7/2/13 - Officially a family of FOUR :)

This morning we got up and had breakfast as a group and then headed to the Bethany office for our Ethiopian history and culture training.  The training was great!  Abel is a history buff and told us all there is to know about Ethiopia.  One very interesting thing we learned that I didn’t know was that the famine in Ethiopia in the 90s was avoidable.  Apparently the communist government was working to take down the north region, so they allowed the famine to devastate the area even though they could have provided aid from the south. 
The cultural portion of our training went over a lot of customs and social expectations, differences in the regions of Ethiopia, how to perform a coffee ceremony (these are done when people come to your home and for celebrations), how to make injera (Ethiopian bread), and how to make wot (stew).  We learned that it is a sign of love to feed an uncomfortably large bite of injera with stew to your guests.  Beware if you come over!!! :)  Very fun!  

Roasting the beans

Pretty strong - but we tried it!

Making injera

Injera with lentil wot (stew).  Delicious!!

After our training, we had a speedy lunch and headed to court.  The drive to court was interesting.  Court is in the center of Addis Ababa, so traffic is much heavier.  There are lanes on the road in some places, but they are not really used.  There are also lots of people (and animals) walking in the streets.  The drivers honk to alert the people that they are there and tell them to get out of the way!  

Wood poles are used as scaffolding and to hold floors up until the cement is dry

We arrived at court and waited in the room for about 20 minutes before being called in.  All three Bethany families were able to go into the judge’s office together.  She asked us maybe 10 questions and then said the words we wanted to hear “All of your documents are in order and your children are yours”.  PTL!!!!  I held back my tears (although a few still squeaked out!) because my crying never looks like happy crying and I didn't want to judge to get the wrong idea.  She is ours!!!!  SOOOOOO EXCITED!!!
After court, we dropped one of the families off at their guest house because they are heading home tonight and then dropped us off at ours.  We had dinner together and then sat around chatting for the rest of the evening.  One of the couples flew home tonight, so that left three couples at the guest house.  We also called Nicolas before we headed off to bed.  He’s doing great and having lots of fun getting spoiled! :)  Tomorrow is our last day here and our last chance to see M before we head home. :(

We passed!

7/1/13 - I can't help falling in love with YOU!!!

The day is finally here!!!!!  This morning we had breakfast as a group – french toast :).  After breakfast, we and the other adopting couple headed to the Bethany Ethiopia office to go over what to expect in the court process.  We also had the opportunity to buy some items made by women from one of Bethany’s local ministries for widows.  We then went to a French restaurant for lunch (I know, French food in Ethiopia?? :))  and it was very good!  After lunch we walked down to the orphanage to meet M.  Our hearts were pounding and we were anxious!  We walked through the gates and into the building.  

At the gate!

Walking up to the door!

It felt like we were walking so slowly.  The door to the infant room was closed.  Abel knocked and opened the door.  Most of the babies were asleep.

Walking into the infant room

One of them was not and I immediately recognized her.  It was not M, but our friend’s baby, K.  Sooo cute!  Abel told them we were there to see M and they woke her up from her nap.  She laid in her crib for a couple minutes to wake up.  We stood at the end of her crib talking to her and, of course, I cried a little. :)

Just WAITING to be able to pick her up

When she was a little more awake, one of the nannies picked her up and talked to her, then handed her to me.  Oh, what a moment!!  She was awesome!!  She wasn't upset or fussy, but calm as a cucumber!  As I held her in my arms, the tears started flowing again.  Three years of waiting, praying, and wondering for THIS VERY MOMENT.  Oh, what a blessing to snuggle her to my chest and kiss her head.  To tell her I love her and have her hear my voice.  Thank you, God, for this precious girl and the opportunity to bring her into our family!!!!  I did, of course, give Dad a chance to hold her too :)  

We spent probably the first 10-15 minutes or so in the babies room, and then our social worker showed up.  She spoke to the nannies and they let us go to a different room with her since all the other kiddos were sleeping.  We were able to spend 2 ½ hours with her just playing and talking to her.  She likes to talk and is quite the mover!  When the nanny changed her diaper, it was hilarious to watch her kick her legs like a little ninja!!!  As soon as her pants came off until they were back on, she was just kicking those legs as fast as you can imagine!!!  The nannies are very talented to be able to keep her still long enough to get one diaper off and the other one on!  Some of the older kids passed through while we were with her, as well as the nannies passing by and it is clear how much they love the kids.  The other older kids would come by and grab her hand or rub her head and talk to her and the nannies would come over and goof with her to get her to smile.  She was more serious with us than with the nannies, but she was all smiles as we were leaving.  Maybe she was trying to get rid of us??? :)  I cannot tell you how great it is to know, for ourselves, that she is happy, healthy, and tomorrow (God willing) she will be a Longstreet!!! 

After we left the orphanage (not crying, I think only because I know we will see her again before we leave) we headed back to the guesthouse for a little while before dinner.  Dinner tonight was at a cultural Ethiopian restaurant.  It was awesome!  Each group sits around a large basket table (sorry, I don’t know how to explain it better) and the food is shared among the group.  Different types of Ethiopian dishes are spooned onto a large platter covered in injera (Ethiopia bread).  Abel explained what each of the types of food were on the platter and then we dug in!  No utensils; instead you tear off injera and scoop up the different types of stew.  It was all very good!  We also tried a honey wine, which was definitely not like wine, but it was surprisingly good.  Just about the time we were done eating, the performance began.  They did a variety of different songs and dances from different regions of Ethiopia.  Very cool experience!!  Soo glad we did it!

Tomorrow is another big day!! Praying that court goes well and we receive our decision tomorrow as well!

They brought water to wash our hands right at the table

The injera rolls are around the edges and then the different stews are in the center.

Dig in!

6/30/13 - Our day of rest

Good morning!!!  Kevin and I both felt like we struggled to fall asleep.  I think it was all the excitement of finally being here!  Kevin woke up to dogs barking and to the rain, but I only woke up dreaming that we overslept for church (which we didn't).  The alarm went off, the sun was coming up, and we could hear prayers (we learned later it was the Orthodox prayer) that sounded like they were coming through a loud speaker.

Taking a shower felt great as it had been a LONG time!  We got around and headed down for breakfast before heading to church.  We had scrambled eggs (ok, I had eggs.  Kevin doesn't like them), banana bread, tea, and mango juice.  The Morning Coffee staff is taking such good care of us!

The view from the guest house

The view from the guest house

The view from the guest house

The outside of our guest house

At 8AM, we were picked up by a driver to take us to church.  Driving this morning was definitely different than last night.  There was lots of honking and a lot more people (and animals) in the streets.  Church was great!  We met some missionaries that have been living here for 15 years, some people from Los Angeles, a man that works with a ministry here to help impoverished women learn business skills, and another man who is here for a couple weeks working with him.  Everyone was so welcoming and friendly.  The service was in English and the pastor was a visiting pastor from Dallas, TX.  It amazes me how we can travel half-way across the world and experience a church service not that far removed from our own.

Another family was supposed to arrive at the guest house this morning.  We found out at lunch that Abel waited there for them almost all morning and now it sound like they might not arrive until tomorrow.  This is the difficultly with international travel and a 7-hour time difference.  Even if they contacted Bethany, it was the middle of the night, so they wouldn't have gotten the message to pass on to Abel.  Hopefully we will see them tomorrow.  There are also two families staying here that should be returning from visiting their children (in Awassa) tonight.  We are excited to have other families here with us.

Today for lunch we had spaghetti, Ethiopian style.  It was delicious!  After lunch, we rested for about half an hour, then Birtukan’s niece prepared a coffee ceremony for us.  The way she made the coffee for us was what they call Macchiato (coffee with milk).  It was about 1/3 milk and 2/3 coffee with sugar and it was good!  They also prepare popcorn for the coffee ceremony which is made with sugar.  Imagine the best kettle corn ever.  That’s what it tasted like!  While we were enjoying our coffee, Birtukan shared her testimony with us.  A-mazing!  I will not share it all here, but she was once a World Vision sponsor child.  She graduated from the program and then became a translator for World Vision, translating the letters written by sponsors into Amharic for the children.  It was a letter written by a sponsor that changed her life.  She committed to God that she wanted to change the life of one orphan.  Several years later, she is changing the lives of over 1400 orphans through Yezalelem Minch.  What an amazing testimony that, with God’s provision, one person (along with her husband Nebisu) can make an amazing difference!

Preparing the coffee

Also during our coffee time, Birtukan’s two younger sons and her youngest daughter came in and performed some songs for us – one in English and two in Amharic.  There was accompanying dancing as well.  It was great!!  So sweet!

After our coffee ceremony time, we tried to call home to talk to Nicolas.  I got to say hello….but that was about it.  Unfortunately, the internet connection did not want to cooperate to let us talk.  But, he was already playing video games at 8:30AM, so I’m pretty sure he is enjoying his time with Grandma and Grandpa G!  The internet has not been working since we got here, but we are hoping it will be up at some point so that we can let everyone know we made it here safely.

Around 3:00PM, it started to get pretty dark.  It is the rainy season, so it’s expected that it will rain fairly often.  It started to sprinkle lightly, then much harder, then it began to HAIL!  Not just a little. The ground looked like it had snowed!  The hail was probably the size of a pencil eraser, some larger, and it just kept coming down!!!  The girls said it has never hailed like that here before!  We apologized for bringing crazy Michigan weather to Addis!!  We did take video of the hail that we will be able to post once we are home.

A little before dinner, two other families returned from their trip to Awassa.  One of the families went to visit their daughter.  The other is actually doing missionary work in Kenya, but is here while they renew their visas.  We had dinner together and chatted about their trip.

I hope we can sleep well tonight…..tomorrow is a BIG DAY!!!!

It's beginning to look a lot like MICHIGAN!

If only we could have made it into a snowman.....

6/29/13 - So that's what it's like...............

Waiting in Germany seemed like forever.  We each slept a little in short 15 minute or so stretches despite the fact the seats we waited in looked like a pool lounger.  Unfortunately not as comfy as they looked……

Yeah, not so comfy.........

Finally, it was time to board our flight.  We waited in line and when it came for us to board, each of us received a new seat assignment.  Oh no…….did they split us up???  Enter God’s grace SHINING down upon us.  We got UPGRADED to business class!!!!!  Are you kidding me?  My mom and I just joked about how nice that would be a few hours ago.  Now, here we are reclining in luxury in a chair that a host of reclining options including a lay-flat sleep position (and did I mention it massages too??), ordering from a menu, drinking from real glasses, eating gourmet food on real dinnerware….it’s all very ironic.  Here we are, heading to a third-world country to adopt a beautiful girl.  This is something we have been saving (and many have generously donated to fund) for years and we are sitting in business class.  It’s a conflicted feeling.  Why were we the ones to be bumped?  My only answer is God’s grace.  After our meal, Kevin and I were both able to get a few hours of uninterrupted sleep – a blessing!!! 

Look at all that space!

We are now on the ground in Khartoum, Sudan refueling before we will take the last leg of our journey to Addis Ababa.  Definitely a different airport experience!  There was one runway and we had to turn around on the runway when we landed and again to leave.  The planes there looked like the one in Madagascar with the two propellers on the wings and the wings extending from the top of the plane rather than the center of the sides like most do.  The last flight is about an hour and 50 minutes.  It appears we will be leaving soon.  We are almost there!!!!!!

Flying into Addis Ababa was beautiful!  Although it was dark and we couldn't see the city from the sky, there was a beautiful lightning storm unlike anything we have ever seen!!  It was almost constant flashes of bright light.  The beauty of God’s creation is unreal.  In addition, because it was so dark, we could also see the stars.  Absolutely breathtaking!!  We had to circle the airport before landing, but landed only about 20 minutes later than scheduled.

Thankfully, the Addis Ababa airport was much easier to navigate than Frankfurt!  The visa line was quite short when we got in, but filled in quickly behind us.  We ended up standing in line next to a woman and her father from Canada.  She is also adopting a little girl and received her referral on April 29^th (same as us!).  We got our visas with no problem, exchanged some money, and got in line to pass through immigration.  That was the longest part of the process, but simple again.  The woman never said a word.  She took our passports, stamped them, and gave them back.  Our luggage (all accounted for!) was waiting on the belt when we got there.  Customs consisted of simply passing our bags through another xray machine and then we met Abel in the lobby.  We were too tired to notice, but he wore a University of Michigan shirt to greet us!  So sweet!  He took us to our guest house and also gave us our itinerary for the trip.  We were ecstatic when he told us that we would get to see M on Monday and Wednesday!!!  Tomorrow we will be attending church at the International Evangelical Church and then spending the rest of the day at the guest house.  Monday, we will go to Bethany Ethiopia for our court orientation and then get to visit M briefly in the afternoon.  Tuesday we will go back to Bethany for the cultural training and then go to court in the afternoon.  Wednesday we will be going to the museum, hopefully doing a little shopping in the marketplace, and going to see M one more time before we head back to the airport.  It seems like a lot to do in a short time, and we hope to make the very most of it!

We settled in quickly at the guesthouse (except that we weren't sure what time it really was to set our alarm :), but we figured it out!)  Off to bed, its almost midnight and we need to be up at 6AM!

Our room at the guest house

We're in Germany :)

On the way home from South Africa, we flew through the night for 17 hours as a result of jumping time zones.  On the way here to Germany, we flew through the night and it was light out the entire time.  Odd.......

Our flight here was relatively smooth and uneventful.  Having been spoiled on our flights to South Africa, we were disappointed to find that we didn't have personal entertainment screens (first-world problem!!!).  They did, however, feed us twice (Mom, I know you were worried about that!).

Note to any who may travel through the Frankfurt airport, it is very confusing!  It took us 40 minutes to get from our arriving gate to our departing gate and I am quite sure we walked at least a couple miles.  Up the escalator, down the escalator.  I am confident we went in a giant circle :)  Nonetheless, we have about 3 hours until we board our flight to Addis.

So far, so good!  Hoping to sleep some on the last flight, but not too much as it will be 8:45PM when we arrive in Addis.  Still can't believe we are just days away now from meeting M!!!!

Nicolas, we love you buddy!!!!  It's lonely traveling without you and not nearly as much fun.  Hope you have a great time with Grandma and Grandpa G this weekend!!!

The craziest week of our lives!!!!!

Here we goooooooo!!!!!!!!

This week as been, hands down, the most eventful and chaotic week ever!!!  Tuesday at about 11AM, I received a call from director of the Ethiopia program.  We knew that another family who had a guardianship court date around the same time as us had received their adoptive parents court date for July 2.  We also knew that they told us they would not call, but rather post our court date in our portal.  So.....the fact that she was calling made me wonder.....is this it????  YES!!!!  July 2!!!!  In 7 days, we were expected to be in court to receive the most beautiful words ever - she is yours.  7 days......7 days?!?!?!  Can we do this???  I called Kevin and he immediately got in touch with the travel agent.  We were told we needed to be in Ethiopia no later than Sunday.  We had already made plans with Kevin's mom to watch Nicolas while we were gone, so that was already set, right??  This weekend is the ONE weekend ALL SUMMER that she was going to be out of town.  Enter my parents, who thankfully didn't have anything going on (at least that they told me about :P) and could drop everything and spend the weekend at our house.

THANK YOU Grandma and Grandpa G and Grandma P for watching Nicolas while we are gone!!!!!  We love you!!!!

Okay, so that's out of the way.  Now, we need to pack and get Nicolas ready.  Not going to lie, I have had the feeling in my stomach like I am about to give a speech to 10,00 in my underwear for three days now!  I never expected that after all this time we would have 3 days to leave.......AGH!!!

Fast forward to this morning.......things have gone very smoothly!  We had breakfast with Nicolas and then dropped him off at daycare.  Said goodbye with big hugs in the parking lot (so that we didn't embarrass him in front of his friends :P) and left him happily inside with his friends.  Thank you God for giving him peace!!!  We headed back home to finish packing and clean up the house and then my dear friend Kara dropped us off at the airport.  Bonus!  I got to hang out with baby Claire (who was supposed to be napping) on the way here.  YAY!

We are now sitting at the gate in Grand Rapids waiting to board our plane to Chicago.  From there we will head to Frankfurt, then on to Addis Ababa, Ethiopia!!  We will arrive in Ethiopia tomorrow at 1:45PM EST. With a 7-hour time difference, it will be 8:45PM in Addis.  We get to meet M on Monday and will go to court on Tuesday.  In the rest of our time, we plan to attend a training on Ethiopian culture, history, cooking and more put on by Bethany, go shopping in the marketplace, hopefully go to church, visit yeselalem minch (a feeding ministry run by the woman who owns the guest house we will be staying at) and see what else comes up.  We are SO EXCITED to finally meet our precious girl!!!

It does not feel real. On one hand, after all this time, we are FINALLY taking this trip.  One that we have been playing over and over in our minds for 3 years.  ON the other hand, it seems crazy that we are flying to Africa for the second time in 6 months!  That only 6 months ago we brought Nicolas home.  Before that we were Longstreet - family of 2.  It's amazing how God has moved in our lives over the last 3-4 years.  We cannot wait to see what He will show us in the next 3-4 years.

The internet connection in Ethiopia is sporadic, so we may or may not be able to provide updates while in country.  Not to fear, I will post everything when we have a connection.  No pictures until next trip, but details to come!!!

If you are willing, here are our prayer requests:
For Nicolas, please pray that he will be strong, have lots of fun with Grandparents, and that God will protect his heart
For M, please pray that God will continue to keep here healthy and strong (she gained 4 lbs in the last 4 weeks!!!!  PTL!) and that He will prepare her heart for the changes she will experience in the coming months.
For us, please pray for health and strength, that we will not get sick while we are there, and that we will have the strength to leave our precious girl for 6-8 weeks.

Court Date #1 Complete!

It seems like the last two weeks have sped by on one hand, but on the other it was as if they moved like a river of molasses.  Even after the completion of one adoption, the wait is still a struggle.  And truth be told I feel guilty writing that since we haven't experienced being "stuck" in the process like so many others we know.

As the day fades away on June 5, we are happy to report that our guardianship court date ensued as planned earlier today.  A member of the Bethany Ethiopia team attended court to affirm with the judge that it is in M's best interest to be placed for adoption and to be matched with us.  The other piece necessary for our adoptive parent court date (and trip to Ethiopia) to be scheduled is a letter from the Ministry of Women's, Youth's and Children's Affairs (MOWYCA) confirming their approval of us being fit to adopt M.  This letter is expected to arrive to the judge within 1-2 weeks.  We are praying for the shorter end of that timeframe!  From there, the estimate that our adoptive parent court date could be scheduled 1-3 weeks from whenever the approval letter is received.  We will likely have 1-2 weeks' notice to travel and will spend 4 days in Ethiopia.

As I also did with Nicolas, I am beginning to get antsy to want to get things in order.  With the pace our case has moved at so far, I worry that we will be rushing to get everything together before she arrives home.  I was at Target the other day and I just couldn't resist!!  $1.50 for a onesie?  YES PLEASE!! :)  I have also purchased the fabric for my very first major sewing project - curtains for her room.  Please pray for me.  Yes, it is nothing more than straight lines, but they DO need to be straight! :P

I should also mention that we did receive some amazing pictures and a precious video from our friends who just arrived home from their first meeting with their daughter AND we received an update from Bethany with an OODLE of pictures and another video.  YAYYYY!!!!!!  It's the pictures and video that hold us over in the wait.  We were very excited to see some pictures of her on her tummy holding her head up like a big girl!  We also found out that she loves mobiles.  I think I need to add another project to my list :)  She has gained a little weight (literally - a little...5 ounces) and our friends report that she looks GREAT! :)  Let me just take a moment to say GOD ROCKS!!!

I hope to be back at the computer very soon drafting the ALL CAPS update announcing our first trip to Ethiopia.  We cannot wait to meet our little girl!!!