referralversary #1!

today marks one year since we first saw our son's face.



we waited 28 months for that day to come -- 9 months raising money and doing paperwork, 19 months officially on a waitlist. i know it doesn't seem like a lot compared to today's wait times for ethiopia, but it felt like an eternity given the original wait times we had expected.

 

you can read about rebuma's referral day here. one of my favorite parts of that day was the meatloaf i was eating for lunch while casually talking to jamie on the phone about this child who would be our son. when we got rebuma's referral, he was 9.5 months old and had lived in an orphanage for almost all of his life.

 

rebuma has endured a lot in his little life -- he is such a miracle. the thing we heard over and over from the staff at our agency's transition home when we picked our kids up was how amazed they were at how rebuma progressed. when he arrived there in december (he'd been at another orphanage previously), he was sick and extremely malnourished. when we met him for the first time in january, he weighed just 11 pounds at 13 months old and literally didn't make noise (no crying, cooing, etc). in the months between our court date and embassy date, he almost doubled his body weight. now that he's been home for more than three months, he has grown even more, started walking, and is on the verge of a major word explosion (thanks to his big sister). he has the goofiest personality (think class clown type) and is, in general, just a really fun kid (with a name like rebuma, i'm pretty sure you're required to have a huge personality). we still have hard times with him, and it's not like the last three months have healed all his wounds. but he has come far, and for that, we are thankful.

 

he is undoubtedly living proof of God's power and grace. and we are blessed to be his parents.