Thanks for the warning Noah

But really, I think if a four year old boy needs to worry about bathroom procedure, his biggest concern should be using too little TP, not too much. ;)

Good Friday

I came in to work early to attempt to get something done before everyone else got here today. So much for that idea. Instead I am writing a blog post. A rambling one, likely, as I’ve got too many thoughts swimming all at the same time.



We’ve been getting a lot of comments lately, via the blog and email and in person, about how good God is.

Amen!

However, I want to clarify. God is most certainly good. But he isn’t good because we get to bring Sophie home next week.

God is good. Period.

Because of his goodness, we get to bring Sophie home next week. But he would still be good if the outcome didn’t make us as happy. God was still good when we waited and waited with no word on when we would get a referral. God was good when we grew more and more frustrated by our agencies lack of communication. God is still good in all the adoptions that didn’t go as smoothly as ours.

I’ve just finished listening to Matt Chandler’s current series on Habakkuk. It has been such a good series, and I’d highly suggest you download them all and listen. In the last sermon, he talks about the very last verses of Habakkuk…

Though the fig tree should not blossom,
nor fruit be on the vines,
the produce of the olive fail
and the fields yield no food,
the flock be cut off from the fold
and there be no herd in the stalls,
yet I will rejoice in the LORD;
I will take joy in the God of my salvation.
GOD, the Lord, is my strength;
he makes my feet like the deer's;
he makes me tread on my high places.
To the choirmaster: with stringed instruments.
(Habakkuk 3:17-19 ESV)

Did you catch the “yet” in the middle? Tom at EVBC always points out that when you see a “yet” or a “but” in the Bible to pay attention. Habakkuk says that even though there will be no food this year, or any sign of food in the future… he will rejoice. Not because God is going to bless Israel with abundance and prosperity, but because God is going to send Israel into captivity.

Why? Because “God the Lord is my strength.”

We’ve gotten a lot of comments lately as well about how awesome it is that we are adopting, with the sense that we great for doing it. The guy at the Apple store last night told me he gave me “much respect” for adopting. No way.

God is good. Not us.

(If only I had actually said that to the Apple store guy. Sheesh.)

I’ve said from the beginning that adoption wasn’t exactly my first choice. I had to be convinced. I didn’t want my life to get any more frustrating, more difficult, more expensive, more busy.

Instead, our lives have just been more blessed. And she isn’t even home yet.

I made the “mistake” of cranking up Page CXVI on the way to work this morning. Halfway through the first song, and I was already a mess. The ladies at the It’s a Grind coffee shop probably wondered why some teary-eyed dude cranking old school hymns was getting coffee at 6 AM. Seriously, it is 2 minutes from out house, and I was wrecked by time I got there.

Then a guy from work stops by my desk this morning while I am writing this and reduces me to full on tears with one comment about "I hear you are going to Africa this weekend. How has that adoption process gone for you?"

By the time I get to church tonight for Good Friday, I'm not sure what kind of shape I will be in.

Anyways, back to my song choice this morning...

“Jesus sought me when a stranger,
wandering from the fold of God;
he, to rescue me from danger,
interposed his precious blood.”

We leave on Easter weekend, after chasing our daughter for two years, to bring her home. We sought her when a stranger. We’ve sacrificed money, time, stress. Has it been frustrating? Heart breaking? Difficult? Yes, yes, and yes. Is this what I would have chosen, had it been up to me? Nope. Have I, in the midst of if, been saying “Thank you God for not making this easy!” No.

And yet…

If this had all been easy, and we had cranked out a super easy adoption in six months, I think I would have been in much more danger of just checking off the “cared for orphans” box on my Christian resume. Instead, I’ve got just a tiny, tiny glimpse of God’s love for us. A picture of his adoption of us as his sons and daughters. Seeking us when a stranger. Rescuing us from danger. Interposing his precious blood.

And in the very next verse of that hymn, a reminder that none of this was my doing…

"O to grace how great a debtor
daily I'm constrained to be!
Let thy goodness, like a fetter,
bind my wandering heart to thee.
Prone to wander, Lord, I feel it,
prone to leave the God I love;
here's my heart, O take and seal it,
seal it for thy courts above."

Is there any other religion that celebrates this? The fact that even my very best acts don’t measure up to the standards of my God? That I am constantly, constantly prone to wander? That anytime I am close to God, it isn’t due to my effort but because God has bound my wandering heart to his? That if left up to my own works, I would be doomed to failure?

And yet…

God is good. Period.

And so, he sent his very Son, to live the life we couldn’t live, and die the death we deserved. What other religion celebrates that? The brutal death of our God, to satisfy the punishment that we deserved? In order that we might be adopted as sons of God? That it is not the good we have done, but is “nothing but the blood of Jesus” that rescues us from our sin? That God saves sinners, and that nothing on this earth can ever snatch us out of his hand?

Good Friday indeed. The good news indeed. Can there be any better news?

"Come, Thou Fount of every blessing,
Tune my heart to sing Thy grace;
Streams of mercy, never ceasing,
Call for songs of loudest praise."

Don't blink or you will miss it

Our little nail-biter's five seconds of fame, right at 2:50.  And he obviously paid close attention to the lesson on butterflies!

Packing our bags!

Here are the details of our trip:

We (Jason, Ella, and I) are flying out on Sunday afternoon.  We will be arriving in Addis on Monday night. 

We hope to visit Sophie on Tuesday, and take her into our custody on Wednesday.  We wont know the details until we are in country, but that is what you are hoping for.

We have our embassy appointment on Thursday afternoon, and we plan to fly out on Saturday evening to begin our journey HOME! 

We should be arriving back in Phoenix on Sunday night, May 1st! 

We plan on updating our blog all along the way for those who want to follow along on our adventure.  I can't wait to see God's finishing touches to an amazing journey to bring Sophie home!

We can go, we can go!

The embassy emailed us last night and told us that we were approved to travel!

Our director is scratching his head trying to figure out how the NVC uploaded our information so fast since he too thought it would "take them a week or longer to process your information."  I just had to laugh.  God answerd our many, many prayers, and it may have helped that I called the NVC about every 20 minutes for three days straight to check on my status.  :) 

We are so excited!  We have to ask for dates tomorrow and see what the embassy has available.  I am praying this can be done, and lined up, before they close for the holiday weekend. 

Then I will let you know when we travel!  We are looking at tickets as early as THIS Sunday! 

Keep praying! 

That's dang right!!!

 

Adventures with dad

Guns!

Meat!

Science!



Can a Saturday afternoon really get much better than that?

Praising God Tonight

(Well, really we try to praise Him every day and night, but tonight I am dancing around the house!)

Thank you Jesus, our file has been updated with the National Visa Center!

Last week I was told it would take at least 2-3 weeks to get the papers moving, processed and where they needed to be.  Tonight, three buisness days later, we have our update! 

Thank you Jesus!  Thank you faithful friends and family who have been praying on our behalf.  We are SO ready to bring our girl home.  Now all we need is the word GO and we are on our way! 

Keep praying!  Pray that the embassy will send us a date!  The date we have been waiting for since we signed our contract in June of 2009!

At least the playroom has a baby fresh and buttery aroma

All I was told when I got home was "go check the camera to see what your almost three year old did."

Never a good phrase to come home to.  Could have been worse though...

 

Paige was downstairs preparing dinner.  She sounds absolutely thrilled in this video at the creativity of her kid.

 

For Mrs. Marquard and Miss Nikki

That lovely bouquet on Levi and Noah when they arrived at school the other day?  That was the smell of a "romantic puppy surprise."  Hopefully it was better than "sweaty little kindergarten boy who hasn't bathed in four days."

Getting a little crowded in there

We've got a bunch of carrot plants going gangbuster in our garden. The old farmer genes buried deep in my genetics told me I should pull some so that the remaining carrots had some room to stretch their legs. Recessive farmer genes should be listened to, right?
 

Paige sent me this one the other day. Since I am the only person who really enjoys cauliflower around here, I got to eat most of it myself. There is still half of it left in the fridge. And Paige even made me cheese sauce, just like mom used to. Mmmmmm...
 

And speaking of recessive farmer genes... this is funny.

Update

Today I received this little update in my in box.

Ella thought she looked adorable in her Easter outfit. Not the Easter outfit I was envisioning for her but hey, she still looks adorable.

In the great paperwork chase we received some encouraging news today as well. It appears that our paperwork WAS mailed this past week and is at the National Visa Center. (That is where we need it to be). Not sure who to believe... the lady from yesterday who told me it was still at the NBC, or the lady today who told me it had shipped on Tuesday and provided me with a tracking number. I went with the tracking number information because that was a much better news. Hope she was right!

So, then I spent the day harassing the National Visa Center to see if they could please find my file and expedite it for the embassy. (The embassy also emailed us this morning stating that they were asking the NVC to expedite the paperwork, as it was all they needed for our files approval.) So while they knew it needed to be expedited, I was told, "well ma'am, we receive 50,000 pieces of mail a day in our mailroom."

My response was "Great, so can you find it? Here's my tracking number!"

"Please call back in a few hours while I send an email to the mail room asking them to look for it ."

I called back in two hours, and then again in another four hours, but no sign of the paperwork. Then they closed for the weekend.

So, I will be waking up at 4:30 on Monday morning (or maybe I will make Jason do it so he can charm the ladies at the NVC with his chatty personality) to call them when they first open to see if they found it, uploaded it, and sent it to Ethiopia.

If given the chance I GUARANTEE that I could have found my paper in the mail room of 50,00 pieces of new mail, even without the tracking number. The people working there have no idea what is waiting for me on the other end of this "adventure." They are lacking my motivation.




Sophie can rest assured that her mother is doing EVERYTHING in her power to bust her out of those bunny pajamas!

The Scoop

Referral, September 2010

We are immediately in love.

Update 1, October 2010

Update 2, December 2010:

Dr. Sophia, January 2010

We paid a pretty penny for that update.

Update 3, January 2011

Trip 1, February 2011
Where'd all her hair go?

Update 4, March 2011

Seriously, what is with those socks!

Oh how we want Sophie home!

So we may have gotten excited too soon, because wouldn't you know it, our case is having trouble at the embassy.  Really its par for the coarse and shouldn't come as a shocker.  Trouble is I let my guard down this time and was really, really, hoping that we would be there this week to be a complete family.  I actually believed that it could happen.  Things were going well.  Our MOWA letter was there on time.  We had passed court officially while we were still in country.  Our paperwork was being translated.  Our file was submitted to the embassy.  And it was really looking hopeful.  But alas, it has taken a turn once again to be a huge tangled mess.

Today I cried.  I cried when I landed in the US back in the beginning of March, because it didn't feel right to return home without her.  I have missed her every day since then, and long for her to be home,  but I'm not much of a cryer.  Today I cried.  I want my daughter.  It is excruciatingly hard to hold your child, and then walk away.  It is harder to watch the days, turn into weeks, turn into months, and still no child.  It is so frustrating to be inching closer and closer to the goal, but not ever quite getting there.

So here's the scoop that has me in a tizzy right now.  Its all about paperwork and its all about our government and the rate at which they work to process things.  The embassy has emailed our agency saying our i600a (thee most important piece of paper for visa processing) is expired.  They have it on file as expiring on April 9.  Well, that would be true, but we have renewed it.  The US government here knows that, but they wont be passing that information on to the embassy for probably another 2 or so weeks.  My approved paperwork wont be mailed out until next week "oh Monday or Tuesday" and then it will take "2 days to ship", and then it should take the National Visa Center "about another week or so to scan it and upload it to the embassy." 

Okay, can you expedite that?  "Oh no, only if you have an embassy appointment or the child has life threatening medical needs." 

So can the embassy give us an appointment?  "Not with out an updated i600a on file"

So there you go.  There is our dilemma.  Our only option is to sit and wait  for two to three weeks, until they go ahead and forward MY APPROVED paperwork to the embassy in Ethiopia to show them that I am in fact, and have always been (since it did not expire b/c I RENEWED it) approved.  Nice huh?

Believe you me, we have tried everything we can think of and I will be making even more phone calls tomorrow.  It appears (not a known fact b/c information is extremely hard for people to share for some reason) that the only thing preventing us from traveling to Ethiopia and retrieving our child is a piece of paper resting happily in the Department of Homeland Security, National Benefits Center in Lee's Summit, Missouri.  I don't know about you, but that makes me want to cry.



Who wants to bet they send us a letter anyways?

Awesomesauce!

Grrrrrrrrr

Who's taking bets he ends up with two broken arms?

Poor kid is falling apart!

This was the picture Paige texted me this afternoon.

And I'm busted...

At least, that was the doc's best guess.  I took Levi to the pediatric orthopedic doc on Monday.  He said that he had all the signs (fall, pain, swelling, isolated fat pad, blood in the elbow) but that the fracture wasn't visible on the x-ray.  Most likely, based on where Levi was still feeling pain when the doc poked him, a radial head fracture.  That guy, right there (not his actual x-ray)...

Doc's judgement was that it was better to put a kid in a cast for a few weeks if there is a chance something is broken and have everything heal correctly, rather than skip the cast for comfort and end up with a gimpy arm the rest of your life.

OK, so he didn't use the word "gimpy."  But that is what he meant.

So Levi and I took a before picture...

And (in the spirit of Cousin Ron) did a before interview...

Yeah, it doesn't really seem broken in that video to me either...

Then the casting began.

Whoops, touched it while it was still wet!

"Awwwww, man!  This thing is already hot and itchy!"

And for anyone who cares for him while we might not be near... the tech was very specific.  No coat hangers down this thing to scratch itches.  He said you can't do that with new casts, and he's seen far too many people injure themselves trying it.

Also, Paige wants to make it clear that although she gave me specific instructions not to let him get a pink or purple cast, she now feels bad for having cruelly enforced her gender sterotypical colors on her son.  Me... not so much.  Better to crush his color choice now than to forever be known as "the boy with the pink cast."  He actually ordered some flame Casttoos today.  Much better.

He's doing pretty good with the cast so far, at least for the first two days.  No using it as a weapon against his siblings, yet.  But I am sure it won't be long and he will be greatly looking forward to his appointment with this piece of equipment...

Take it away Ray!

 

His arm isn't as pretty as his brother's

A few months ago Luke dislocated his elbow.  It's looking like Levi won't be quite so lucky.

He fell on the playground yesterday, and came home saying his arm hurt.  He didn't move it all night, and still wasn't moving it in the morning.  He went to his pediatrician this morning, then to get x-rays.  The pediatrician can't diagnose it for sure, so we have to take him to a pediatric orthopedic specialist next week.  But she did say that they could see bleeding in his elbow, and an "isolated fat pad" (whatever that means) leading them to believe it is a "occult fracture"  (didn't know what that meant either without the inter-Google.)  So she is pretty sure that it is broken, and that he will end up in a cast.  We'd bet on her, because she has always nailed what is wrong with our kids.

Poor kid.  He's a tough little dude, and he was saying it hurt, so we figured something was up.  It's going to be a long summer with no swimming and all left handed writing/feeding/wiping/scratching.