are you praying????

I hope you are because we haven't heard ANYTHING yet...I'm a MESS!! I'm trying to be patient but it's not working...and then there's Jared who is cooly and calmly reading for his class, not bothered at all! ugh. The day is over in Addis (the work day, that is) and I'm stalking my email...refreshing the page over and over...I'm a little nuts.

To add to the crazy of the day, my sis-in-law is having her fourth child this morning and we haven't heard anything from the family yet...we should have heard by now for that too! and then this morning our friends who live near us called and told us they were in labor...we were so excited! We are keeping their two kiddos (4 and 2) while they are 'otherwise occupied' and we haven't heard how their labor is going either....ALL I WANT IS NEWS!!!!!!

So, if you get this, please pray...pray for Joy (my sister having the baby in Oklahoma), pray for Janelle (our friend in labor here in Rome), and pray for us...that we will hear good news soon...VERY soon!!!

delayed!...it never gets easier...

So I have wanted to post new news for so long...but nothing has changed much. Then, one glorious day two weeks ago, we received a bundle of new pictures where the photographer had spent a LOT of time coaxing a smile out of our (hopefully) baby girl--and the hard work paid off in such a BEAUTIFUL way!! But I didn't think it fair to post about pictures that you can't yet see...so I stayed silent.

Today, I was hoping to sign on to be able to tell you of the news of a successful court date for the children's birth family since today, September 30th, was the date they were to appear in court to complete the placement of E and E up for adoption. But I don't get to do that either. Instead I get to tell you that we've once again been delayed...but thankfully this time it isn't months, only days :-). The courts have just recently reopened after the rainy season and they have accumulated so many cases over the break that there was not time to hear them all today--and there is only one judge hearing all of the cases...so our case has been tabled until Monday.

God has a big plan for us, for our (hopefully) kids, for our family...we trust His timing. We ask that, if you weren't already since I hadn't reminded everyone of the court date, please be praying for the results of Monday to be completely guided by the Lord. It's a difficult situation for me to know how to pray...objectively, that is. I can very selfishly pray that the kids will be ours with only a fleeting prayer for peace for the family who is giving them up...but I don't want to do that. I want so much for God to be glorified very clearly in the way this plays out and I know, from experience, that God could have a different outcome in mind for our (hopefully) kids and, also from experience, I know this will be for their best. I want that for them...I want that for all of us. So please pray as God leads you. Pray for Monday to be in His hands and for us to trust Him completely with the path of our whole family. Pray for peace for Jared and I as satan really likes to use situations and delays to bring doubt and steal our joy.

We love you guys! Can't wait for the days we can share pictures of our waiting (hopefully) children...

P.S. There's only 10 more days til we catch our flight to Addis for our own court date! Remember us as we prepare for this as well!!

So just a quick update with pictures...Lil Boy E is growing hair like crazy!!! Pretty soon he'll look like his (hopefully) brother Judah!

Lil Girl E has beautiful eyes... solemn but beautiful.

COURT DATE!!!!!!!!

At about 11:30 Wednesday night, we checked our email as we wrapped up our meetings in Spain and we found an email waiting for us telling us that we received our court date for October 12!!! At first I was really disappointed that it was SO much later than we had hoped, but then my grief turned to excitement that we at least had a DATE! After months of waiting to hear ANYTHING certain we finally have a date to countdown...we are thrilled!

Also, while we were in Spain, we received a new batch of pictures of our (hopefully) kiddos and they are WONDERFUL! Our (hopefully) little boy was all smiles as he has discovered the screens on the digital cameras that the parents took with them...he was making some great cheesy smiles as he looked at himself :-) Baby girl still was stoic, but beautiful and healthy!! I wish so much we could share these pictures with you all!

Thank you all so much for praying with us for our trip. It was wonderful!! We had an awesome time with our friends and the AC in Spain provided such a relief to the Rome heat with no AC! We were privileged to be there to watch and celebrate Spain taking the World Cup--an incredible experience--the Spanish are NOT afraid to be exuberant...we took the kids out into the streets to take part in the celebration and watch...it was incredibly LOUD and chaotic and so much fun!

While we were in Madrid we also found out that they have many American restaurant chains and imports and we enjoyed these to the fullest!!! :-) YES, we also did tapas, gazpacho, and churros--but we reveled in the American things that we found. TGIFridays was right next door to our second hotel and we enjoyed their menu variety and free-refills!! We also went to the major plazas, the zoo, and the Palace...but squeezed in Dominos, Dunkin' Donuts, Starbucks, Taco Bell, KFC, and the aforementioned TGIFridays... most days we didn't eat lunch until 4:30 and wouldn't stop for supper until around 9:30 or 10...the sun sets SO late there and the evenings were amazingly pleasant--we lived it up!!

Our time with our good friends, the Bustrum family, was so precious...our 6 kids had a blast and the fellowship was sweet. I'll get some pictures up soon :-) If you want to see a video of Elijah during the celebration after the World Cup, go to my fb page...I linked it from youtube. He's a nut! :-)

The travel was basically uneventful--the flight to Madrid was VERY turbulent in the landing (causing Elijah to gurp in the provided sack...he has impressive aim, might I add) and as the plane touched down, it tipped severely to the side throwing us all off-balance, but the pilot righted it and we taxied to the gate applauding wildly--which then woke up a sleeping Iliana who promptly gurped all over herself, her seat, the floor and Elijah's leg. We were then the last to disembark and all of the passengers waiting to board looked at our family in loathing and I couldn't help but feel sorry for the person who has to sit in that seat--even though the cleaning crew was on the job...yuck. Our flight home was uneventful, just delayed about an hour out of Madrid...we hit the ground running when we got into town. We had a goodbye party at our house the next day for our friends, the Watts, who are moving to India...now we have settled down a bit and we are going to try and rest :-) as well as look for plane tickets to Addis for the 12th of Oct!

Pray for us to find the right tickets at a good price...and also, please pray for sleep for Jared and I...it has been so desperately hot here that sleeping has been next to impossible for us lately...we have three fans blowing on us but there is little relief...pray for our bodies to acclimate and for rest for us so we don't get sick.

I hope you are all as excited as we are for the Oct 12th date!

Thank you all for walking beside us and praying us through it all!!!

heading to Spain...

So we are off to Spain tomorrow--without any news of a court date. Hopefully we will be able to find internet near where we are staying and keep up with any new news...plus Jared has this internet class he has to keep up with as well, so we'll be in touch. I probably won't be blogging though. I have my facebook linked here to this blog, hopefully you can follow status updates for news if you are checking in.

Please pray calm over our trip...that we have a long week of peace and rest and joy in the Lord and in our family and friends who we will be spending time with.

Thank you for walking with us through this tough process!!

We love you all!!

postponed...

Yep, this waiting roller coaster is a big twisty one...and it's a bit longer than we thought...but we continue to ride...

Those extra documents missing did cause a slight (hopefully) delay and now we hope to hear something about dates on FRIDAY.

Please continue to pray peace over our family, especially me. I feel rather overwhelmed at the moment--our family is heading to Spain on Sunday and will be gone a little over a week...traveling stresses me out and that added stress is not needed at the moment. I'm feeling a bit anxious. Please pray for me to be able to focus on the Lord and to truly and miraculously experience His peace. Pray also that our time in Spain is a wonderfully refreshing time and that we come home stronger and ready to GO GET OUR CHILDREN!!!

Thank you all. We love you guys!

court date soon?

Well, we've been informed that our file was opened in court on Thursday!! and on Friday we were asked to submit a couple more missing documents. These documents are required under the new regulations and our agency didn't think we would need them, but alas, the courts said we did. Hopefully this won't cause any delay in receiving our court assignment.

If all goes as we hope, by Wednesday we will to hear of our court date, set sometime in the next 3-6 weeks...we're, of course, hoping for 3 :-) the sooner the better!

I know this is just a short update, but that's all the info we have for the moment!

Thanks for praying us through this!