Ella's Homecoming Slideshow & Video

Ella's Homecoming Slideshow & Video: TripAdvisor™ TripWow ★ Ella's Homecoming Slideshow ★ to Addis Ababa, Dulles and Honolulu. Stunning free travel slideshows on TripAdvisor

She is amazing!

Well, we have seen our daughter finally! She is absolutely beautiful and amazing. Thank you to all for the prayers and encouragement that has been shown to our family. We aren't sure yet when we will get to travel but hope it is soon. We showed Rafe and Bryson what their baby sister looked like. Rafe was very happy and Bryson ran down the hall screaming! LOL It was a happy scream, though. My grandmother, Mamaw, and Mother are here in Hawaii visiting us! So, this is an extra special time for us to be receiving good news. I hope to learn how to crochet from my grandmother while she is here. I think it will be a good thing to use for a pastime. There will be some waiting before we can go over to Ethiopia. So, I'm hoping this will do the trick to help me get through it! It seems like all of a sudden we have a ton of stuff to get done. To be continued.........

Orphan sunday!

Catching up!

Well I guess I haven't done a very good job with keeping up with the blogging! It was a hard summer as Josh had to do a bunch of traveling for the Army. But, we are all back together again and are coming along in our adoption journey to Ethiopia!

We received an email from our agency a couple of days ago about a potential referral. The little girl is about 10 months old and awaiting a doctor's visit to get a complete medical check up. We will find out  next week if this is to be our daughter! This Journey has been long and often times frustrating with changing state laws and constant paperwork to be done. We are very anxious to have our daughter home with us and I know God will make that happen in his time! Many things have been revealed to our family throughout the process. We have matured as a married couple and have grown spiritually more than we could have ever imagined. Our children, Rafe and Bryson, are such sweet children. They have remembered every day to pray for "baby sister" to come home soon. It makes me proud to see their own relationship with God grow into something special every day.

We are doing OK on funding the adoption but no millionaires have offered to pay for the adoption yet.;) So, we must continue to fund raise and pray that God will provide. Our t-shirt website will be closed on Monday (10/22/2012) so if you have been thinking about buying a really cool t-shirt, now would be the time! We will leave our "donation" site up which is through paypal if anyone is interested. A link can be found at the top of this page. We also covet prayers that we might have our baby girl home before Dec. 31, 2012 due to the "bush tax cuts" not being extended. We have written our congressman on this issue and are not sure it will be saved. This tax cut would help us out tremendously, financially if it were extended. However, that doesn't look likely. We also need prayers for safety when we do end up traveling to Ethiopia. We will have to go twice and there will be some involvement at the US embassy. With everything going on in the world, it is kind of scary to know we will be surrounded by countries that are not entirely fond of US citizens.  Thank you to everyone that has supported us throughout this journey emotionally and financially. We will never forget this experience and pray that our story can help someone else in some significant way. Updates will follow as we continue to wait for our precious baby girl!

A couple of weeks ago we got to work with a very talented photographer and have some portraits done! It was so much fun and Fiona (the photographer) captured our family perfectly. We did some photos for our fundraiser site outside our house while wearing "show hope" t-shirts. During the photo shoot my mother noticed a praying mantis on one of the park benches. It was very cool to see this little creature that looked like it was praying right at the same time we were taking photos for our adoption. It reminded us that we should continue to pray for the little girl that we hope to bring home soon!

Thanks to our wonderful Family and Friends we were able to make our first payment for the adoption. I can not express how thankful we are to those who helped us achieve our fundraising goal for the first installment. We still have a lot of money to raise for our next payment but we believe God will provide as he always has in the past. The next payment will probably be for when we are referred a child. This is the biggest cost of the adoption. It basically pays for a set country fee to Ethiopia after we accept a referral for a child and for our travel expenses. Again, we have every hope that our God will provide! Here's another great shot of us in our fundraiser t-shirts

As of right now we are waiting on one document to complete our dossier. The dossier is a bunch of notarized documents we need to have authenticated in Washington d.c., which will then be sent to Ethiopia to show the government who we are. We have been having some trouble getting this one document notarized correctly and we are on the third try now. It's a medical evaluation that is signed by our doctor stating that we are healthy and stable to adopt. Hopefully we will have it all straightened out soon! After our dossier is complete we will be put on a waiting list to be referred a child. When I spoke to our agency last there were only 5 people on the list! Which is pretty amazing since sometimes there can be hundreds of people ahead of you. But that is where we are in the adoption right now! Here's another photo of our beach photos!







About Ethiopia

Ethiopia is known to be one of the oldest countries in the world. The traditions and religious culture are one of a kind. In the 3rd century BC, Ethiopia was described as one of the four great world powers along side Rome, China and Persia. Some of it's history can supposedly be traced back to King Solomon, the son of King David in the bible. He was known to be very wise. Most of you may remember the story of the two women in the bible who claimed to be the true mother of a particular child. King Solomon ordered to have the baby cut in two so the mothers could each have an equal piece. In his wisdom, he knew the real mother would object to this. What mother would want their child to be sliced in two? The real mother spoke up and said the other woman could have the child so it could live. King Solomon immediately gave the child to the woman who spoke up. 1Kings 3:16-28.


Back to the story of Ethiopia.... This is not in the Bible and I'm not saying I believe this. I just want to get the story out of what the Ethiopians believe. Queen Sheba supposedly conceived from King Solomon after he tricked her into sleeping with him. She went back to Ethiopia, gave birth to Menelik I and later acquired the Ark of the Covenant from King Solomon as a gift, maybe? It is said that Menelik I was supposed to get a replica but King Solomon switched it with the real Ark of the Covenant in the end. Today, there is a building built around the Ark and a priest is assigned the life long commitment of guarding it. No one can see it or go inside to touch it. It is not known if the Ark really exists there. If you want to read the story of Queen Sheba visiting King Solomon in the Bible, go to 1Kings 10: 1-13. Picture below is of the church that supposedly houses the Ark in Axum.


Most of Ethiopia is Christian with a third of the population being muslim. Their traditions are carried out by the church. Ministers and priests wear very colorful smocks and hats during ceremonies. There are churches that have been built out of rock and mountain. Here is a picture of one in Lalibela, Ethiopia. This is the Church of Saint George, carved entirely out of rock.  To be continued......

While driving Rafe to school today I was reminded of something. There was a very intense conversation going on in the back seat between my two kids Rafe and Bryson. Bryson, out of the blue, asked, "where is God?" I was kind of shocked so I just listened instead of saying anything. Rafe responded, "Bubba, God is everywhere, He's in everything." And he said it in a way that was like, DUH! Everyone knows that. Lol!! I was very impressed. It's nice to hear that from your kids as a reminder every now and then. And I love that he was so casual about it. He got out as usual and waved good bye. I drove off and headed home. When I got home I realized I couldn't find my cell phone and remembered that I had left it on top of the car while putting my son's seatbelt on before we left for school. I was in a panic! I ran outside, expecting it to be gone. There was no way I could drive for about 45 minutes on bumpy, pot hole roads and it still be on the roof of my car. But, apparently even God can make a cell phone stay on the roof of a car to help a mother out. Why? Because He IS everywhere. When we think of all the things that go into adopting a child, we think so literally. I have to do the paperwork, I have to mail a million documents to a hundred different people, I have to make all the payments it takes to move forward in adoption. But what we don't realize is, GOD guides us through the paperwork, GOD directs us to the people we need to speak to, GOD provides the finances it takes to bring a child home if it is His will for us. So, I will not worry about our dossier or the money or the paperwork....I will stand firm in the belief that God will provide and direct our hearts where to go throughout this process. Can I get an Amen!?! Amen!