Our Court Trip-Awaiting MOWA

Anyone in the adoption world will know those infamous initials. The Ministry of Women's Affairs is responsible for several steps in the Ethiopian adoption process. One of which is a three sentence paragraph that must be present in your file at the time of the court hearing. Well, it seems of late it is missing more often than not. Ours falls into the missing category, so we now await a second court hearing on March 18th. Hopefully, it will be there by then and everything will be finalized so we can start the process of bringing our sixth child home.


Our trip went very well. "R" as I will continue to refer to her until we pass court was delightful. Such a little lady. Very smart and happy and seemed to warm up nicely to us. It is so strange to go to Ethiopia, meet your child and then leave them there. It was definitely a different experience. I especially felt strange at the airport as we were surrounded by other adoptive families who were bringing there kids home. Next time.



So, for now we continue to wait (the common theme in adoption) for court to hopefully pass through on March 18th (pray for us) and for a speedy embassy date (taking 8-12 weeks these days and sometimes longer). We were thinking "R" would be home in April, but now we're hoping for May and expecting June. We rest in knowing it is all in God's timing and pray for our girl who waits.

Here is a picture from when we first meet "R" (showing her pictures of her new family).

Another one of our sweet girl (she has great hair).

This Week

Lots going on in our house this week. We are busy preparing for our upcoming trip back to Ethiopia-I can't wait to get back. I'm excited of course to meet our sweet new girl, but we are also on another mission to deliver love letters (appropriate for the Valentine season:) to over 100 kids at Trees of Glory. I'm praying that all the kids will be there on the day we visit (last time Nick was there, it was a school holiday and the kids weren't there-talk about a bummer). This time, they know that we are coming and we'll be bringing letters and pictures from across the country. All month, I've been receiving letters from sponsor families from California, Ohio, Minnesota, Kansas, North Carolina, Florida....

and soon I will be placing them into the sweet little hands of their sponsor children. We will also hopefully meet our sponsor child Meseret!

My little Lou (aka Caroline) is the best helper around. She's also pretty smart and gets her school work done so fast I can hardly keep up with her. Here she is a couple of days ago making PB&J for me after finishing up her school work and asking me, "mom, what else can I do?" She did a great job!

We've also just embarked on a new phase in our lives. We are now a multi-sport family. All three girls are starting soccer and tonight was Hermela's first practice. She could have lit up the sky with her beaming smile as she put on her gear and headed out to practice. We're hoping to get the kids Ethiopian soccer jerseys on our next trip. She loved every minute of it!

Advocating--Again

Last summer, I felt compelled to start advocating for three kids that had been waiting with our agency for a very long time. They are older kids and they've been waiting for nearly 2 years for their forever families to find them. Thankfully, one of those special kids should be home with her new family in a few weeks. But for the brother and sister pair, their wait continues.

You can read more about them in my previous posts here and here.

Nick and I actually met them last January. We found them to be happy, playful and active kids who soaked up every bit of attention paid to them. They are in desperate need of the love and attention and healing that only a family can give. They wait because of their age. K is said to be 11 and M about 9. There aren't too many families out there looking for older kids. There aren't too many families willing to take these kids on. Another reason their wait has been so long is because they're waiting for a special family that is equipped to nurture and guide them. I don't know their whole story, I just know that a family with experience adopting older kids would be helpful as well as one in which K and M would be the only children or the youngest children in the home.

I can only imagine the heart ache that they must feel as day after day and month after month and now, year after year they wait for someone to "choose" them as they watch babies and toddlers and other children come and go as they continue to wait and wait for a family to love them.

These children no longer have an agency fee or any foreign fees--- that's ZERO agency and foreign fees. The only costs involved would be home study fees (about $1200-$2000), immigrations fees (about $900), travel fees (depends on airfare) and a few in country fees (about $1500). I hate to talk about money and needy kids in the same post, but unfortunately, it is the bottom line that often holds people back from stepping out on the journey of adoption. We can personally testify that if that is the only road block, God will take care of the finances and it's not going to take much to get these kids home.

While they may come with some challenges and like all adoptions, their share of trials, every child is a gift from the Lord and these kids need to know that love and the love of a family that they can call there own.

Join me in prayer for these two orphans who wait tonight for that special family.


God sets the lonely in families...Psalms 68:6