Where have we been?

To Ethiopia and back! What a whirlwind the last 3 weeks have been! I don't have time to post it all today, but we are thrilled to say we have Amanuel aka Amani home with us and we are doing great! Thank you all for your prayers, encouragement and support, we are blessed!

Days One and Two of Trip One to Ethiopia- Thursday and Friday, February 18 & 19, 2011

The day had finally come. The day we had been waiting for for over a year, the day God had promised four years ago would come - the day to make the journey on the other side of the world to meet our son! We left home around 1:00pm, and our long-time friend and former pastor had offered to drive us to the airport about 2-3 weeks earlier and I accepted his offer on the spot. We got there plenty early, so he and our good friend Becky (who came to see us off) sat with us until about 3:40 when they called us to board our flight to Chicago. It was a quick flight and we were in Chicago within 50 minutes. All of our flights went pretty smooth and we never had a long delay or any problems, thank the Lord! I know for the next trip that I do not need to take 3 books and 2 magazines along because I never read any of them, which is strange for me because I am a big reader. Nothing could keep me interested for some reason. I will however have music on my IPOD next time. I’m not sure what happened, but when I went to use the IPOD, it had no music on it- 1000 + songs, deleted – WHAT? Love my kids, but I am thinking they might have had something to do with this. Actually, that wasn’t such a bad thing. I watched several movies and just tried to sleep or get comfortable the rest of the time (not usually successful).

We were in the air about 16 ½ hours and total travel with layovers was about 20 hours, just the right amount of time for layovers; long enough to get where we needed to go, but not too long that we were bored in between.

****Not too far- we are almost there Amani!!****

****View from the plane overlooking the desert****

When we got to Ethiopia, we knew where to go to get our Visas, so that didn’t take too long- 5 people sitting at a table, everything hand-written, no computers to check people in. People were right, just follow the yellow signs and get in line ASAP. A driver from the hotel was waiting for us when we got there, and we were to the hotel in about 15 minutes. We got checked in and started to unpack a bit, then went down to the bar to relax for a little while. After sitting down there for about 20 minutes, the song “I Believe in You” by Don Williams came on (the song my dad and I danced to for our Father/ Daughter dance at our wedding) and I felt like that was a sign from God that our parents and families were with us in spirit - a 1970's Country Western song playing in an Ethiopian bar??? However, we heard that song 2 other times while sitting in the hotel restaurant, so then it seemed less like divine intervention and more like part of a track, oh well, it was comforting at the time.

We didn't sleep great at night- too mixed up in our sleep schedules and too excited to go meet our boy the next day!!!