thoughts as we continue waiting

we are hoping to be submitted to the embassy on tuesday. i feel like i will go crazy if we have to wait another week. it has been almost 2 months since we last held our kids, and sometimes i look around and wonder if it was all a dream. thank God for pictures to remind me that, yes, we were in fact there.

ephraim weighed 11 pounds (at 13 months) when we last saw him. in these last 2 months, he's gained 6.5 pounds. he is actually starting to look chunky. he has been through so much. he had measles and pneumonia before he was transferred to our agency's transition home. when he arrived at the transition home in december, he was still malnourished even though he'd been in the care of an orphanage for nearly a year (clearly, i'm not a big fan of people who believe an orphanage in a child's birth country is better than a family elsewhere). he was sick and very weak. i hope that one day he will see how God has delivered him and believe. i also hope he will humor me when i claim "survivor" by destiny's child as his theme song.

ruthie turns 4 in june. she is starting to look like a little girl and not a toddler. one of the things i've loved most about adopting a child that isn't an infant is immediately seeing ruthie's personality. even before we met her, the pictures showed a girl full of spunk. she is a great combo of jamie and me -- such a testament that God providentially destined her for our family, knowing she would fit perfectly.

she is also quickly becoming a sweet big sister. when we decided to adopt 2 kids at the same time, we knew that one big advantage would be our kids coming into our family as "buddies." they'd forever have someone else who looked the same, who came into our family in the same way -- someone who could sympathize with all the messiness that adoption can bring. it amazes me that our kids were once perfect strangers, and now they are forever bonded as brother and sister. ephraim has been alone so much of his life, and all i could think when we passed court was that he was legally not alone anymore -- he had a family. it has given me great comfort to see ruthie love him well while we can't be there. i've prepared for ruthie to struggle when they come home in giving up some of the "mommying" she has done for ephraim, but for now, i'm so thankful they have each other.

it is bittersweet to watch your children grow up from afar. it is a back and forth -- feeling thrilled that your child is gaining weight, becoming healthier, etc. while also feeling sadness that you are missing it all. early on in our adoption, i remember skipping over the sections of books that talked about the grief of adoptive parents. it seemed to me that since we hadn't lost children previously to miscarriage or struggled with infertility, we weren't bringing any grief to the process. what i've realized is this process creates grief. honestly, i don't know how people get through it without God. as of late, i have had to consciously commit to submitting myself to God's timing in all of this, believing that he does know best. it doesn't appease the grief, but it certainly purposes it.

please pray nothing would delay us in submitting to the embassy on tuesday. and pray the embassy would be merciful and quick with our cases.

miracles

a few days after we passed court, we got news that a letter the judge had requested for ruthie hadn't been obtained yet. as you can imagine, this was super anti-climactic, as we had gone from having a lot of momentum from passing court to waiting indefinitely again. the letter was apparently " just for the records" -- a new requirement in the south that the judge was honoring. she obviously didn't need it to pass our case, but it had to be gotten nonetheless. so we waited. then we heard about other cases where birthparents were having a difficult time getting this kind of letter. local judges were telling them to come back when the courts had more time to help them. then we heard that ruthie's first orphanage had the letter but couldn't send it because of trouble with the internet connection. then we heard the power was out in all of soddo (the city where the orphanage is), and that a driver was going to take it to addis.

we got the news about the driver on a wednesday. that same day, we heard the courts were going to close in addis for 3 weeks the following monday for staff training. so we knew that if the letter didn't make it to addis by the end of the week, there was no way our case would move forward (the court would not release our court decrees without the letter). on thursday, we heard no news. on friday, we heard that our letter had made it to addis "at the eleventh hour." our agency's staff took the letter to court, it was approved, and they released our decrees. the same day, a friend told me that the power outage in soddo had been caused by a devastating fire that had cut-off power and water to the city indefinitely.

i haven't particularly enjoyed God's timing for our adoption. passing court seemed to be the one thing that happened exactly like we hoped it would, and yet even that was marred by coming back and hearing that we couldn't move forward without the letter. and yet we stand in awe of our God who works miracles on our behalf when we do not deserve them. in the midst of a fire and a pending court closure, God used a driver from a poor town 6 hours away from addis to carry this very important letter that our entire adoption rested upon. and he got him there on time. and he caused the court to immediately approve the letter and release our decrees. miracles.

so now we are waiting for birth certificates, then passports, then physicals, and then...finally...submission to the embassy. we have been told to prepare to submit in early march, but we are praying for another miracle and hoping to be submitted the last tuesday of february. our prayer is to have our kids home by the end of next month.

proud to announce...

we passed court!

introducing

rebuma ephraim dean

rebuma means "for God" in the oromo language of ethiopia. we will call him ephraim (eh-frum), meaning "for God has made me fruitful in my affliction."

and

ruthie kalkidan dean

we will call her ruthie, meaning "friendship and loyalty." kalkidan (kal-kee-don) means "promise." (also, ruth 1:16-17 is quite beautiful in light of adoption and the meaning of her given ethiopian name).

please continue praying for us! we long to be reunited soon.

going to ethiopia!

it's better late than never to say that we're leaving for ethiopia on january 3rd! our court date is on the 10th, but we're getting there a little earlier than is typical because of ethiopian christmas. the holiday will affect visitation hours at the transition home, so we're getting there in time to spend time with our children on the 5th and 6th. we are obviously thrilled to finally meet our children after years of being in this process (we began announcing our plan to adopt from ethiopia in march 2009, dossier was in ethiopia in february 2010), but it's also exciting that we'll be there for ethiopian christmas. if anyone is reading this who isn't familiar with the ethiopian adoption process, we won't be bringing our children home on this trip. even if we pass court, we still have to wait for the US embassy to review the cases and give its final approval (and it may take several times to pass court if documents aren't correct or if there are other issues). we would ask that people pray we pass court the first time. we obviously want both our kids to be receiving the love, care, and structure that only a family can provide ASAP, but our little boy is also very underweight and has some kind of GI infection.

this time last year, we had just been told by our case manager that we were next to receive a referral for unrelated children. our hearts were anxious to receive a call by christmas. little did we know that it would be another 9 months before our referrals came, months that were filled with frustration and anger and sadness. i like to think back on this time last year because the me of last year could not have imagined how it all would play out. while our baby boy was admitted to the orphanage in january 2011, our little girl wasn't admitted until june 2011. had we gotten the next referral as we'd been told, we would have missed out on these children who we know now beyond a doubt are supposed to be ours.

so i'm thankful for what happened last year even though it was a very hard place in our adoption. it gives me a point of reference to look back on and see how God has faithfully and sovereignly orchestrated all of this.

i don't get it

(for those wondering -- we should have gotten a court date last week, but we didn't. a document was apparently missing from our paperwork, though our agency's lawyer said it was submitted. it was re-submitted, and they told us it would be a few days before we heard back. we're hoping to hear by week's end.)

now for what i really came to say.

this week, i overheard a comment that essentially carried the tone of "God forbid you can't have a biological child, because then (gasp) you'd have to adopt." when i got over being annoyed that someone said this in earshot of me knowing that i'm adopting, i started thinking how confusing it is to me that people don't see adoption the other way around. the above statement implies that the only intrinsic value adoption has is to make someone a parent, albeit in a way that is (apparently) less desirable. it's a mostly negative statement that focuses primarily on the perceived rights of a person to have a child the way they want it, when they want it (as an aside: i don't mean to imply that it's wrong to desire biological children). what it fails to highlight is the glaring fact that when a child is adopted, they go from not having a family, to having a family; from being an orphan, to being a son or a daughter. it is a miracle, and i really wish our society could see it as such.

two.

back in may, jamie and i went to europe. we did london and rome with a day in paris between the two. it had always been my dream to visit london and rome, and because of that, i was overwhelmed with unbelief while we were there. when we were in london i kept thinking, "oh my gosh, we're in london. this is so awesome. i can't believe we also get to go to rome.

(me hanging around the coliseum)

and when we were in rome, i kept thinking, "oh my gosh. we're in rome. this is so awesome. i can't believe we were just in london."

(westminster abbey)

i was thinking recently that these are exactly the thoughts i have about our kids. most days, i look at their pictures about a million times. i daydream about our baby boy and think about snuggling him and carrying him close to me in a sling and rocking him to sleep. then i remember, "oh my gosh. we also have a daughter!" so i daydream about our sweet girl and think about reading her books and practicing words and dressing her in cute clothes (don't worry, i dream about snuggling her too). then i remember, "oh my gosh. we have a son!" and so the cycle goes.

i know that one day, when these children are home, i will have days when i wonder why we chose to bring home 2 kids at the same time. but for now i love the overwhelming sense of joy i feel when i think about there being 2 of them.

a son and a daughter. a daughter and a son. i can't even believe it.

preparing a place

(forgive the ghetto shades and painter's tape)

this is our daughter's room. it's far from being done, but i have big plans. i'm almost done with the new paint job, and my next project is re-painting her bed. i found the perfect comforter on clearance at target and splurged on her first piece of wall art. for me, the rooms in our home are places for expressing the things that mean most to us. i've had a huge empty space on the wall of my living room for 2 years because i couldn't bear to hang something that didn't mean something to me. now, i long for our daughter to be surrounded by meaningful things, so i have labored to prepare a place for her that speaks of love, family, security, and faith. recently, i was reminded of jesus' words to his disciples in john 14:

“let not your hearts be troubled. believe in God; believe also in me. in my father's house are many rooms. if it were not so, would i have told you that i go to prepare a place for you? and if i go and prepare a place for you, i will come again and will take you to myself, that where i am you may be also."

later he promises:

"i will not leave you as orphans; i am coming to you."

since getting our children's referrals, i've been so aware of how the gospel story plays out in the adoption of children. it literally awes me. however, i had not (until this moment recently) noticed the beautiful parallel between preparing my daughter's room for her and jesus preparing a room for us. though i doubt jesus is as picky about paint colors and wall art as i am, the point is that he's not leaving us in all the muck that is this world. he's preparing a room for us so that we can be with him because we're a family.

for me, the tasks of preparing for my children to come home are now done with much more prayerful intention. my heart is so prone to wander from the truth, so weak in faith most of the time, that i need to be reminded that jesus is coming back for me. i pray that it's in those moments of preparing for my children that i know he is preparing for me. but i also pray that my children would know that they have a mommy and daddy preparing a place for them; and, more importantly, i pray their adoption would reveal to them the truth of the gospel so that one day they will claim with confidence that jesus is also preparing a place for them.