Oh where to begin…well, this last year has been a whirlwind. We traveled to Africa 2 times and brought home our son Fetinet, we went from a family of 3 to 4 and all of our lives were turned upside down and we have all been blessed beyond belief. From our first announcement of our adoption on Mother’s Day 2010 (http://expecting-from-ethiopia.blogspot.com/2010/05/exciting-news.html), 3 years has past and we have met some pretty amazing people along the way. Most of which are connected to our adoption story in one way or another. People we had never known who donated to our adoption or be-friended us are now some of our closest friends and some of them we call family.
We also have a host of new friends that we will forever know
because our children all lived together in Ethiopia and have a very special
bond. As parents to these children we
have bonded and have been a huge support system for each other. You can literally almost link each and every
one of us by who called who crying when they first brought their child home and
realized the reality of what our new life was, and it wasn’t the happiest of
tears either J And now we can all look back and smile and
laugh about what those first days, weeks, months were like and give wisdom to
the newer moms entering the crazy world of adoption (specifically older child
Ethiopian adoption).
Our outlook on life and what our priorities are has been
forever changed and through that we have surrendered some things we used to
have as priority. We have seen the need
that exists and the devastation that lies in a country far from us and have
realized how blessed we are here in America.
Even in the times of being paycheck to paycheck and thinking our lives
are stressed beyond belief, we will forever have images imprinted in our head
of what it is to be truly hungry, lonely, without shoes or proper clothes and
how much just a little bit can change a life.
What we spend on a drive thru meal is what someone else makes in a day
or even 1 week’s, worth of work!
Something else we have realized is that, 1.) there are just
too many boys in our family right now and 2.) that we have an extra bedroom in
our house that only gets used when we have guests in from out of town. A bedroom that could be filled with another
set of little feet or maybe a couple little sets of feet. And although in our culture to have 3-4 kids
in 2 rooms may be seen as not ideal, it is pretty darn ideal in most others. Sooo, what we are saying is we have another
announcement, exactly 3 years later with the same news….WE ARE ADOPTING
(again)!!!! Before you hear it from our
boys we figured we needed to get the news out.
They are very excited and ask us quite often about their “sister” (and
have requested that she be a “little” sister so they can both be big brothers),
when will she be here, how old will she be, when will we go back to Ethiopia,
etc. Unfortunately we can’t answer any
of these questions just yet and anticipate that it will be another 2 years
before we can. We can tell you that we
did have to check some boxes on our application and they were: girl, ages 0-5 yrs old, single child, twins
or siblings.
You may think we’re crazy and yes we probably are. Didn’t we just finish the long waits, the
emotions, the saving/fundraising/applying for grants, etc? Wasn’t that stressful enough? Aren’t we still adjusting to a life with a
child only home for 10 mths? Didn’t we
complete our act of doing something good and adopting one child? Yes that latter sounds pretty unreal to think
but I’ve heard it before and I know many do think that way, seriously they
do! But yes, adoption is not for the
weak at heart or mind, it is a crazy rollercoaster and full of unknowns and so
I guess you can only call us crazy for the fact that we are ready to do it
again.
So with this I have a big favor to ask of anyone reading
this. Will you pray for us? Pray that we are listening and following what
God is leading us to do. Pray that we
have peace in the details of it all and can remember that His plan is not our
plan and that His plan is always better.