The Time Has Finally Come

Once home from our whirlwind trip to Ethiopia, we were exhausted spiritually, mentally and physically.  We prayed hard and trusted that God would indeed take care of our little Harris.  We continued to wonder when we would receive a court date.  But thankfully we didn't have to wait very long.  At the end of August we got an email informing us that we had our long awaited court date!! 

November 3rd.

At that time, November 3rd seemed like a long way away.  Yet here we are just two weeks away from our departure date!

Now to explain this trip...

November 3rd is the court date in which Jake and I both have to appear before a judge and answer questions and somewhat prove ourselves (again) "worthy" and willing to adopt.  This is the court date where we legally become Harris' parents!!  Typically, once this court hearing is complete, families will go home leaving their child in Ethiopia and come back once all paperwork is completed .  But we have chosen to take Harris into our care after that court date.  Meaning, he will be able to stay with us until the needed documents are ready for him to legally leave the country.  Jake will spend a few more days with us, then head home to be with Asher and Mary Clair while I stay in Ethiopia with Harris.

The time frame of me and Harris being in Ethiopia is unknown (which makes it all the more hard!!).  But we prayed through lots of options and quite frankly, none of the options sounded great.  This was the best of all the terrible options.  I'm dreading our family being separated but I know that God will meet all our needs and get us through this crazy time.  In fact, God has already provided!  A dear college friend of mine is coming to spend a little less than a week with me!  It will be so wonderful to have someone to talk to and have a helping hand!

Things you can pray for:

1) Travel.  It's quite a journey to get there and back!  Pray for us to get rest on the way there.  Pray for Jake as he travels home alone.  And for me as I travel home alone with a baby in towe (there's lots of details to pray about with traveling a baby...I'll let you be Spirit led on that one!)

2) Speed of paperwork processing.  With an unknown time frame, I am praying that the God who rules the governments will have us home before Thanksgiving!  In fact, specifically, I would like the needed papers to be ready by two weeks after the court date (or sooner!!).

3) Bonding and attachment.  It will be fun to have a new baby.  But with adoption comes all sorts of attachment issues.  We plan on being very intentional about spending a lot of time together as a family making sure that Harris understands that we are his family and that he is so loved by us.

4) Time of family separation.  This is the one that makes me sad!  I am a quality time person and I feel like I'm going to miss so much while I'm gone!  Pray for Asher and Mary Clair while Jake and I are both gone.  Pray for Jake as he plays "single dad" for a period of time.  Pray for Harris and me as we spend a lot of good time together and that we won't get cabin fever at our hotel.

I'm sure there is much more to ask in prayer, but those are the main things that come to mind.

All of you have shown such great support over these past years!  Thanks for hanging in there with us--praying, donating funds, loving on us, listening to us, playing corn hole with us, and just being all around a wonderful support group.  We can't do this alone!

As always, feel free to ask questions.  Y'all are great!

"My Presence will go with you and I will give you rest."

Exodus 33:14

Emergency Urgency Final

After just a few days of being with Harris, we were already loving getting to know him, but we knew getting to know him more would have to wait until later.  It was the day he had to go back to the orphanage.
Friday August 12th, Harris was released from the children's clinic.  He came back to our hotel along with Trumar for a last visit and a bath!  Since his admittance to the hospital the previous week, we were not sure that he had been given a proper bath.  A nice warm bath after being sick is one of the greatest things....but not for Harris!  As soon as his clothes came off, he was not a happy camper!  What we envisioned would be a nice bonding moment quickly turned into a race to get the bath over with!  Once we were done "torturing" him and he was wrapped in a towel, the crying immediately stopped.  Phew!  We then rubbed him down with lots and lots of lotion, got him dressed and he was ready to play.
While playing on the bed, he randomly said, "Da!"  Of course, we were shocked!  We didn't know he could make any noises except crying!  We sat on the bed with him and said, "Da" back to him and much to our delight, he answered back with, "Da da."  He continued to impress us with his skills--crawling, pulling up onto a bench, squatting down and back up with a toy, mimicking sounds and facial expressions we did, and of course, more throwing of toys.
I just couldn't think about how much we had missed.  How much he had missed by not being with us.  But I was thankful for where he was and the moment we were in enjoying getting to know this little boy who had been our son in our hearts all these years.
The time with him came to a close and it was time for him to be taken back to the orphanage.  I held him in the van ride there.  It took all I had not to start crying.  I held on to Harris and prayed that he would stay well and safe until we could come back.  Upon arrival to the orphanage, Semey was told that we were not allowed to come in because of all the sicknesses going around.  And just like that, he asked us to hand over our son.  My heart sunk.  Are you kidding me!?  Just like that my time with Harris is abruptly ended??  We gave him hugs and kisses and off he went, back through the gate of the orphanage.
I bent forward to the seat in front of me and began to cry.  I was not ready for that moment.  I don't even remember saying, "Goodbye" or "I love you".  I had hoped we could put up our picture over his crib along with the pictures Mary Clair and Asher had drawn for him.  I thought we might would pray over him...give a blessing...something!  It just happened so fast--a blurr.

I never wanted that moment to happen again.

Our agency workers told me not to cry and that God was going to take care of him.  I knew God would take care of him.  I was confident of that.  But it was so terrible to leave him.

The following day we went around town and visited shops and experienced some of the culture.  We wandered around trying our best to enjoy it, but all the while wishing Harris was with us and on a plane homeward bound!  But we were trusting God's timing and His plan.

The trip home was long.  I would not recommend a 10 hour layover in the middle of the night in Nairobi...the floor was hard and I'm pretty sure they played the same 4 songs over the loud speaker all night long.  As soon as we landed in Amsterdam, we were right back on a plane.  About 3 hours into the 8 hour flight, I thought I wasn't going to make it--too many emotions and not enough sleep.  But God was looking out for me...I was standing in the back as the steward was bringing out a snack: ice cream!  Glory!!  My favorite treat in the world!  Mana from heaven...or in the heavens ;)  I was able to sleep after that enough to get me Atlanta.
It was so wonderful to be on the ground in the USA.  We were going to see Asher and Mary Clair in just a couple hours!  But we were still heartbroken to not be going in and kissing Harris' head too.

How much longer would we have to wait for our family to be all together?

"I will not leave you as orphans;

I will come to you."

John 14:18

Emergency Urgency Part III

[I haven't done a very good job giving the dates of when we were traveling.  To clarify, this all happened at the beginning of August.  This post includes August 10-11.  Many details have been overlooked while I've been typing or not written for the privacy of our agency or people involved.  If you have any questions of further details, let me know and I can fill you in.
Now back to what happened....]

After a fair night of rest, we were off the next morning to see Harris again.  When we arrived he was sleeping.  Trumar, the sweet nanny taking care of him, said he had drank 4 bottles and 3 pedialyte packages!  Praise God for an appetite and the ability to keep the fluids down!  While he was resting in the bed, Jake read Psalm 100.  After he finished, Semey read Psalm 100 in Amharic.  What a sweet moment!  This may have been the first time Harris' sweet little soul had heard the Bible read to him.

While we waited on Harris to wake up we chatted with Trumar and attempted to practice our Amharic.  Keep in mind, we know zero Amharic and Trumar knew a few words of English.  Can somebody say full emersion!?  Jake and I are so used to Spanish.  It was a whole new ball game to try to understand and try to speak something we had never heard before except for what we had looked up on Youtube!  There was another little girl who had come to the hospital the night before.  She was also on an I.V.  We were able to give her some our pedialyte (because Lord knows I bought WalMart out before we left!  I always over prepare...).  They also got a good laugh out of our attempts at speaking Amharic.  Like most of the Ethiopian people we met, they were very kind yet curious about why we were there.

Once Harris woke up, we were able to feed him a bottle and some rice cereal.  That boy was hungry!  He did not want to mess around when he saw Trumar fixing the cereal!  We asked if he was interested in any of the food pouches we had brought and they said he didn't like them because it was too sour.  It sounds like they don't eat a lot of fruit in the orphanage, so anything sweet was a little much for him especially while his stomach and body was healing.

We also brought some books to read with him.  It was the most fascinating thing to see...I don't think he had ever seen a book!  I asked Semey if they had books in the orphanage and he said he didn't think that they did.  Can you imagine?  It's the little things that we do at home with our kids that really aid in their development and to think that something as basic as a book had not been part of this little boy's life thus far.  Once the appeal of reading the book was over, he changed focus to Jake's beard.  He would touch it and just stare at in wonder.  I thought the book would be the highlight of Harris' day, but no, the beard was.

The time seemed to fly that morning and all of the sudden we were back at the hotel.  Already becoming very attached to Harris, I started scheming how I could stay.  I couldn't fathom putting him back in the orphanage!  He's so small and fragile and needs a mom!  Of course, all of these thoughts and emotions got a hold of me and then add being tired to it and I finally broke down.  I had been waiting for this moment to come.  And I actually felt a little better once I let it all out.  I was concerned for our son, but had to trust the Lord with the outcome.  We ate dinner again with our new friends from our agency.  We were so thankful that they were there to provide encouragement and advice.  It was nice to speak English too!  God knew that both of our families needed each other on this trip!  God knows everything.  Isn't He good like that?

Well, the next day we went to see Harris again.  We came in the room and he was laying in the bed.  We came over to the bed and when he saw us, his face lit up!  His little hands reached up and he touched us on the face!!  Talk about a heart melting moment!  I don't know what was going on in his head, but I'd like to think that he knew that we loved him.
On this day, we saw a lot more of his personality and his abilities.  He was feeling so much better!  Praise God!  For as much as he enjoyed the books, I knew he would enjoy some toys.  Though not quite as intriguing as Jake's beard, he still thoroughly enjoyed them.  Once he figured out what the toy was all about, he discovered throwing the toys.  Over and over he would throw the toys!  As soon as we handed him the toy, he would throw it.  I was sitting on the bed and he threw the toy at me.  I made a funny sound and reacted and for the first time, we heard him laugh!  So far, the only sound he had made was crying.  To hear him laugh was such a blessing!

I could tell he was getting sleepy, so I walked around the room with him and he fell asleep in my arms.  If you've ever had a child fall asleep in your arms, you know that feeling of accomplishment.  That feeling of joy and peace.  A moment of connection where the child is so comfortable they can't help but fall asleep.  I laid him down on the bed and we all closed our eyes for about 30 minutes.
The rest of the afternoon consisted of more bottles,  more diapers, Jake putting Harris to sleep, smiles from Harris, and me getting some awesome corn rows!  (Though my corn rows were awesome, there's a reason white girls don't wear corn rows! And there were four reasons on my head! lol)

We were thankful Harris was getting better, but we knew that meant it was almost time for him to head back to the orphanage.  We took in each moment we could.  Rested and prayed in between.  Most likely the next day was going to be our last day with him for a little while...

"The length of our days is 70 years--or 80, if we have the strength;

yet there span is but trouble and sorrow, 

for they quickly pass away and we fly away...

Teach us to number our days aright, 

that we may gain a heart of wisdom."

Psalm 90:10, 12