis Ababa's Kajillion blue Toyota vans. I'm not sure how to even describe the sights we saw as drove. I took lots of pictures from the window, I hope they came out alright. Addis is beautiful in many ways. In the distance there are large mountains and grassy fields. The city however is very crowded and dirty. We were told it was a quiet day because it was Sunday…I hate to see a busy day! Traffic lights, stop signs etc in Addis are rare. Cars just kind of go every direction and try not to hit each other. Oh and no seat belts either! We had several near misses where cars almost drove into us and missed by a few inches.
As we drove, we saw people dressed beautifully in traditional Ethiopian clothing, people dressed as though they lived in a major US city and people dressed in nothing more than rags. At times we would stop and beggars would come up to the van window. At one point Lindsay looked out and said "watch out there is a little boy by the wheels" It ended up being a crippled boy who dragged himself out between cars to beg…heart breaking… The worst was when we stopped for a long time and a thin young woman with a baby on her back came to my window and looked at me with these big pleading eyes and motioned to her mouth asking for something to eat. I suddenly remembered that we were told not to make eye contact and quickly turned head, when I lifted my head, she had come around the other side of the vehicle and was directly in my line of vision again pleading…I quickly rummaged through my bag and scrounged up 3 granola bars and J handed them out to her just as we rolled away. I had everything I could do to keep from crying…
These are some of the other things we saw:

Lots of children running around with no supervision.
Goats and donkeys roaming freely or being chased by people with sticks.
A boy holding a goats back legs and walking it like a wheel borrow.
A man lying on the side of the road draped in a deflated tire, friend L and I thought he may have been dead. We parked next to him for about ten minutes and he never moved.
A man urinating along the side of the road

We finally stopped in front of a row of little shops we purchased dresses for the girls and friend L was dressed from head to toe in a beautiful Ethiopian tunic and scarf. We walked into several more shops and made a few purchases. Some little boys asked if we wanted our shoes shined so I agreed. The boy's name was Samuel. He did a great job and I intended to pay him well but got confused with the money and ended up only giving him a dollar… I felt so bad about that. There was a lady chasing the boys with a stick threatening to beat them. friend L was appalled but I tried to explain to her that everyone was trying to make a living and she had made it her job to protect the tourist from begging little boys so that they could shop. She was probably expecting us to pay her but I couldn't even entertain the idea of paying a woman to beat those poor tattered boys. I fished out another granola bar and gave it to one of the boys who came to the window and motioned for food. It was really heart breaking.

These are the little shoe shine boys.

This is the woman who chases the boys with a stick.This is the row of shops where we went shopping. This a picture of our interpreter getting his shoes shined.

At every shop, S looked worse and worse. He sat down on the ground and waited not even feeling well enough to have any interest in looking at anything. Then he ended up throwing up. Immediately he was surrounded by our driver and interpreter who both were patting him saying "It's ok… you all better now!" Much to their dismay, we decided to end our shopping trip and head back to the guest house. S later said he thought it was funny that they expected him to suddenly be all better and keep going. I think it's another one of those things that are "just the Ethiopian way". L and I were disappointed as we knew this was our only day to shop and see some of Addis. Once we get the girls tomorrow, we will be staying right at the guest house, with the exception of the Embassy appointment on Tuesday.
We came back to the guest house and while J, S and I napped, L stood out on our balcony yelling down to the children she saw walking below and throwing them candy. It was amazing how many of them knew some English. Two girls who were both 12 and cousins, spoke very well and came back later yelling "L, L!!" (they used her real name) It is such a joy to watch L's excitement as she experiences this one tiny part of Africa. She is contagious and is helping us to look past the poverty and dirt and see Ethiopia as beautiful. We are so glad she is with us. The people here are truly beautiful, they have such an inner peace, it just resonates. I'm sure there are bad people, like anywhere, but the ones we have meet in the few short hours we've been here are so gracious and friendly.
S had a fever but after some Tylenol, is starting to perk up and finally eat something. He has had hardly anything for the last two days. Please pray for him to feel better.
Tomorrow we meet the girls!! Please pray for that to go smoothly as well, we are about to bring three total strangers into our lives. I'm sure they are as nervous as we are.

Here is a picture of the inside of one of the shops

This is our friend L in her traditional Ethiopian dress and our interpreter. Aren't they cute?!

UPDATE!!!

2009-02-08T13:06:00.005-05:00

Saturday
Feb. 6th 2009 5:03 PM USA Time
Feb 7th 2009 – 2:02 AM Ethiopian Time
Greetings from Ethiopia! Praise God, we are here safe and sound. All of our connections and flights couldn't have been any better. We thought that waiting in Detroit for 6 hours was a long time, until we sat in the plane for 8 hours straight, and then 9+ hours after that. The plane rides were pretty uneventful with little turbulence. We had decent food until we flew from Amsterdam to Ethiopia. At that point the gluten free meals we ordered for Beth were worthless, since they included both bread and pasta. Fortunately we had some snacks. We waited for hours in airports and no one was friendly until we sat down with a group of people bound for Ethiopia. An Ethiopian lady came right over to friend L and they had a nice conversation. We also spoke with two other Ethiopian women, one of whom gave us her phone number in Addis in case we needed anything. Beautiful, beautiful people inside and out! Once we got off the plane, it was very evident that we were in a third world country by just taking a trip to the bathroom that had no lock on the door, no toilet seat and….oh yes, and the "TP" gets thrown into the trash can next to the toilet, instead of in the toilet. Ewww!!
After waiting in the line for VISA's, with S looking white as a sheet (very little food and almost no sleep) we exchanged some money and went through Immigration without a hitch. Next step was having 6 men discussing our luggage, and possibly ripping us off for a tip. DH gave him 100 Birr, which is about $10 bucks. The exchange rate will take some getting used to! Because we are so obviously American, everyone had their hand out. The driver from CWA named Zeddu (sp?) met us and took us right to the van, and delivered us to The Ethiopian Guest Home where we were very warmly welcomed. It was of course dark as were driving. Part of wished it was day light but on the other hand, we think seeing everything in the dark kind of eased us into the harsh realities of Ethiopia. We could see a lot of corrugated metal forming the fenced in compounds and shacks that many of the Ethiopian people call home. We had a huge hyena run in front of the van.
The guest house is very nice with a common sitting room and dining room down stairs and bedrooms on the other floors. Our room is on the top floor. We sure will get our exercise going up 4 flights of stairs which are actually like 8 because they kind of spiral up in short flights. Our room is quite large with a queen size bed and two bunk beds, a separate kitchen and a bathroom. They also gave us a second room down one level with two beds but we think we will have everyone stay together. We will probably pull the cushions off the chairs and lay them on the floor for B to sleep on or just have her sleep with us. There are tons of dogs barking non stop. Thankfully they provided ear plugs.
Tomorrow we are going to go shopping and possibly go to the AHOPE orphanage to deliver the donations we brought. We will meet the girls on Monday. We can't believe we are finally here!!!

Sunday Morning
After a few hours sleep, we were awakened by the call to worship for the Muslim's. When we looked out the window there are people coming out of every little nook and cranny. Most of the women have their heads wrapped with scarves as they head out to church.
friend L is out on the balcony, and just reported that there were 3 men carrying a dead goat up the street.
S saw a small gathering around the corner which looked like a church service.
Off a ways in the distance out the kitchen window, we can see a small herd of cows.
It seems as though Galvanized steel is the main source of building materials, being used for fence, property dividers, roofs etc. People are living in buildings that are smaller than our kid's playhouse.
There were many dogs all barking last night, pretty much all through the night.
We are waiting for the internet to get up and running this morning, and will do some shopping around 11:00 AM.
4 or 5 cows and a few donkeys just grazed their way up the street.

Tomorrow we will be on our way

2009-02-05T09:06:00.003-05:00

It's hard to believe that tomorrow morning we will be boarding our flight for Ethiopia. The last several weeks have literally flown by. Packing for this trip and making arrangements for the children at home has been a monumental task. I know we have probably way over packed...it's so hard to know what to bring. Except for the last minute stuff, everything is packed and sitting in the foyer waiting to be loaded into the van. We have two large rubbermaid totes full of orphanage donations plus a huge duffel bag. With the help of our friends from the fouse board, we have been able to fill one whole tote with the storage containers for the orphanage in Soddo and baby formula. I had so much fun filling each container with things like baby wipes, pens and post it notes (for the Dr), tooth brushes, children's Tylenol, baby bottles, t-shirts and lollipops. :-) The other tote contains 80 pairs of shoes and a bunch of school supplies. The duffel bag will go to the care center in Addis (where the girls are now) it is filled with baby formula, diapers and soccer balls (that have been deflated).
Our friend L (age 14) who is traveling with us, has done an amazing job of calling around and getting things donated. She has been collecting things like Tylenol, anti fungal cream, tooth brushes and tooth paste, sterile gloves and lice shampoo. She is using most if not all of her checked luggage for donations and carrying all her personal stuff in a back pack.
We hope to visit and donate most of the medical supplies to AHOPE, the orphanage for children with HIV/AIDS.

All of this seems like a ton of stuff but we know it's just a small drop in the bucket compared to the great need in Ethiopia.

Please pray for our family today, satan is doing his best to foil our plans. We currently have 3 sick children. M (7), L (5) and B (3) all have fevers over 102. I absolutely hate the thoughts of leaving them when they are sick... I hate to do that to my Mom too. Please pray that they feel better and they J, S and I stay healthy. Pray for My mom and Se as they stay home and care for the kids and pray for K (19 months) We have never been separated and I am worried about her getting sick too.

I will try to keep the blog updated while we are traveling but there is no telling what our Internet connection will be like there. Please keep us in your prayers as we travel and meet the girls Monday morning. We are so excited!!

May God bless you all,

Beth ~

"baby" shower in a box!

2009-02-05T07:44:00.004-05:00

I have the world's best sister!! The other day, we received a package from UPS. It was a gigantic box weighing a whopping 48 lbs. It was filled to the top with outfits for our new daughters. There must have been 15-20 outfits for each of the girls, including tights, hair things, underwear, PJ's, long johns and bathrobes. Apparently my sister has been scouring the clearance racks for months. She carried lists with her so she could keep track of what she had bought and what she still wanted in order to match things up into outfits. She wrapped each outfit in tissue paper and labeled it with the initial of the girl it was intended for. She also included several brown baby dolls. We were so incredibly blessed by this!! We didn't have anything new for the girls, just hand me downs. I had to totally repack the things I had picked out for the trip.

Thanks again C, you're the best!!

This is a picture of everything laid out on the dining room table.

The same afternoon, we recieved a picture of our little one B and her birth father. I was so surprised by this. What a treasure this picture will be for her! This is the first picture we have seen of any of our adopted children's birth parents.

More new pictures

2009-01-29T09:35:00.007-05:00

On January 7th, the date after we passed court, I quickly wrote the girls a letter and sent it along with a stack of photos to our agency in hopes that it would reach Ethiopia before we did. In the letter I told the girls who would be traveling with us (our oldest son and a friend from Church) and talked about how excited everyone was to meet them. Se (15) also included a letter that she wrote. I sent a bunch of pictures of everyone playing in the snow and again told them how cold it was here. I know that it will be a huge shock to their systems after living in 75-80 degree weather their whole lives. How can you explain the cold and snow to a child who has never experienced it? It will be fun to see how they react when they actually can see and touch the snow for the first time.

Anyways... My letter made it to Ethiopia and here are the pictures we received yesterday of the girls opening it. In the first picture it almost looks like they are in a park, it's so pretty with the flowers, the grass, the trees, the stone wall, the petals scattered on the ground...

The next picture however is taken at a different angle and you can see the high walls with their rolls of barbed wire, it kind of shocks you back into the reality of life in Ethiopia.

I was thrilled to see that M is wearing a necklace that I made and sent to Ethiopia with a friend who was adopting. As you can tell... I study every picture of the girls, soaking in all the little details, trying to catch a small glimpse of who they are and what their life in the care center must be like. It's hard to believe that in 8 short days we will be leaving to go get them. Our house has been a flurry of activity and appointments trying to get everything done before we travel. I have several on going lists in an effort to make sure we don't forget to bring something or take care of something here at home. We are leaving 5 of the children home with my mom. Se will be her right hand girl as they take care of both the kids and farm animals. I know they are both perfectly capable of the job, but I worry about the weather, keeping the furnace going, the barn pipes from freezing, our long driveway getting blocked with snow, one of the kids getting sick, you name it and I've worried about it! Not to mention all the details of flying across the world and meeting the girls. But I know that God holds it all in his hand and this is what we are suppose to do so I have peace in that. Please continue to pray for us!

New pictures of the girls

2009-01-14T16:52:00.005-05:00

We received some new pictures of the girls yesteday. This one made me laugh! B looks so perplexed or something...What a face! Daddy thought M's shirt was pretty cool! (It says I love Dad)

We thought this picture of B was absolutely adorable. We can't wait to see all six of our girls together!

We are so excited about meeting the girls but on the other hand, we know the realities of older child adoption and all the adjustments we are all going to have to make, so in many ways it's scary. If you would keep our family in your prayers, we would be so grateful!

This is a letter I shared with our church family. It has some very specific prayer requests on it. (I've taken our names out)

Dear friends,

Very soon we will be adding three new children to our family. We have some concerns and prayer requests we want to share with you before we travel.
Please be in prayer for us (J, B, S and our teen friend) as we travel to Ethiopia. Please pray for our protection and our health. Ethiopia is a third world country. The people of Ethiopia have little clean drinking water, experience rolling power outages daily and have minimal health care facilities. We will be taking safety/health precautions and medications, but the condition of our health while we travel is of major concern. Please also pray for the health of the girls, once we get them home, we will be taking them to a Pediatrician who specializes in international adoption medicine. The girls are generally healthy but we know they suffer from malnutrition and parasites. Please be patient with us, as you will probably not be seeing all of us in church for several weeks, until the girls are settled and we feel their health is stable.
Our other requests may sound pessimistic and somewhat scary to you, but for us, we know that this is all part of the adoption process. We are very excited about getting our new daughters but we know that the next year will probably be a very difficult one for us. No matter how difficult it turns out to be, we are certain that this is God’s will and that He has called us to these children. We are honored that He chose us to raise them.
We know that the addition of 3 older children will be very disruptive to our current family structure and dynamics. As parents, we will be trying to find balance and the strength to parent 9 children who each have individual needs. The adoption process is such a “high” with excitement and anticipation, but the reality of returning home with jet lag and making all these adjustments can be extremely stressful. It seems crazy to think about the fact that we are choosing to love 3 children whom we’ve never met and who most likely don’t speak English. These girls will be going through a huge emotional upheaval; they will be leaving everything they have ever known and putting their trust in total strangers. Everything will be different to them, we won’t look like them, smell like them, talk like them, etc…We pray that God will help each of us to see each other through His eyes and that he will give us a love for each other. Please pray for our current children, they will most likely struggle. For some of them, their birth order will be changed, and finding their place in this new family will be difficult. When we first come home, the fact that they will have to share Mommy and Daddy (who they haven’t seen for a week) will be very hard, especially for the little ones. They will have to deal with 3 kids that may be difficult to get long at first. All of the children are very excited about adding three new siblings, but the reality of living with, and sharing everything with three new children who are virtual strangers, will be very difficult on all of them. We are sure it will take some time and patience for everyone to get settled, so please keep all of the children in your prayers.
As for the girls, Please be sensitive to their circumstances, these girls have experienced more hardships in their short lives than many of us ever will. Comments like “Your so lucky you have a new family” might not make them feel so lucky. Yes, we realize they are from an area and situation where they didn’t have much hope of a future or family, but it was the only life they knew. It was home to them. Most of the time, kids don’t even understand what was “wrong” with their previous life. All they know is that they left everything: friends, community, language and culture, to live with people that look nothing like them and they can’t communicate with. They will be grieving that fact that they may never return to their “world” again. All of this may manifest it’s self in tantrums, aggression, submission to authority, and even sharing, because they have never had anything to share. It will take awhile for them to trust us and understand that we are not going to leave them and for us to teach them what it is like to be a part of a Christian American family. We hope this didn’t sound too doom and gloom to you. Please understand that it is not to us. We are very excited about adding these girls to our family. We have a true sense of peace about it. We have been educating ourselves and preparing for these difficulties knowing that “all things work together for the good of those who love Him”. Some families of older internationally adopted children say it can often take a full year to feel like there is a feeling of “normalcy” and before a new family dynamic emerges. Please remember that if we seem tired or discouraged at times that it is normal, just give us a hug and continue to pray for us.
Thank you so much for your support and for welcoming these girls into our church family!
To God be the Glory!

J and B

God is so good!

2009-01-12T15:23:00.005-05:00

In the midst of all of our travel chaos of booking flights, finding a place to stay, getting vaccinations etc... I have to take a moment to praise God.

We sent out a few online messages to share our good news and our video of the girls and we have blessed beyond measure by all of the comments and well wishes for safe travel. We have also had the good fortune to meet even more online friends who have also been blessed with Ethiopian children. We have been given some wonderful advice and tips for traveling.

Yesterday in church we were given the opportunity to show a slightly different video of the girls. I intended this video more for our church family to thank them for all they have done supporting us through both their prayers and financial gifts. We were again blessed by every one's comments and responses. One of the things I tried to stress in that video was for people not to be quick to pat us on the back for "saving" these girls. We aren't saving them. Their birth parents "saved" them when they made the heart wrenching decision to relinquish them. the orphanage "saved" them when they took them in and provided for their basic needs. CWA "saved" them, when they found them a family. Our friends and family "saved" them when they so generously gave and held them up in prayer and we hope that someday the girls will allow God to save them, when they ask Jesus into their hearts. In the end... We know that they will have saved us, from our pride, our prejudice and our complacency. We honestly can't take credit for any of this, we are only trying to be obedient to God's call.

When we left church yesterday, we had $1200 more towards our travel expenses. We weren't expecting that at all...We have been given so much already. God has been so good to us!

Last night as I prayed, I cried out for God to somehow provide enough money so that we could not only cover our plane tickets, but so that we could also afford to buy some orphanage donations to take with us.

God not only heard my prayer, he answered it!! Today has been an amazing day of watching God work and I just can't wait to share with you how amazing He is!!

Through and online acquaintance, we were asked if we could carry a few small things to medical missionaries who live in Soddo and who work with the orphanage our girls came from. We asked this person to see if there were any other needs that we could help with. The missionary
e-mailed back and said she was in tears that we we would ask. Apparently they desperately need food storage containers so that they can keep the bugs out of the food and keep it clean. They also needed small baby bottles and nipples for the new born babies. She offered to send us money to buy the containers because they cost around 6-8 dollars each here in the US and she was thrilled that we were willing to bring things over.

When I read this I just started crying... I knew with us still needing $7000 for our travel expenses there was no way we could afford to buy these things and I hated the thoughts of having to ask the missionary send us money. I prayed about it, then posted a request to my friends on the Christian Ethiopian message board along with my paypal account in case anyone wanted to help. With in 10 minutes, I had $25 sent to my paypal account! Several more people have since donated and someone is even sending me baby bottles. Last I checked we had $76 and promises for more checks to come in the mail. Not only will we have enough for the containers and bottles, we may even have enough to buy the Rubbermaid totes to transport them in.

Thank you to those of you who heard God's call today and answered it! I just know that this missionary family and the children of Soddo will be so blessed by your generosity!

I know I was!!

Thank you for reading,
Beth ~

We have three new daughters!!!!

2009-01-06T15:26:00.003-05:00

Sometime during the night last night, our case went before the Ethiopian court and was found favorable. We are kind of shocked to have passed court our first time and sad for friends who didn't. We are praising God for his grace and mercy. We are so thankful to the Ethiopian government for giving us this chance to reach out to three of their beautiful children and embrace them as our own. We grieve with their birthmother and hold her up in prayer daily. My God give her peace and comfort.

We have a tentative Embassy date of Feb 10th. We will know for sure in a few days as tomorrow (Jan 7th) is Christmas in Ethiopia and things are closed for a few days. It's hard to believe that in 5 short weeks we will be meeting our girls!

We had kind of a rough day yesterday, our case worker from CWA called and said they had found a heart problem with our oldest daughter, M. She wanted to know if we wanted to proceed to court. I assured her that Yes we did, and if anything, we wanted M home sooner. Apparently her heart is enlarged. Our pediatrician says it's due to either severe malnutrition or a congenital defect. They have ordered a echocardiogram in Ethiopia and if shows something serious we may have to see if we can expedite our travel to get her here to a Dr sooner.

We are running the gammet of emotions excited, anxious, scared, you name it.

So with out further introduction....

The newest members of our family (please click the link)

Ethiopian adoption

Remember me?

2008-12-09T13:04:00.002-05:00

Oh my land, I can't believe how this blog has gotten away from me!! We have just been so busy with school and family stuff. It's hard to believe that Christmas is almost upon us!

We've have some great news on the adoption front, we have been given a court date of January 6th. The court hearing happens in Ethiopia but we don't have to be there for it. If all goes as planned, we will travel five weeks after our case passes court, which puts us traveling in the middle of February. It's not uncommon however for cases to fail court several times and have delays. Please pray that our case will pass the first time. We feel that the girls have waited so long already for a family, it breaks our hearts to think that this could drag on even longer.

We've been getting new pictures of the girls every month. They have changed so much, the youngest (age 2-3) is losing that toddler look and looking more like a little girl. The oldest (age 12-13) has gone from looking like a little girl to looking like a teenager. But the good part is they are growing and look healthy and happy. We are so anxious to meet them and get to know them.
It's exhilarating and terrifying all rolled into one!

Home school fun!

2008-10-29T08:32:00.013-04:00

I haven't posted about our recent homeschool activities. We have been doing school with another Family this year. The mom who is a high school English teacher by profession has graciously agreed to school our oldest daughter Se in English, Science and History in exchange for Me teaching Art to her children. It has worked out much better than I ever anticipated. She gives Se her assignments and on Friday afternoons we all meet together for the older kids to go over English assignments, have history discussion time, do science labs and do a group art project.

So far in the last 8 weeks, in art, we have made Medieval illuminations (letters with fancy drawings around them and gold leafing),paper Mosaics, Stain glass, paintings of a castle at night and the younger kids have made lapbooks about knights. The younger kids also made a 3D map of the Viking's routes.

Here are some pictures of what we have done.

This is 10 yr old Sj with his illuminated letter. (he had a little help with the writing ;)

These are pictures of the kids making paper mosaics. This was a two week project. The first Friday, I had the kids paint on big squares of card stock, they could do anything they wanted as long as they covered the entire surface with paint. After they dried, I cut the card stock into 1/4 inch squares. Then on the second Friday the kids made mosaic designs with the tiny squares. This was so much fun! The little squares with all their swirled colors were really beautiful and they made awesome mosaic tiles.

This is what school looks like at our house....

Not really! But I took this picture of the kids with their school books warming their toes in front of the fire the other morning when it was real cold. Usually we do school down stairs in our school room.

I just had to take this picture! Lol!! Someday when they are all complaining about Biology, I can show them that they use to love Biology when they were little and beg for their sister to read it out loud.

This is a picture of my little chef's making play dough cookies.

This is M (age 6) reading a book to K (16 months)

Adoption Cards

2008-10-29T08:26:00.002-04:00

In an effort to raise money for our traveling expenses, I have designed Chirstian adoption cards for Africa, South Korea, China and Russia. You can see them at .. http://freewebs.com/adoptioncards/

Thank you

Great news!! The Lord provides!

2008-10-08T20:03:00.003-04:00

We just found out that our dossier was shipped to Ethiopia today! Everything seems to be coming together. We ended up only lacking $1,600 of the $19,000 we needed in order to send our dossier and we were able to scrape that together last week. At the same time, our paperwork was completed after being re-authenticated in Washington DC. So praise God, everything was shipped today. From what we understand, it will take 5-6 days to get to Ethiopia and another 5-6 days to go through the MOWA (where it will be translated) and sent to court. We are really hoping to travel before Christmas but it looks like a long shot but then...who are we to limit what God can do?!

We have 10-12 thousand dollars to raise for our travel expenses.

On Saturday we received a letter from Shaohannah's hope (Steven Curtis Chapman's organization) that we have been awarded a $5,000 grant. Whoo Hooo!!! That leaves only $5-8000! That seems so with in reach!

On Sunday we received a call from another grant organization who wanted a little phone interview as they are reviewing our application this week. Please pray!

Also... friends of ours from church invited us to a huge birthday bash that they are having for all of their 6 kids this coming Sunday. They told us that the kids requested that instead of gifts for themselves, they wanted to ask people to give gifts of money for our adoption. We were so touched by this. sniff,sniff...

It's been really hard being on the receiving end of all of this...but we are absolutely amazed at how God has answered our prayers! When we started this process we had no idea how God would provide. We almost didn't apply to Life Song (the matching grant organization) because the thoughts of having to ask people for help was just too much for us. We kept remembering however, the voice of Larry Burkett saying "How can God's people help if they don't know the need." So, we swallowed our pride and wrote the suport letter. We have been so humbled...and amazed at how people responded. By the time the grant ended, we had received $11,500. Which with the $4000 grant brought our total to $15,500! (almost enough to send our dossier)

So many times I hear people say "Oh, I'd love to adopt but I just don't have that kind of money". Well I am writing this because, we had absolutely no money to adopt when we started any of our adoptions. We stepped out in faith believing that if God called us to adopt, He would supply the money and He has been faithful to provide more than we could ever ask or imagine.

I was reading my journal tonight and when I first started feeling that God was speaking to me about adopting again, I brazenly made a list of things that God would have to do to make it happen. Here is MY list and HIS answers.

1. Get J (my husband) to agree 2/23
2. Have my parents approval 3/10
3. Show us a country where we would meet the requirements 4/10
4. Show us the perfect child/children 4/13 (saw the girls) 4/17 (J's Birthday told CWA we wanted to pursue adopting the girls)
5. supply the money 9/29 ($4000 matching grant from lifesong=$15,500total)
10/4 ($5,000 grant from Shaohannah's hope)

God is good, all the time!

All the time, God is good!

2008-09-22T21:58:00.010-04:00

Wow, I can't believe I haven't updated this since the beginning of August! Not much has happened in our adoption but we have been busy, busy, busy!

Our daughters Se (15) and L (5) were both in our niece's wedding. They did a great job and looked beautiful. I was very concerned with how L would do. She is a cute as a button but can be quite a pill. I have to admit, that I ended up bribing her with candy to get her to walk down the aisle. At the rehearsal she got down the aisle, took one look at the wedding party and demanded "Where's my candy??" Thankfully she didn't do that at the wedding!

On the farm, we have some frustrations. Our plan has been to raise all of our own meat, eggs and as much veggies and fruit as possible. We were raising chickens for both meat and eggs and they were doing fantastic until we came home from church and visiting my parents to find all but two of them dead in the yard. Our wonderful dog Pickles apparently got bored and killed 38 chickens. It was horrifying! Our yard looked like a crime scene minus the chalk outlines.

We had been free ranging them in our yard for over a week and the dog hadn't paid any attention to them. I guess he was just waiting for us to leave. Lets just say, he is lucky he didn't join the chickens that day.

We were able to get more chicks to raise for meat but we couldn't get any more pullets to raise for eggs. It is so frustrating when you plan on having something like that and then it's gone. I was really looking forward to fresh eggs. We went to a poultry auction last weekend and Se bought a few chickens. They are really pretty but we think most of them are roosters....shows how much we know about chickens...

Se (15) made a quilt in our homeschooling group (totally hand stitched and quilted) and entered it as a 4H project in the county fair where she got a best of show ribbon. Then it went to the state fair and won a blue ribbon. she also won a blue ribbon at the state level for her yeast rolls. We were so proud of her! Here is a recent picture with her and her baby Rascal.

On the adoption end of things, we have had some of our paperwork expire which is incredibly frustrating to have to do over again but on a good note, by the time it is done, we should have enough to send our dossier to Ethiopia. The matching grant and support letter that we sent out went way better than we ever could have dreamed. We have received over 11,000 in donations so with the matching grant, it brings our total to over $15,000. We have been so humbled and blessed by the outpouring of love and support we have received. It has truly been an answer to prayer. Now we will need to start saving for or travel expenses. We are really hoping to travel sometime before Christmas. Please pray that the girls case will pass through court on the first try. From what we understand sometimes it can take several tries and things can be delayed for months. We are so anxious to get the girls home and start our lives together. We know however that God's timing is always perfect so we are content for now to wait on Him.

The garden and an update on the girls

2008-08-07T22:13:00.007-04:00

My Garden has been unbelievable this year! We have been eating peas, sugar snap peas, onions, lettuce , spinach, beets, Zucchini (23 so far off one plant!) peppers, potatoes, green beans and cucumbers. Below is a picture of my little helper touching one of the spaghetti squash. I started picking the buds off because at last count I had 33 of them growing. My mom had a fit that I would pick the buds off but oh my goodness how many spaghetti squash can I possibly use?! Being gluten free has been a real challenge until I discovered that spaghetti squash makes a good substitute for the real deal. They seem to keep well to so hopefully they will last me awhile. This is M peaking around the back side of the garden. He is my number one garden helper and weed puller. He love to collect worms for fishing while we work. That reminds me...the other night we went fishing and I caught an 18 inch and a 16 inch catfish out of our pond. I'm not much of a fisherman. I can't bring myself to bait my hook with a worm so I used corn. I guess the fish liked it though. It was pretty awesome, for dinner that night, we had fish, potatoes, beans and beets. All things we had grown ourselves. It gave us a good feeling to know we could provide for our family like that and it didn't cost us much of anything except our labor.

In case you are wondering what that is growing over the archway at entrance of the garden..It's bird house gourd vines. I am hoping they will produce lost of gourds that I can dry out and paint on. If so, they will make nice gifts. Things have been super busy for us this summer so I haven't had much time to update my blog. I've been busy selling homeschool curriculum on Ebay the last few weeks and buying new curriculum for this coming year. I have tons of school planning to do in the next few weeks. We will be using Tapestry of Grace again this year (love it!). God really blessed us with friends who have helped us out. By trading curriculum, I was able to get everything I needed this year for half the cost. I'll be using some new material this year for some of our other subjects am I am excited to see how everything comes together. I still have no idea how I will school our new girls when they come home. Sometimes I get overwhelmed thinking of the logistics of it all with the language barrier... but I am trying not to borrow trouble by thinking about it too much. I'm sure God will give me the wisdom and grace I need to handle things as they come my way.

We received updated pictures of the girls last week. They were holding the little photo albums I made and sent over. It is surreal to see them on the other side of the world holding something that I made and held with my own hands just a few weeks ago. It's a connection. The girls looks good and happy. We are so anxious to bring them home and start lovin on them!

We have been re-arranging rooms to make room for them. Earlier in the week we took everything out of Se's (our oldest daughter) room. We painted it a light blue and painted big dark blue and teal circles on the walls. It turned out really cool and retro looking. I hope the girls like it. Today J (my husband) started building a big table and benches for our breakfast nook. Lots of changes going on. I think our whole family is nesting!

Well, thanks for checking in. Please keep us in your prayers!

Beth ~

Update!

2008-07-22T19:11:00.003-04:00

We have some great news! An organization called Lifesong for Orphans has generously awarded us a matching grant of $4000. This means that they will match dollar for dollar any gifts that we are given up to $4000. It is very hard for us to have to ask for help, especially with the rising cost of gas and food. We have written a letter and will be sending it out to friends and family. Our pastor has also let us put the letter in our church bulletin and news letter. Please join us in praying that God will continue to provide and that people will be touched by our adoption story and prompted to give.

I also need to share this... A few weeks ago, We had been doing vacation bible school all week at church, Wednesday we had to take the day off to go and get our USCIS fingerprints done. We drove 3 hours (one way). We were so thrilled when we got there that there was a parking place right out front. We had even prayed that there would be. We went and got fingerprinted, which took all of 10 minutes, came out and found a ticket on our windshield. Apparently we had parked in the bus spot. The sign was behind a tree branch and we didn't see it. I know this is really pitiful, but we are so hard pressed for money right now, a $35 ticket was enough to make me cry . On Thursday we went back to working at VBS, we told a couple of people at church about our ticket, not thinking any thing of it. When we got in the car afterwards there was an envelope sitting on the seat. There was $35 inside. I got all teary again. God just showed me once again that, if he cares enough to take care of the little things, we shouldn't be worrying about the big things. He can make the impossible possible.

We have been so blessed already by the outpouring of love and support from friends and family. At first everyone thought we were crazy for wanting to adopt again but now I think they are catching the vision.

In a country of 5.5 million orphans all these little things are adding up to a life changing event for three young girls.

If you are reading this and you feel led, please remember our family in prayer, and pray for the following:
* Our current financial need. God has already provided over $7000 but we need $18,000 in order to send our dossier to Ethiopia. We will also need almost $10,000 for traveling expenses.
* For the girls safety and health while living in the orphanage in Ethiopia.
* For their adjustment into our family. They will experience a huge culture shock in coming to the United States.
* For our safe travel to and from Ethiopia.
* For the girls as they grieve leaving Ethiopia and all they have ever known.
* For all of our current children and the adjustments they will have to make.

If you would like to send a gift to Lifesong to help with our adoption expenses, please e-mail me and I will tell you how.

Beth ~

Our baby is one!

2008-07-01T15:49:00.003-04:00

K is one! It's hard to believe that a year has past since this little pumpkin was born. My pregnancy with K came as a surprise just one month after losing our tiny baby girl. It was a pregnancy filled with fear and a lingering sadness for the little one we had lost. At times we were sure we would lose K too. At 30 weeks gestation I was getting steroid shots and trying to prepare myself for a premature birth. But K held in there and was delivered by c-section only one week before her due date. I had a horrible experience having a section and vomited the entire time but I will never forget those first few moments after she was born and hearing her cry for the first time. I wept ...anyone who has ever had a high risk pregnancy or given birth to a baby too weak to cry can understand the emotion of hearing those first lusty cries of a healthy infant. It was music to my ears. I prayed right then and there that God would help me never to take for granted my baby's cries. K has been a wonderful baby. She is happy and funny. She is content to sit and watch the other children play yet at the same time anxious to join in their fun.

I thought she would be an early walker because by 9 months she was cruising furniture. But she has taken her time and just started walking within the past few weeks. She loves to be outside and we think she will be a horse lovin' farm girl like the rest. I praise God daily that he gave me this little girl, not to replace the child we lost, but to bring healing to my heart and joy to my days. I love you K!

The view from my kitchen window

2008-06-26T08:54:00.004-04:00

When we built our house, we connected the garage with a breeze way. This left a good sized space between the house and garage and left me looking out my kitchen window at the garage wall. We decided that this space would be perfect for a flower garden. It has turned out beautifully. I love to look out my window now and see humming birds come to the flowers.

The best part is that it is all fenced in, so the dog stays out. Our Dog's name is Pickles. He is great with the kids but a real stinker when it comes to my flower beds!

My garden

2008-06-25T22:42:00.005-04:00

Just thought I would share a few pictures of my garden. We built our house 5 years ago and finally got around to putting in garden. The ground is all clay here so we are using raised beds and 'gardening by the square foot'. I'm trying to grow as much as I can vertically. The last picture is of the kids play house and swing set that sets right beside the garden. It works out great because the kids can play while I'm working and I can still keep my eye on them.

Ippy

2008-06-25T16:41:00.004-04:00

As promised, here are some pictures of our adorable kitten, Ippy. I suppose I should explain the name... When M was about 3, he use to march around the house demanding "Where's my Ippy?" No one had a clue what he was talking about. We never did find out exactly what ippy was but M did tell us once that ippy lived in the garage, was orange and had purple spots....We were so relieved....we were beginning to suspected that ippy was a missing body part! ;-)

Anyways, for years M has talked about ippy so it was only fitting that he name the kitten Ippy.

Se and I had taken to calling it Ippycat, but since that sounds like a nasty medicine, we are trying to refrain and stick to just plain old Ippy.

Now....Where's my ippy??

Waiting on the Lord...

2008-06-21T07:15:00.004-04:00

At this point we have about a week to come up with $18,000 so that our dossier can be sent to Ethiopia. We could take out a loan.. our adoption agency said that if we took out a loan, paid our fees and then received grants, they would reimburse us for the loan.
But...we are just waiting on the Lord. We know we should feel sense of panic but instead we have a sense of anticipation to see how God will supply. When you look at stories of people in the Bible, The people God chose to do his work, were not fully equipped, they were just willing. Again and again God chose ordinary people and and through their willingness, He did extraordinary things. We started this adoption on faith that if we were doing God's will, He would supply. So far every penny we have needed has been there. So we will continue to wait and see what God will do.

Yesterday we had a bunch of guys from J's senior class over. It was suppose to be a day of fishing and swimming in the pond but thunderstorms moved in. At first we were really disappointed but in hind sight we could see how things worked out better because of the rain.
J wanted to have the guys over so that he could witness to them. He had been talking to the guys all year but felt he had more to say than what he could say in the school setting. because of the rain everyone was gathered inside the house or on the porch so he was able to talk to all of them as a group. If the weather had been nice, they would have been spread out around the pond and talking would have been difficult. When we sat down for dinner the guys asked about our table. We have a huge map of the world, a map of Ethiopia and pictures of our girls under a large clear plastic table cloth. J had told them in school about adoption but they had a lot of questions. so it was great to be able to talk to them more about orphans, poverty, adoption and our faith that God will supply. Many of the kids J gets in school have rough home lives so I think some of the guys really enjoyed just interacting with our family and seeing what a family looks like. Some of the guys stayed until almost 10pm. Now we are praying now that God will water the seeds that were planted.

This morning J got up early and took Se, Sj and M with him to our annual church fishing derby. There will be fishing, prizes for the kids and a huge potluck lunch. I'll be leaving in a little while with L,B and K to meet up with them. Hopefully the weather will hold off and they will be able to catch some fish today.

Busy, busy..an update..

2008-06-18T05:02:00.003-04:00

I feel terrible that I haven't been able to update this blog in a while. We have been so busy trying to get school finished and our dossier completed. We finally have the dossier done and approved by CWA. the next step is to send it to Washington DC to have it authenticated and then on to the Ethiopian Embassy to have it authenticated. After that, we can send it to Ethiopia...well, that is if we can pay our remaining fees.... We have less than two weeks to come up with a little over $18,000. We do not have the money so, we are anxious to see how God will provide!
We received a new dvd of the girls yesterday. It was only a few minutes long but it was great to see them interacting with each other. We could just see and feel the love between them.

On the farm... Something has been killing our chickens. We lost 5 the night before last and 4 the night before that. It's so frustrating to not lose a single one as chicks and then to lose them now to a predator. The kids and I spent 3 hours yesterday putting more wire around their pen to reinforce it.

On a good note, last night J had a ball game and we all went as a family. The place where the ball field is, was having a homeschool used book sale. I went it to look around and came out with an adorable little black and white kitten. M (age 6) has been praying for a free kitty for about a year. He has been very specific that it had to be black and white and be a girl. So when I saw it,
I just knew... It is exactly 8 weeks old and was born on J's birthday. I'll post a picture of it later.

Tapestry of grace

2008-05-22T23:37:00.003-04:00

Sj dressed as Simon Bolivar during our Tapestry of Grace, South America unit celebration.

We have been using Tapestry of Grace (TOG) for the last year and we are loving it! TOG is a literature and history based Christian home school curriculum. It incorporates hands on activities and encourages unit celebrations at the end of each ten week unit so that the children can share with family and friends what they have learned.

We don't always do a huge unit celebrations but we decided to do it up big during our study of South America. We did this several months ago but I thought I'd share some of the pictures now

that I have a blog.

We invited the kids Grandpa, Grandma, Aunt and Uncle. We tried to make either a dish or dessert for each of the countries in South America. The kids even carved Easter Island heads out of butter.

We made several traditional South American cookies and a giant peanut butter cookie map of South America for dessert.

Our center piece was a fat lady pot that Se made out of Salt dough. Our Celebration was a lot of work but we had a great time and I'm sure it's something the kids will always remember!

If you would like to know more about Tapestry of Grace please click on the link on the right.

It is an awesome curriculum!!

Craft show and adoption finances

2008-05-22T22:31:00.003-04:00

This is one of the slates I painted for the craft show last weekend. I was so discouraged, the weather was nasty so people didn't come out and we didn't sell hardly anything. At one point the roof blew half off our tent. We had one corner that kept collapsing, so we finally made the decision to pack up and head home. By the time we paid our registration fee, I think we cleared a grand total of 52 dollars and that didn't even include our gas to get there and back. It was really sad.... I felt like God was trying to remind us that in and of ourselves we can't do this adoption. We totally have to rely on Him.

Things are coming together quickly with our dossier prep and we only have a few more documents to gather before we can send it to be authenticated. That means we have very little time to come up with the majority of the fees. We know God can supply the money we need but it gets harder the closer we get. We are anxiously awaiting our homestudy, which is complete but being approved by CWA, so we can apply for some grants. Please keep us in your prayers!

Grief...

2008-05-22T09:08:00.000-04:00

I was so heartbroken yesterday to learn of the tragic death of Steven Curtis Chapman's daughter, Maria.
I can't begin to imagine the pain and heart ache their family is going through right now. It's hard to understand why God allows things like this to happen, especially when we know that in all things God works for the good of those who love him (Romans 8:28). How can that be? How can God make something good come out of a tragedy like this? This verse does not imply that everything that happens to us is good. It means that God is able to turn every circumstance in our lives (even the death of a child) around and use it as something good to fulfill His will and His purpose.

We may never know this side of heaven the good that God works out of the tragic things that happen in our lives, but we can take comfort in knowing that He grieves with us and he will comfort us.
I can't help but think of that song Beauty for Ashes. The chorus goes- He gives beauty for ashes, strength for fear, gladness for mourning, peace for despair.. It's hard to imagine feeling gladness after a loss.

I remember the first time I caught myself laughing after we lost our daughter. I was shocked by it and felt almost guilty that I had allowed myself to feel happiness. I know God understands that but He wants us to find happiness again. He wants us to seek Him so that he can turn our mourning into dancing. It takes years sometimes to get to that point, but take heart, joy does eventually return.

If you are reading this, please join me in keeping Steven Curtis Chapman and his family in your prayers.

Dandy lovers

2008-05-15T23:22:00.000-04:00

These are my dandy lovers. In the spring they can be found outside picking dandelions with their faces stained yellow from sniffing. I can hardly keep up with the bouquets they bring me. I know dandelions are a weed but they sure are pretty and much loved by these two little ones!

Homestudy and homestead happenings

2008-05-15T21:49:00.001-04:00

We had our homestudy done last week. Everything went smoothly. I am thrilled that our Social worker is an adoptive parent herself. We hope to have it written up by the beginning of next week so we can start to apply for some grants.
On another note we sent our i-600 and it got rejected because we apparently sent too much money. We called the USCIS to see how much to send and went by what the recording said. So now we have to re-apply. The good thing is that we also got a bill today from the Social worker that we hadn't planned on to cover her mileage and it is the exact same amount that we over paid USCIS. I love seeing God work things out like that!

We have had some excitement on the farm this week. Monday we got three piglets. We named them Snap, Krackle and Pop. One is red with black spots and the other two are different shades of reddish brown with a white stripe around their middles. When J picked them up from our neighbor up the road, he put them if feed sacks and put them in the back of the truck. Se and one of her friends had a fun ride home, trying to hold them down. She was so disgusted by them she couldn't wait to jump in the shower. I think they are adorable!

Yesterday we got a call from the post office that our chicks were in. It was pretty weird getting chicks in the mail but it was fun to walk into the post office to hear tons peep,peep peeping. As I carried the box out they were all pecking my fingers through the air holes. So far all 50 have survived. They are so cute and fuzzy!

The horses got out today but they didn't go far and we were able to get them back in with out much trouble. Se is doing a great job training the colt. He is a beautiful little guy but he is growing like a weed. He's not thrilled with the rest of the family but will let us pet him. The little kids are just too loud and they scare him.

It will be interesting when we get the girls home. I wonder how much exposure they have had with animals. I sure hope they like them!

This weekend my mom and I are doing a craft show. We have lots of left over painted slates from our craft show days. All of the profits will go to the adoption. (thanks Mom!) . I made 32 pair of earings yesterday that I also hope to sell. My finger tips are raw so I hope it was worth the effort!

Pretty as a princess

2008-05-06T13:19:00.000-04:00

This is L, our beautiful, petite, precocious, four year old. She will turn five in June but is just getting into size 3 clothing. L might look like a little princess but don't be fooled! She has no trouble keeping up with her brothers and can hold her own in their wrestling matches. She loves anything creepy crawly and like her older sister, she loves animals, especially horses!

Writing a letter to M's birth mother....

2008-05-05T21:12:00.000-04:00

The other day I spent hours trying to compose a letter to M’s birth mother. Normally this might not come as such a hard task, but in our situation it was very difficult. M is 6; we adopted him at the age of 7 months as a waiting child from South Korea. No one could have known when he was a baby, that as he grew, he would struggle with a condition known as sensory integration disorder. Children with this condition need to learn how to respond to the world around them. It is extremely frustrating to the child. In M’s case, the condition caused severe under sensitivity in the areas of pain, taste and smell and over sensitivity in the areas of touch and sound. When he was younger, his frustration caused him to have frequent melt downs and to act out behaviorally. Because of this our first 4 years with M were very difficult. I put off writing a letter to his birth mother because, honestly, it would have been hard to find a lot of good to say during that time, and we didn’t want to say anything that would add to her pain.
After speaking to the Korean program director at WHFC about this, I felt that we had done the right thing in waiting. She casually mentioned that, in that time, no one had looked at M’s file or inquired about him. My first thought was “good, his birth mother wouldn’t have missed the letters”, but then I was struck with an overwhelming sadness. Why hadn’t she come and looked? It’s been 6 years…didn’t she care? Didn’t she ever wonder what happened to him? It made me both sad and angry; it broke my heart.
After a moment I thought about our daughter K. Giving birth to and then losing my own baby gives me a whole new compassion for what birth mothers must go through in relinquishing their babies. I know well the pain of carrying a child and then having no child to carry. But how could a woman carry a baby for 9 months and not care or wonder about him? It seems impossible. I know, in our situation, we wanted K, and we had hopes and dreams for her future, but I also know in many of the birth mothers’ situations, a pregnancy is neither expected nor welcomed. Even so, it made me question, how could a woman carry a baby for 9 months and not even wonder.
As these thoughts swirled through my mind, a still, small voice asked me ‘‘ how many times have you gone to K’s grave?” I was shocked and then dismayed as I thought about my answer. “None. Never.” Even now, almost two years later it is too painful. Not a day has passed when I haven’t at least wondered about our little girl. Who would she have looked like? Would she have had curly hair? Would she have been a good sleeper? An easy going baby? As difficult as it is knowing I will never see my daughter again this side of heaven, I can’t begin to imagine the pain of knowing that somewhere in the world your child is alive, but not knowing where. Knowing that someone else is tucking him in at night and kissing away his hurts. Knowing that you didn’t have the resources to provide for him even if you wanted to. I had to ask myself “if it were me would I be able to look into that file?” To be honest, I’m not sure if I would.
So I sat down and wrote the letter. I am sending it to be put in M’s file in Korea. It is my prayer that someday his birthmother will look and find comfort in knowing that we are eternally grateful for the unselfish gift of life she gave to M and that her son-our son- is a happy, well-adjusted, rambunctious little boy who is deeply loved.

M and Sensory Integration Disorder

2008-05-05T19:32:00.000-04:00

This is a picture of M age 6, taken a few days after Christmas. He had just made scrambled eggs with ham and cheese and chocolate chip muffins for breakfast. We are so proud of how far this little man has come in the past couple of years. He has definitely been a challenge but it's been great to watch him change and grow. M has sensory integration disorder (SID) and life with him has been interesting to say the least!

I'll never forget the day M discovered his sense of smell, he was around 4 yrs old. It's something we all take for granted but to him it was like discovering a whole new world. I loved hearing him say "Mmmm, what ya cookin Mom?" and we all laughed at the horrible face he made the first time he smelled a skunk. Now he drives us all crazy with his need to touch everything (good and gross) and sniff his fingers but it's nice to know he can experience his surroundings more and we take the good with the bad... although it can get rather embarrassing at times!

When M was diagnosed with SID it was still quite controversial and not much was known about it. Now I've noticed that it's widely mentioned in magazines and adoption books. I wish we had those kinds of resources available to us back when M was diagnosed. We were so overwhelmed by this boy who was so intense, hyper, compulsive etc... We had very little information available to us and his occupational therapist and I were always on the look out for some new and unique kind of sensory play we could do with M to help him learn to cope with his senses and his surroundings.

There were days when M was 2 that I didn't think either one of us would live to see him turn 3 much less start kindergarten. With up to 60 head banging tantrums a day, every day... I was totally exhausted! When nap time rolled around the older kids and I would do the happy dance around the kitchen table just knowing we would have an hour or so of peace. M slept in a crib until he was three that had a netted tent that completely covered the top of it. He was so compulsive that we had to keep him contained for his own safety, otherwise we would wake during the night to the sound of the bath tub being filled or him rummaging through the fridge. We had to cut the feet off his sleepers and put them on him backwards with a safety pin at the top to keep him from soiling his diaper and painting the walls with it.

During the day it was a hundred times worse... I became so hyper vigilant that I could never let my guard down and relax. When I knew M was finally sleeping at night I would instantly fall asleep myself. Did I mention it was an exhausting couple of years??!!

When we adopted M, no one talked about what it was like to adopt a child who had SID or what it was like to adopt a child who didn't quite measure up to your dreams and expectations. All I had ever heard of was all the rosie adoption experiences with angelic children. Because of that, I felt like I was doing something wrong. I felt like a failure. I would stand over M's crib at night and pray that God would help me to love him. M was totally different than the child I had envisioned. I thought after all God had done to lead us to adopt and the miraculous way He provided all the money that I would have this fabulous adoption testimony to share. I was so disappointed. I would cry out almost daily to God and say "why did you give us a child like this?" I felt like I was being punished. One night while standing over M's crib I heard God answer...."I didn't give him TO you...I gave him YOU!" I realized than that God knew exactly what He was doing in giving us this child. M needed US as his parents and God chose us to do that job. Another family might have disrupted or worse... God gave him to us because he trusted us with his care. I was so humbled and ashamed of my selfishness.

When M was a baby, I thought he hated me. Little did I know that my soft touch and the pitch of my voice felt like an assault on his senses, where his Dad's firmer touch and deeper voice was comforting and less offensive. He was trapped inside a body he couldn't understand and his only way of communicating was to fight back and melt down. Over that past few years, I've learned a lot about SID, a lot about M and a lot about myself. I don't have the testimony I thought I would...but God has given me a different kind of testimony. Somehow we made it through and although M still isn't perfect and has his moments... he's the perfect boy for us!

Where we are going....

2008-04-30T10:33:00.000-04:00

Where are we going? ... Apparently we are going to Africa!

I had been feeling the burden to adopt again for a while now. I dreaded saying anything to J because I knew he felt our family was complete. It got to he point however that I was miserable and felt I had to say something. I told him while we were kneeling by our bed one night preparing to pray. I expected him to come unglued.. but instead, he was moved to tears. As we held hands and prayed, we told God we were willing to do what ever he asked of us. As we finished we both looked at each other and at the same time said "this is crazy!!" We don't have the money to adopt, we are to old and we have too many children to meet most countries requirements. I was planning on getting a tummy tuck for crying out loud! As desperately as I wanted the TT, I told God I'd be willing to give it up if He wanted us to adopt a child instead.

In Feb we started tentatively looking at agencies and country requirements. We were both feeling strongly that God was calling us to adopt a child with limb differences from China but we didn't meet the requirements. Even though Ethiopia didn't have the strict family size, age and income requirements, we ruled them our almost instantly. How could we bring an Ethiopian child into this 'white' community? We looked at Korea, Thailand, the Philippines, Taiwan, Vietnam...one by one the doors were slamming shut. We started to question, "was God really calling us to do this?" Then a series of events happened that made us consider Ethiopia again. J had traveled to Detroit to a car show, while there, he visited the Ford museum and sat in the famous Rosa Park bus. While sitting in Rosa Park's seat, the tune "this little light of mine" played in the back ground and he was moved again to tears (J is never this emotional!!). That Sunday he went to church at an all black church and what did they sing?.... "This little light of mine"!!

J came home and we continued to look at other countries. Ethiopia had crossed my mind several times but I kept disregarding it because I knew J had ruled it out. Then one night before bed J said "I've been thinking about Ethiopia". I knew this was from God. I started to do some research and we prayed for confirmation. We went to church the next Sunday and the sermon was titled "in his image." I couldn't stop crying, especially when a little girl in the congregation got up to play a song on the piano and played...you guessed it... "this little light of mine"! Some might say all of this is a coincidence but J and I really felt the Lord speaking to us. We started thinking about what children really need. Sure they need the basics.. food, shelter, clothing and education but what they really need is someone to love them unconditionally and more importantly, they need to know Jesus. We could do that. We might not be rich, we might not be able to offer private school, ballet lessons, designer clothes, restaurant meals, life in a diverse neighborhood etc... BUT... we could offer unconditional love, acceptance and the chance to know Jesus.

We earnestly started looking at adoption agencies that had programs in Ethiopia. In doing so we were given the passwords for a couple of waiting child listings. One of those was Christian World Adoption. We were planning on adopting one child maybe two under the age of 6. J and I were in total agreement that we did not feel like we were suppose to adopt an infant, which is strange since I love babies and had mourned the loss of my fertility. I always thought I would want more babies! Anyways, we had no intention of adopting an older child/children.

For some reason I couldn't resist looking at the photo listing. 7 pages of children...there were probably 50-60 children total in the listing. It broke my heart to see these children, Some with hopeful smiling faces, some shy, some sullen, sad and withdrawn...All older or part of a sibling group. On page 6, three little girls caught my eye they were 2, 7 or 8 and 12. I instantly thought "no way, they are too old, there is 3!!, I can't handle 3 more, they probably have background issues, they don't know English! NO WAY!!!" I closed the page and walked away. Later my daughter Se who is 14 said "mom, did you see the three girls on page 6". She gave me a knowing smile as I muttered "no way" and continued cooking dinner.

Later Se showed the list to her Dad and with out prompting or knowing who we had looked it, took notice of the same three girls. We talked about it later. Se was bubbly and excited saying "these are our girls!!" I was irritable and angry. I didn't want to discuss it. Three was too many, they were too old! J in his infinite wisdom kept quiet.

That night I couldn't sleep, I prayed on and off all night long. I kept telling God all the reasons why I couldn't do this but I think he was just smiling at me with that same knowing look Se had earlier. The next morning J tentatively suggested that maybe I should call CWA and ask about the girls. For some reason I agreed although in my mind I was thinking "no way, their too old, there are too many". We received very limited information and a few photos. I looked at the girls and voiced what I had been thinking "no way!"

Then Emily at CWA sent a short video clip of the middle and youngest child and something changed.... I was mesmerized... They were breathtaking... I looked past their age and the fact that there were three, they didn't know English, they would have background issues and saw little girls who needed a mom. I knew they were mine.

J and I called everyone we had ever heard of who had adopted from Ethiopia, we took extensive notes and shared our discoveries. We kept trying to come up with excuses as to why we couldn't adopt these girls but everything in us knew we should. We finally called CWA and told them YES! From that moment on we have had no fear. We have been filled with total peace. It really is the peace that passes all understanding. The human side of us still harbors fears but we know with God all things are possible and he is not the author of fear. We are moving forward in faith that God will supply the money needed to bring these girls home and to raise them.
We have seen numerous answers to prayer already and we know that God is good...all the time!

So, that is where we were, where we are and where we are going. If you are reading this, please pray for our family and these girls in Ethiopia. I would love to share their pictures and more information but for their privacy, I can't. I'll try to keep this updated as we go through the process. We feel so humbled and blessed that God is calling us to be Mommy and Daddy to three more of his precious children!
Thanks for reading,
Beth ~

Where we are....

2008-04-29T22:13:00.000-04:00

Before I get into where we are going, I thought I should tell a little bit about where we are now. As I said in a previous post, this year marks our 19th wedding anniversary. Even though we've had our rough spots, divorce is a word that has never been in our vocabulary. We have never been a couple who argues, other than over our first adoption and have rarely disagreed about anything. We are each others best friend and after all these years are still very much in love.

We are a home school family. We have used a lot of different curriculum's over the years but we have recently discovered Tapestry of Grace and love it. We like to do lots of hands on projects and find TOG to be a perfect fit for our family.

We live on 60 acres in a 5500 sq foot home that we built ourselves (with some help from our Amish neighbors). And yes...It has lots of windows and a gorgeous view! We are still working on finishing the house, we have yet to do mostly cosmetic things like building a deck, the rest of landscaping and a few inside details. Even though J is an automotive instructor by trade, he has the amazing ability to build things and has done a beautiful job on our house. Before tackling building a house, he had only done remodeling work. He has no fear of a job being too big and has proved this again by recently building our barn from start to finish with out any help.

We raise beef cows, horses and rabbits. We will soon be adding chickens, pigs and a milk cow. We try to live a simple life and we are trying to be self sufficient by raising our own meat, fruit and vegetables. The kids and I are looking forward to getting a Jersey cow next week and learning how to make cheese.

A little more about myself - I am a hair dresser by trade. I had my own Salon for 10 years, but retired after having Sj, my second child. He was such an active little guy and I really wanted to be able to home school Se our oldest. After giving up my salon, I started a small craft business with my mom. We both do decorative painting. We painted on and sold slates. We quit that in 2005 after the birth of B my 5th child. The demand had gotten so great that it was leaving little time for anything else. I knew I needed to make the kids and homeschooling my top priority.
Since 2005, I have have been trying to lose the weight I gained during my infertility years. From my highest non pregnant weight I have lost 70 lbs. It's taken 3 yrs but that's not bad considering I had 3 pregnancies during that time. I'm still trying to lose the last 20-30 lbs but I feel great.

In all my copious free time, Lol! I enjoy painting, quilting, scrap booking, jewelry making and gardening. My oldest daughter is always anxious to join in what ever I'm doing and has even taught herself to knit- which is something I can't do! My problem is that there is never enough time in the day to do all I want to do!!

Where have we been? Part 4

2008-04-29T20:08:00.000-04:00

Two weeks after returning home from Korea. I just couldn't seem to shake the exhaustion I felt from traveling. I went to the Dr to find out just how long jet lag was suppose to last and got the surprise of my life when I learned I was pregnant! After 8 years of total infertility God opened my womb! Everyone thought it was hilariously funny except me. I was feeling overwhelmed and exhausted. I thought I had put all of the infertility and miscarriages behind me but it all came flooding back and caused a lot of anxiety. I was so scared of losing the baby.

Everything went smoothly until at 23 weeks gestation, I went in for a normal check up and was immediately sent to the hospital. We were told that delivery was eminent and there was no hope of the baby surviving. We were totally devastated, we had just lost J's mom and the thoughts of losing the baby was more than we could bear. A specialist was called in and after a quick check told us not to worry,everything was fine. It was crazy! I was put on bed rest just to be on the safe side and sent home. A couple weeks later, nothing had happened so I was allowed to resume normal life. Thank God! Being on bed rest with two kids under 3 was a nightmare!!

At 36 weeks, a month before my due date, I went into labor and delivered a beautiful baby boy. He was tiny, but perfect in every way. It was so wonderful to have a new born again and we felt like his birth was God's reward for being obedient to the call to adopt. When I look back, I know that if I hadn't experienced infertility and miscarriages, we never would have adopted. God really does take our heart ache and bad experiences and work them for good.

When B was just 10 months old I found out I was expecting again. We were thrilled but everyone else thought we were crazy! My pregnancy went well until I was 21 1/2 weeks gestation. My sister had just come for her yearly visit when I started experiencing signs of impending labor. She took me to the hospital and I was immediately admitted. That night I underwent surgery to put in a cerclage (cervical stitch) to keep me from dilating. I was sent home but by 4 am the next morning, I was in labor. J and I went to the hospital and the Dr was forced to remove the stitch. I was severely infected. The Dr insisted that he had to break my water so that I would deliver quickly but I knew the baby was healthy and would have no chance of survival if delivered. I couldn't let him do something which I knew would kill my baby so I convinced him to let me go a few hours longer. It was horrible, I had a high fever and chills wracked my body, J was begging me to just let the Dr break my water because he was afraid for my life. We prayed endlessly that God would heal me and allow us to keep the baby...

But sometimes God says no....

A short while later, my water broke on it's own and I delivered a beautiful, perfectly formed, baby girl. She lived for almost two hours. As we held her we couldn't help but look at how perfect she was, right down to her tiny finger nails and eye lashes and feel the grief that God must feel when millions of tiny perfect babies just like her are aborted each year.

I was so grateful for the timing of everything and having my sister here. She and my mom took care of the children and everything while I was in the hospital which freed J up to be at my side.
He was such a comfort to me and I wouldn't have made it with out his love and support.

The days and weeks that followed her funeral were filled with grief unlike anything I had ever known. All of my hopes and dreams for who our little girl would someday be, were gone. J handled things differently than I did, he threw himself into working around the house. I had to remind myself that he didn't know her like I had. He hadn't been kept awake at night by her little kicks and movements, but his grief was just as real.

At first, I said I could never go through a pregnancy again but as I watched my children grieve the baby sister they wanted so badly...I decided to leave it up to God. To my surprise, two months later I found myself pregnant again. I was terrified but I trusted God and knew that even if I should go through another loss, He would be there to see me through. I would survive!

At 13 weeks I went through the surgery to put in another stitch. I was already dilating so it was done just in time. I was considered very high risk and had an ultra sound every week to make sure the stitch was holding. By 30 weeks gestation (10 weeks before my due date) The stitch was starting to give and I was at the hospital getting steroid shots to develop the baby's lungs and preparing for a premature delivery. I kept repeating my mantra of " I still trust you God".

Amazingly, I carried the baby until one week before my due date but ended up with a c-section and a tubal. My baby bearing days were over but I felt so incredibly blessed to have a new beautiful daughter. God has blessed us so much by giving us this little one. She has brought healing to wounded my heart.

K is now 10 months old. She is beautiful with curly red hair and big brown eyes. She is a happy baby and a delight to all who meet her. We are so thankful that God gave us one more little one to love and watch grow.

We currently have 6 children, Ages 14, 10, 6, 4, 3 and 10 months, we thought our quiver was full but then we heard God calling ......

Where have we been? Part 3

2008-04-29T17:02:00.000-04:00

In January of 2004 we started the process to adopt again from Korea. With both of our adoptions we used Wide Horizons for Children. We highly recommend them as an agency!
We had in mind that we wanted a little girl this time. Se desperately wanted a little sister. Just like with M's adoption, we started the process with nothing and somehow God supplied all of our needs. From start to finish, this adoption took just 5 months.

We completed our home study and with in a few days saw a beautiful baby girl on WHFC's waiting child listing. I e-mailed her info to J at work and he replied with "that's my new daughter!" We told WHFC that we were interested in proceeding and they informed us that 5 other families were also interested. They would have a meeting to determine which family would be best for her. I was scared but J kept insisting that this was his daughter and she would be ours. Before WHFC had a chance to hold the meeting, they sent all of the families an e-mail from an international adoption specialist who had looked at the baby's medical file. The Dr said that she would most likely have cerebral palsy and mental retardation. This terrified me! I was already dealing with a high maintenance, difficult child who required therapy several days a week. I knew I couldn't handle another child like M. J however kept insisting that this was his little girl.

After much prayer, we decided to tell WHFC that we were still interested. To our surprise, all 5 of the other families backed out and she was ours! We felt at peace about our decision and excitedly looked forward to getting the call to travel. We were praying that we would meet L before her first birthday which was June 16 th. We were so excited when we got the call and were told that we should be in Korea on June 14. June 14th just happened to be the same date we had met M at the airport two years earlier!

I traveled to Korea with my daughter Se (who was 11) and my sister. The day before we left J's mom went into the hospital for a simple procedure and had major complications with her pacemaker. She was air lifted to another hospital and put in ICU on a respirator. We did not know if she would live through the night, much less a week until we came home from Korea. That night we hardly slept. We didn't know if Se and I should go or stay... We finally decided that J's mom would have wanted us to go and meet our new daughter. J's mom did make it through the night but we had no idea if she would live through the next several days.
Leaving J at the airport was one of the hardest things I have ever done. I hated leaving him at a time when he needed my support but how could I not go and get our daughter. Se and I cried as we sat and waited to board the plane. We had so many mixed emotions.

We flew to my sister's house and spent the night there. Se's luggage was lost so borrowed clothes for her from her cousin who is the same age and made a quick run to Walmart for shoes and underthings. The next day we flew to Hawaii. We were only there for an hour, what torture!! Se and I promised each other that someday we would go back. From Hawaii we flew to Japan and then on to Seoul, South Korea. Having never been to foreign country, Korea was a bit overwhelming at first. We had a wonderful trip however and never felt unsafe. Korea was much like any city in the US, with 711's, Dunkin Donuts, Pizza hut's you name it. Most of the children in Korea live in foster homes but L had been living at the Reception Center since her birth. She was one of 5 babies under the care of the house mother and was very loved. The director of Holt (the agency in Korea) and the house mother took us under their wing while we were in Korea and we wer honored to see parts of Korea that most families who travel, don't have the chance to see. We even went to the DMZ (the border of North Korea) with them.

After all we had been through with M, we had been praying specifically that L would be a very sweet and sensitive child. I think God is still laughing because She is so sensitive you can even look cross eyed at her with out making her cry. She was not at all happy to see us and met us with ear piercing screams every time we entered the room. We were so blessed to actually be in Korea for L's birthday and the Reception Center held a huge catered birthday party for her. (Being there for her birthday was such an answer to prayer!!!) Just before the party we took L to the Dr for her final physical. She screamed so hysterically that the Dr gave me a bottle of sedative and told me that just a few drops would knock her out for 4-6 hours at a time on the flight home. I dreaded the idea of using it, but took it just in case. During the party L's house mother brought me into a different room, handed me an outfit and in her limited English said "you change". As I sat on the floor changing L, it was as if she just knew I was her mom. I never had to use the sedative because from that moment on she accepted me as her mom and never cried all the way home.

I worried how she would do once home, she had never been in a car seat, had rarely been outside, and had very little contact with men. She surprised me by taking it all in stride. She went right to J and instantly became Daddy's girl. Unlike M, L's adjustment was beautiful. She blended right into our family as if she had always been a part of it. Oh, I almost forgot to mention, L is perfectly healthy! She does not have CP or any other medical conditions! Isn't God AWESOME?!!!

J's mom never got to meet L, she lived until November but because of being in ICU, we were never able to take L to see her. We did however show her pictures and although she couldn't talk with the respirator, we could tell she was proud of her new little granddaughter. J was very close to his mom and her death left a large hole in all of our lives. We are grateful that she was a Christian and is spending eternity in heaven.

Where have we been? Part 2

2008-04-27T22:29:00.000-04:00

In 2001, I began researching adoption, the more I thought about it and prayed about it, the more I felt it was something God was calling us to do. J on the other hand, had absolutely no desire to adopt. I started praying that God would somehow change his mind. It was a difficult time for us. For the first time in our marriage we felt a wedge between us. We each felt justified in our desires for our family and we were both unmovable. Having recently bought a herd of dairy cows to milk, financially, international adoption was impossible. I held fast to my belief that this was God's will for our family.

At first, I admit, I hounded J. I left adoption information where he couldn't help but see it. I talked about it endlessly, I was bad! I realized however, that my efforts to convert him to the idea were making matters worse, so I decided to just keep quiet and pour out my heart to God. I had been reading a biography about Bob Pierce who was the man who started Samartian's Purse ministry. Bob was well know for his saying " let my heart be broken by things that break the heart of God." In this book was an interview that Bob had done with Gladys Allyward the missionary to China. Gladys told Bob of how she started her work of caring for orphans. She related her story of the sacrifices she made to save them, comparing it to the sacrifice Christ made to save her. I would love to quote it from the book but I'd probably get into some copy write trouble. Anyways, I broke my personal vow of silence with J because I was so moved by this story and wanted to share it with him. Amazingly, God used this story to break through to J and he agreed right then to do whatever it was God was calling us to do, even if that meant adopting. Immediately the wedge between us was gone.

We knew there was no way humanly possible to afford an adoption but we decided that any money coming into the house in my name would be set aside towards the "adoption fund". J's job had just been cut to half time, and I wasn't working so there wasn't any conceivable way we could afford to adopt. We stepped out on faith we started the process. By then it was 2001. 911 had just happened and it played a large role in what country we chose. We decided to adopt from South Korea because they had the option of an escort (we were scared to fly) and it was considered to be the "Cadillac of adoption programs." Shortly after finishing our home study, we were given information on a 4 month old little boy. He was considered special needs because of some issues after his birth. He was adorable and we quickly fell in love!

Some how, when we needed it, the money was there. We scrimped and saved, we received several checks in the mail addressed to me, kick backs from insurance, a home school group etc... When the time came to write the big check to the agency, we sat at the kitchen table with our money, bank statements etc spread all around us. We counted it all up and we were $49 short. I started to cry, we were so close and I knew there was no where we could pull $49 from. J sheepishly reached into his wallet and said "my Dad gave me this for Christmas, I was saving it for something special...I'd say this is something special!" and he threw a $50 bill on the table. God provided every cent of the adoption. We didn't have it until the very moment we needed it...but it was there. We sent our acceptance paperwork for baby M and the check and settled in for 3 month long wait.

Mean while, we had come to the conclusion that J's dream of farming wasn't the fairy tale we thought it would be. We had pictured it being a family farm where everyone chipped in and we worked as a family. The reality however was that J was working himself to death trying to make ends meet. He was getting up at 3 am, milking cows, leaving home at 11 am to go to work, returning home at 4 pm, just in time to milk again. We had no time together as a family because the kids were just too little to be of any help and I was not a farm girl at heart. I didn't mind being near the cows cute little faces but I wanted nothing to do with that other end!!!
We would eat dinner at 8 pm, J would fall into bed at 9 pm and start all over the next day at 3 am. We had no time together and it was taking a serious tole on our marriage. While waiting for the travel call for M, we made a life changing decision. We decided to sell our farm, keep 60 acres and build our dream house, the one with the windows and view. It was a huge change but one we knew we need to make to save our marriage.

In June of 2002 we met 7 month old M at the airport. He was beautiful and unafraid. I'll never forget the first time I held his warm little body in my arms. I couldn't believe we finally had another son. We were so happy. M was a happy little guy and seemed very easy going. As time went on however, we started to suspect that there might be something wrong. I suspected attachment problems. I had read about them in all my pre-adoption research and M had a lot of the classic signs. He refused to make eye contact with me and he would not face me to take his bottle. He also exhibited some self stimulating behaviors like head banging to fall asleep.

As M grew older, his behavior continued to go down hill. It was as if he hated me. He was fine with J and our daughter Se, but he had this love/hate relationship with me. He would cry to be picked up, yet as soon as I held him he would do everything he could to get away. He would smash his head into my face and literally throw himself from my arms. I was devastated. This was the child I longed for, the answer to my prayers and he hated me. His behavior continued to decline. We started to think maybe Autism was the cause. By 18 months old, M was having up to 60 head banging tantrums a day. He would have frequent nose bleeds, he drooled excessively. He ate as if he knew no fullness and would melt down if I tried to stop him. Everything was cause for a meltdown. I dreaded waking up each day and facing him. Out of desperation I contacted our Pediatrician and Early Intervention. We began a series of tests and evaluations.

To our surprise, M did not have Autism. Instead, he has a condition known as Sensory Integration Disorder. SID in M's case manifests it's self in some of his sense being way over sensitive and other senses being way under sensitive. M could eat hot spicy food or sour food with out showing any facial expression, he had no sense of taste. He could be hurt and bleeding badly, yet feel nothing. He had no sense of smell. On the flip side, he had an acute sense of hearing, we could stand behind him and yell his name and get no response yet he could hear a candy wrapper opening in another room. He could not tolerate and was terrified by fast movement, swinging or heights. Something as small as a tag in his shirt or a seam in his sock could send him on a wild tantrum. Cutting his hair and nails was a nightmare which took no less than 5 people. We started getting services from EI. M received speech and Occupational therapy 2 or 3 times a week. At first it seem useless, but over time we started to see subtle changes. We worked along with our therapists and I learned everything I could to try to understand SID and it's affects on M. Our OT used all kinds of creative sensory play to increase M's awareness. Things we never would have thought of like using an electric tooth brush to increase the sensitivity in his mouth to stop his constant drooling. By the time M was 3, life getting was a little bit easier, he was still very hyper and had melt downs on a regular basis but his speech had improved to the point that he could communicate when he was getting upset and we could often jump in and help him figure out how to feel better. We had known from the beginning that we would adopt again and we started feeling the pressure to do it before we aged out of the Korean program.

Where have we been?

2008-04-26T22:04:00.000-04:00

My purpose for starting this blog is to share the ups and downs of a large Christian, homeschooling, homesteading, family comprised of both homemade and adopted children. We are currently in the process to adopt a sibling group of three from Ethiopia but I figured I couldn't share where we are going unless I shared where we have been. So the purpose of this post (and the next 3 ) is to introduce our family and give a little background on who we are and what brought us to this point.

I met my husband 20 years ago. I was a student at a vocational school, He was a teacher. Now before you get any wrong ideas about us, it was all quite innocent! At the time, I was 18 and he was 29. My Christian parents were quite protective and the idea of their little girl dating a grown man, was to say the least, frightening! After I graduated J asked me out. Of course my parents said NO! They did however agree to allow him to come to the house to prove his intentions. My dad tried to scare him off with endless hours of old science fiction movies. We jokingly call this the "science fiction test" which J passed with flying colors. After several weeks my parents finally realized that J did have good and honorable intentions and so we were allowed our first date. We went hiking in a beautiful gorge. We sat at the top after climbing what seemed like hundreds of stone steps, to catch our breath and take in the beauty of the gorge and trickling water. As we sat there, we talked of marriage, children and building a huge house with lots of windows and a view. We knew we were meant to be together.

One of my parents concerns, was that J was not a Christian. At the time we met, I was starting to feel a little rebellious against my strict upbringing and the fact that J was older and not a Christian excited me. I had dated several Christian young men and found them to be hypocrites. To be honest, I was disappointed when J first asked " There is something different about you, what is it?" I shrugged it off but it didn't take him long to figure out it was Christ. It amazed me, how he could see that in me. Here I was trying to be rebellious and failing miserably at it! I guess God had other plans for my life and rebellion wasn't one of them.
J started coming to our church and talking to my mom and our pastor. It wasn't long before he accepted Christ. I have never witness such a transformation! In an instant he was changed. he recalls that "every thing was new, the sky was bluer, the grass was greener" He was and is to this day on fire for the Lord! I am so blessed that God stepped in and changed my life by changing the man I was to marry!
Six months after our first date, we were engaged and six months after that, we were married. This August marks our 19th anniversary.

We were deeply in love and blissfully happy. We had decided to wait two years before starting a family because it seemed like that is what couples were suppose to do. About 6 months into our marriage we thought "why wait?" and decided to begin our family right away. Little did we know that this would be the start of a long road filled with infertility and loss. Four years later we found ourselves desperate and discouraged, sitting in a fertility clinic listening to a Dr tell us we would probably never have children. The Dr ordered some test and we went home. I cried my self to sleep. The next morning, J left on a business trip. Shortly after he left I received a phone call from the clinic. They were calling to inform me that one of the test they had done was a pregnancy test and to their surprise, I was pregnant! I couldn't believe it, after 4 unbelievably long years, I was finally going to be a mom. My pregnancy with Se was flawless. I was what the Dr's called " a perfectly pregnant" . In May, one day before my due date, we gave a birth to a beautiful baby girl (Se) She was perfect in every way and I was thrilled to be a mom. By the time she was three months old I had forgotten the trials of 31 hours of labor and a c-section and I was ready to conceive our second child. Four years of infertility drugs and four miscarriages later we finally welcomed Se's little brother (Sj) into the world.

Those years of infertility and miscarriages took their toll on me emotionally, spiritually and physically. Instead of allowing my circumstances to strengthen me, I almost let them destroy me. The years between Se and Sj were filled with depression and self incrimination. I was so wrapped up in who I wasn't... I lost sight of who I was. I was the woman who was "perfectly pregnant" yet I couldn't get pregnant and stay pregnant. I felt like a failure on every level. My one saving grace, the only thing good I felt I had to show for my life was Se. She was a beautiful, bubbly, talkative preschooler and the light of our lives!

During those 4 years, We had bought a farm and J did the only thing he knew to ease his pain and disappointment, he threw himself into his work. I felt totally alone and buried my own disappointments in food. I gained over 100 lbs. When baby Sj came along, he was the answer to all my prayers. I started to believe that God really did love me and I started to pull out of the pit of depression I had dug for myself. I loved having another baby. I loved being a mom. I started homeschooling Se and we had a perfect little family. About a year later I felt that familiar longing within me to have another child. We again saw the fertility doctors and tried several rounds of treatments but this time I couldn't even conceive. I think a lot of that was due to the weight I had gained. Another 3 years went by. We had two bright and beautiful children. I knew in my heart I should have felt content but I didn't. I desperately wanted more children. I began to pray faithfully that God would bless us again, but it wasn't long after that I came to the conclusion that I couldn't continue taking the fertility drugs and trying to conceive. The stress of it was killing me and I could feel those old familiar feeling of depression creeping up on me threatening to steal my happiness. I couldn't let myself go there again, I couldn't do that to my children or my husband. J was perfectly happy and content with our "perfect" little family. We had one girl and one boy, what more could anyone ask for. On the other hand, I wanted more and started dreaming of adoption.