May 2009

Made it safe back in Addis. We had the most fabulous trip around the
country! Here are a few previews of our week before some longer posts
when we get home.

1. Stopped by a hut near our son's birthplace and were greeted by the
family and a few interested field workers. The wife had just had a
baby 15 days prior.
2. Shared the road with many people, goats, and cows.
3. Learned not to pull the water flush string on the hole toilets
unless you are out of the stall. Glad I had waterproof boots :-)
4. Drank lots of delicious coffee.

We have a baby corner dedicated in our apartment, and I think it's pretty cute. I found a great deal on a crib at a garage sale and painted a wood dresser I found by our dumpster. Tate is set with stuffed animals. We mailed him a baby giraffe, in his nursery are 3 teddy bears, one owl, and one highland cow with a rather aggressive moo.

I've had quite a lot of fun the last few weeks getting things ready for Tate to come home. My favorites have been the hemp diapers and tie-dye onsies, although I'm pretty proud of my diaper bag too. Mom and I made 20 diapers out of hemp/cotton fleece one weekend. Joseph even got in on the fun and sewed together the soakers. Here is the end result.

Today keep Joseph and me in your prayers. Sometime in the next 24 hours our court case is scheduled to be held. Hopefully we will hear tomorrow, Monday, if we passed or not and if Tate is legally our son. We'll let you all know as soon as we know. Pray that we respond to whatever news we receive with faith and hope and that we would get some sleep tonight as we eagerly wait to find out the outcome.

Check back tomorrow for news!

Today please pray for MOWA (Ethiopia's social services type organization). They are a very busy office and with the number of adoptions going through Ethiopia right now, they have a difficult time keeping up. There is one letter in particular that needs to be written by them for our court case. Many times this is written the day of the court date, so if anything goes wrong, it causes a delay. Pray that the letter would be written on time and correctly.

Please pray today that all of the external circumstances would work out for us to have a successful court date. There are about a million reasons that our court case could not be heard on Monday, starting with: the power might be out - for the day, or the court might be overbooked, or email or telephone communications be down, or the judge might be sick. We've heard lots of stories about court cases not happening on the day they are scheduled for reasons that we all take for granted in the U.S.