So This is Happening.....

It's finally happening! So excited to return to Ethiopia and introduce the little man to his brother and sister that he as faithfully prayed for these past three and a half years!!!!

Waiting

"Waiting with ope is very difficult, but true patience is expressed when we must even wait for hope. I will have reached the point of greatest strength once I have learned to wait for hope."

George Matheson 

Lady M's Birthday

Today is my baby girl's birthday.
I honestly thought that I would be holding her in my arms by now.

But I am not.....

So I try to keep myself distracted (I had a lovely birthday dinner with a dear friend) and then came home and lit a candle in honor of Lady M. while I cried my eyes out to Micah.

Being separated from your children for an unknown period of time can be so hard on the heart. I pray that Lady M and I can make up these missed celebrations by spending many more together in the future and making some sweet memories together.

Love you Lady M.... Praying your little life was full of love today. Soon baby girl, soon.

Anchoring

Pondering...

"When God sends no answer and the 'cloud remains' , we must wait. Yet we can do so with the full assurance of God's provision of manna, water from the rock, shelter, and protection from our enemies. He never keeps us at our post without assuring us of His presence or sending us daily supplies."

Woot Woot!

We were finally submitted to Embassy! This means that our case will begin the process of being reviewed by the United States and once the case is cleared we can travel to bring the babes home! It is hard to remain patience when several other families we know have been traveling within three weeks of this date. Soon babies soon!

Celebrating

Our little family was honored yesterday through an adoption shower. I am so thankful for the outpouring of love that was shown to our little family. 

Melkem Addis Amet!

Changes

Change is never easy. You fight to hold on. You fight to let go. 

What I Can Control

We were just informed today that some changes have taken place regarding applying for the visas that we need to bring the two youngest babes home. We've been through hiccups like this before, so I am hopeful that it will quickly be resolved and we can continue to move forward. However, the excessive amount of time that I have been spending on the phone to move through this process is making me feel crazy. There are so many factors that are out of my control. So how do I cope, I reorganize our cupboards because I can control nothing else right now. 

Home to the First Babe

Babes and Court

Five hours. Five hours is all that I have spent with my youngest babes and already they are anchored so deeply within my heart. It was music to my ears to hear their squeals when we returned today and be smothered with their hugs. My arms have longed to hold them for so long.

Five hours. Five hours passes all too quickly and certainly never felt long enough. When the time came to say goodbye, my heart grew heavy and definitely felt torn. How could I leave these two babes and return to my first babe? How could I be away from my first babe any longer? That moment of attempting to say goodbye was the absolute hardest thing I have ever done. My mind (and heart) will forever hold the memory and pain of having to walk away from my children and leave them crying, knowing that that I have no idea when I will be returning to hold them again.

Five hours is all it took for my heart to be captured and broken.

A nice distraction from those five hours was our court appointment, which lasted less than an hour and upon completion ended with,
"Congratulations, the children are legally yours according to Ethiopia."

I am praying that those five hours will carrying us all through until we are reunited again.

Meeting the Babes

Today I officially met my two youngest Ethiopian babes. I can not even begin to find the right words to describe how wonderful this moment was. There has been many moments when I wondered if I would be able to love these children like I loved M. - is it possible for my heart to grow anymore? Yes, as a matter of fact, it is. The minute I laid eyes on them and heard G. calling for his daddy and saw M. with her sweet smile, I knew without a doubt that these were my children.

We were only able to spend a few short hours with the babes today, but we are hoping that we will be able to go back tomorrow. Until then, I will savor these first moments with my youngest babes.

Leaving for Ethiopia!

Micah and I are beginning our unexpected journey to Ethiopia this morning - My heart is all over the place as I leave my first baby behind and prepare to finally meet my two youngest babes. 

Oh My Goodness!!!

Today after the little man had finished up soccer practice, we were riding our bikes home and my phone rang. I waited until we were home to pull the phone out of my bag and listened to the message from our agency. They were asking that we call them back because they had some news about our birth parent case. I will admit that my heart tightened up a bit as I hoped for the best and prepared for the worst. There are so many unpredictable situations in adoption and I had to remind myself that ultimately God is still in control.

Upon calling our agency I found out that not only did our birth parent case clear the courts, but that the Ethiopia staff had also been able to schedule our court case for the afternoon of August 14th - the very last day courts were open until October.

Needless to say, I was shocked and immediately overwhelmed. We said goodbye to Micah on the 1st of August as he headed into the mountains for a week long climbing trip. I still had a few days for him to come home. So here I am trying to take it minute by minute and remember to breath.

I can't believe this is happening!!!!

Case Review

Today is when our birth parent case will be reviewed by the courts. Please pray that all goes well and we are able to move forward...

A Tiny Update

An email arrived today to let us know that the birth parent case is being reviewed by the courts on the 5th of August. If all goes well with the review then we will officially be able to move to the next step which would be travel for our court appointment. We are trying not to get our hopes up since the courts typically close in August, but goodness... here is to hoping!

Moving Forward!

We just received news today that our birth parent court hearing has been scheduled for the 10th. We are so excited to hear this and pray that things go well!

Adoption Camp

M and I headed to adoption camp - he loves being here and there are a thousand things that I could write about, but I am starting to feel a little under the weather. 

G's Birthday

Today is our youngest babe's birthday and he is on the other side of the world. We are thinking of him and praying that his day was filled with love. We can't wait for the day when we get to love on him in person and celebrate these special days with him. 

An Update!!

Today is the anniversary of when we received the phone call matching us with M. It is also the anniversary of when we finalized our adoption with him here in the United States. Unfortunately we failed to realize this until he was already tucked away in bed sleeping soundly.

The day did not come to a close without some sort of excitement being had though. Right before we crawled into bed ourselves, we checked email one last time and there was an update about our two beautiful babes! We had just had a conversation about the longing we were feeling to know how they were doing! There were no pictures included, but we did receive another health and development report on each of them. The little lady has grown an inch and baby boy has two more teeth!

We are so grateful to read about growth being made and can't wait to wrap our arms around them.

Holding On

Lately, we have been moving at such a fast pace that it feels hard to soak it all in at times. Then out of nowhere, one of us will bring up the two beautiful babes and our hearts stretch a little and yearn  even more for them to be with our family. 

We are trying to remain hopeful despite knowing that there is so little we are actually in control of, and that we just have to wait to see if each passing day brings with it any more news. Before May 7th we could cling to hope so easily. Now, with the faces and names of these two beautiful babes etched on our hearts, it sometimes feels much harder to cling to that hope.

We want to comfort them. Love on them. Help them to know that they are valued and loved by so many. They have a great purpose and this is all part of their story.

The immigration process is going to be changing once again and when we received the email informing us about this, our hearts sank a little deeper. The last thing we want is for a paper to be what keeps us from our babes. Apparently this won't take effect until September 1st, but there is still so much up in the air. Honestly, we are praying for a timeline miracle - which I am sure every other parent is too - but our hearts ache when considering how this could extend the months before we hold our babes. 

Little M's Journal

Yesterday the little man drew this in his journal. He continues to be so excited and thinks of them so often. We can't wait to see them all together. 

Paper Love

We sent the last of the paperwork off today and with it went some love from the little man to his brother and sister. 

Ways You Can Help

With the match of a sibling set, our adoption costs have now doubled. We are going to be doing everything we can to raise the additional funds. If you are interested in joining us in this endeavor  please see the ways you can get involved below.

Click on the image above to visit our Just Love Coffee storefront. Anytime you shop under our page (Woven Together By Love) and purchase coffee, we will receive a portion of the proceeds. We also have the ability to offer paper ordering forms that you could share with friends, your office or church. Let us know if you are interested! You can also click on the button to the right of this message and access the page through our blog. 

We will be doing another fundraising garage sale this summer. If you have any items that you would like to donate to the sale or feel like sharing your muscles and time the day of the sale, let us know!

We will be trying to come up with some more creative ways to raise funds and will keep you posted along the way! You are also welcome to share as you see appropriate. We appreciate all the help!

Celebrating Mother's Day

Jody Landers wrote:

Children born to another woman call me “Mom.” The magnitude of that tragedy and the depth of that privilege are not lost on me.

This so eloquently sums up the bittersweet feelings that I experience each year on this holiday. Although I greatly appreciate the recognition and honor, it is also completely humbling to reflect on the privilege and opportunity to raise this little man, and someday in the future our two sweet babes, knowing that they were and are all so loved by two very beautiful women that would have loved to celebrate this day with them.

The First Purchase for Sweet M.

It has felt like a whirlwind of events since Tuesday and I keep asking myself if this is really all happening. 

Sometimes it almost seems too good to be true. 

So today, while out with a friend I allowed myself to make a small purchase for our sweet babe, M. 

I would be lying if I said I am not nervous about raising a daughter. It somehow feels so much more scary to me than raising a herd of boys. 

I want so badly to do right by her and not screw it up.

Dear sweet M, I hope the weight of the world you feel on your shoulders is someday much lighter. 

Love you little girl.

A Story to Remember

As you may recall from this post, we had recently encountered a difficult moment in this adoption journey. Sometimes if felt as if we were hanging on by a thread. We knew God had said to adopt from Ethiopia again - we had even spent 40 days fasting last spring to confirm that we had indeed heard correctly. We knew that we were deeply connected to Ethiopia and couldn't fathom walking away from this country, so we kept waiting, but the waiting was so hard at times and a true test of our patience and faith.

When we began this adoption journey two plus years ago, it was because our little man had been daily praying for his brother and sister. Initially we thought these prayers were cute. Then after several months of consistent prayers from him, we began to take time to pray and consider and that is what led us into starting our second adoption.

Fast forwarding through October of 2010 to September of 2012, when I awoke early one morning after having a dream. I can't tell you all of the details, but what I do remember is walking behind two little children toward M. and having such a sense of urgency to update our home study to include two children. Later that day I called our state agency and found out that despite someone in the office previously telling us we could not accept the referral of a sibling group, that we indeed could! So we began another round of chasing papers, getting things updated, and getting to know our local postal workers.

Now fast forward to this spring. After our most recent experience, we weren't necessarily praying that anything would happen soon, just that it would happen in a way that would allow for us to know without a doubt that this would be a story our family would be woven into. Around the first week of April, I started feeling such an urgency to be praying for our next referral. This urgency would come while I was teaching, preparing dinner, or in the middle of the night. I started composing emails to friends and family and yet they remained in my drafts folder because I couldn't quite articulate all that I was feeling.

On the evening of May 1st, after putting our little man to bed, Micah and I sat down to talk. Our conversation eventually led to the things we would like to accomplish this summer and what projects we should do on the house. As that list began to grow, we started to feel overwhelmed and shortly after Micah suggested that we maybe begin looking at some different homes to have a better understanding of our options. The thought of this made me sad. I love our home, the work we have put into it, the tree we planted in M's honor, the fact that it was our first home and where we brought M home to. Even typing this, I get teary eyed thinking about having to leave it behind. However, I also know that what we want to accomplish will demand a lot of my husband and I would much rather spend that time with him. So here is how the week unfolds:

• Wednesday evening - We have a conversation regarding our home and looking for other options
• Thursday - We begin looking at homes online
• Friday - Micah shows me pictures of a home he found online that he really likes, I have a conversation with a dear friend about the process of selling a home by owner
• Sunday - We look at a few houses with some friends, one being the house Micah found online. He loves it. After Micah finishes teaching at church we head home and make the decision to put our house up for sale by owner.
• Monday - We begin touching up the house and while working in the kitchen Micah tells me, "You are usually the emotionally led person, but I just have such a strong feeling that this house (the one he found online Friday) is the home that we are suppose to live in. 
• Tuesday - 
• In the middle of teaching, my phone rings - it is our adoption agency. I let it go to voice mail.
• After a full day of teaching I head home to meet with a gentleman giving us a bid on house work. Thirty minutes after he leaves, I am meeting with the realtor for a market analysis. He tells me what he thinks the house is worth and that he potentially has someone that would be interested and pay cash. We also schedule an appointment to do another walk through on the house Micah likes. 
• This whole time I am starting to freak out about how quickly things are moving with our family - we are NOT these people! People that make sudden decisions and big changes to our lives!
• The realtor leaves and I rush off to get the little man from school. As we are walking back to the car, I am explaining to him how will be going to look at a house that evening. We talk about how this move would allow for our family to have a little more room for when his brother or sister comes home. His immediate reply, "You mean when they both come home."
• We start driving home and within 30 seconds I get another call from our adoption agency. I pull over and tell M. that he needs to be quiet because this might be about his brother or sister. His reply, "Tell them I want my babies!" The following conversation went something like this: 

Holt: "Hi, yada, yada, yada - small talk that I can't remember"

Me: Freaking out and trying to control my voice 

Holt: "Well, I am calling because we have a referral for your family."

Me: "Oh wow! Can you tell me about the child?"

Holt: "Well, it is actually two referrals."

Me: "What?! Really?! Well can you tell me about the children?"

Holt: "It is a sibling set. A 4 year old girl and a 2 year old boy."

Me: "A girl and a boy?!" - Uncontrollable sobbing begins

Little M: Raises his fists up in the air and says with such joy, "I told you they had my babies!!!!"

After the phone call ended, M. and I headed to Micah's work to share the news. Of course, I started by telling him about the house and what the realtor had shared. Then the little man was able to tell his Aba the exciting news. Micah could hardly believe it and immediately wanted to see pictures of the two babes. 

Our family, overwhelmed with excitement and shocked, had very little time to process as we rushed off to the house appointment. As the evening wore on, we were able to share the news with family and some friends - the whole time feeling amazed at our little man's faith that this is what would happen!

We feel so honored that we have been invited into this beautiful story and that our families journey will be woven together with these two beautiful children. Despite the odds, regardless of "the rules", God showed himself by answering the consistent prayers of our son M. Now we pray that this story captures the beauty of who God is and offers hope and encouragement. We certainly know that not a day will go by, when we look at the faces of these two babes and are reminded of the incredible ways in which God works. 

Unexpected Encouragement

Found the following here: 

We waited for a little over 2 years for our two.  There were some DARK days.  Days were we didn't trust in Gods promise, days we didn't know if we would get our daughter home, days that the dawn seemed like it was never going to come.  (you should probably download "Before the Morning" by Josh Wilson and put it on repeat). 

So I just wanted to encourage those of you in the waiting.  God has spoken, and He has a child(ren) prepared for you to love.  You might not understand His timing now, or you might not ever understand it.  But His timing is perfect.  His vision and plan for your family awaits it's appointed time.  If it seems slow, wait for it!  it will surely come!  it will not delay!  

then I promise, the day you have your baby(ies) home, and you are sitting on the floor of your living room reading that scripture again (while listening to Before the Morning), you will bawl your eyes out at Gods faithfulness.  

His timing is PERFECT.  

wait for it, believe in it, pray circles around it.

it will come!

What is Harder Than the Wait?

Waiting is hard. 

Having the patience to endure these days, weeks, and months that pass between now and when we receive the phone call.

It sometimes feels like an insurmountable task.

Little did we know that there would be something even harder than the wait. 

It has taken me a long time to come to grips with writing this all down. Maybe it's a matter of pride, maybe it's that the pain is still fresh and raw, and the emotions still high. 

However, I write with the hopes that one day it will feel less painful, and our experience will offer some sense of comfort to another.

My family had just finished an incredible family vacation in Zion National Park and we were making the long drive home feeling refreshed and thankful for the time together and abundant amount of sunshine. Shortly before Provo, Utah we received a phone call from our adoption agency - which was completely unexpected. You can imagine our hearts reaction to what has been a long awaited phone conversation.

We were told that they had a little girl they would like to match with us! She had just turned five and recently entered the care center. For some reason, I felt the need to protect M. and we chose to not speak too much about it in front of him, which limited the car conversations so I just began praying for the situation and the little girl.

I would be lying if I said that I felt complete peace about the situation - but I couldn't really put my thumb on what was causing a sense of unrest. My mind was filled with thoughts of whether or not this was right, could I love her the way she deserves to be loved? I prayed endlessly that God would bring peace, wisdom, and a sense of family when we read through her intake information.

Shortly after passing the Wyoming border the email arrived containing all of her information. As I read through the documents, certain things started standing out that raised concern for me. My heart began to sink and I grew more and more anxious. When I finally opened the photos, I knew instantly that she was older than five.

Up to this point I hadn't verbalized any of these thoughts or concerns to Micah, I simply handed him my phone showing him the pictures. His response echoed my concerns.

The drive back to Laramie felt like an eternity and I couldn't look at M. without crying. His heart has longed have a sibling for so long and I couldn't make my heart feel at peace with this particular child. I also felt such a strong need to honor and protect M. and his place in our family. I knew that it would be hard for him to suddenly have a "little" sister that towered above him. As much as it didn't feel right, how could we say no to a child in need of a home?

Micah and I stayed up well past midnight trying to reason through the situation and pleading to God  to speak to us, bring us a sense of peace and confirm our decision. Then morning came and with it was no sense of peace, but even more anxiety.

Once again, Micah and I stayed up well past our usual time wrestling with our decision. We couldn't find the enthusiasm or peace that we anticipated being there. As shameful as it feels to say no, it wasn't until we finally decided to let her go, that we both felt we could breath a little deeper and found peace again.

We want nothing more than to grow our family and realize that with the privileges that we have been granted we can provide a home for those in need. However, we also felt that we need to honor our little M. and the fact that he is the "1st born" in our family.

Our decision did bring a sense of peace, but with it also came a range of additional emotions: sadness, grief, shamefulness, embarrassment, failure, doubt, etc. Will this cause us to wait longer? What does this say about us as parents, as people? What if we don't feel peace with the next referral? What if, what if, what if?!? Out of nowhere - even weeks later - I am gripped with such a sense of extreme sadness for this situation and for this little girl. I am praying that we have not prevented her from the opportunity to weave her story together with another family.

We want to believe that this is another chance for us to practice hope and trust, but honestly speaking we are a little  whole lot scared and sad.