Thank you Emanuel!

I just want to say thank you to our Emanuel church family for coming out and clearing out our board of donation requests for Hannah's Hope today! How awesome to see God working, people coming together to offer their help, donations and prayers! God is so good, to Him be the glory!

Happy Birthday my 7 year-old!

I am about a week behind on the posting of my sweet youngest daughter's birthday! She is technically a New Year's Eve baby, but really, was born at 12:39am on 12/31. So, it had just turned 12/31 when she was born, but a New Year's Eve Baby she is, and plays the part well. She likes to "party" it up! The day of her birthday, I had the great idea when daddy got home to take the kids to the Children's Museum. It was a crazy house. Sadly, I'm pretty sure my older two have out-grown that fun place and I have to come to grips with it. Alaina had fun, getting her face painted, playing in the "diner"- serving me and daddy her famous specials, and climbing up in the tree house.

Then we took a trip to Sam's Club- which, really our kids do like to do. We picked out a cake and went to Auntie Kara and Uncle Brian's to celebrate the New Year with family and friends. It was a fun night with lots of little ones, games and lots of laughter. Didn't make it til the ball dropped, but still had fun!

Yesterday, we had a "friend" birthday party for Alaina (her first). We did a bubble gum theme, playing unwrap the gum with mittens, funny to watch; drop the gumball in the cup; find the hidden gumballs; pin the gumball on the gumball machine; guess how many gumballs were in the jar and then had them each color a picture of a gumball machine. It was fun, but I don't think I've ever had 10 first graders in my house before (9 of them girls), so there was lots of screaming and a little drama going on, but all and all, it was good.

When we were typing up the invitation on a sick day earlier in the week, she decided she wanted me to put on the invitation that instead of gifts for her, if her friends wanted to contribute to the orphanage where her little brother is, that mom and dad would take it with us when we go in February. She has some very loving and generous friends in her classroom and what a neat opportunity for her friends to join in her excitement about her little brother and in giving to others. So thank you, first grade friends, your giving is what Christ's love it all about!

Leavin' on a Jet Plane

Well, the flights are booked, the packing has begun (please read "packing" loosely as I don't think throwing things in a pile is really considered packing) and with that, the anxiety of being away from our kids for 6 days, on a plane for nearly 20 hours, (plus layovers) to another continent has begun as well.

Fortunately, Jon has been so incredibly busy with work that I think it might help him take his focus off the whole flying thing, so that helps.

We are planning to fly out of our local airport on February 17th, arriving on the evening of February 18th in Addis Ababa. From my understanding, we will be meeting our "A-man" the next day- Saturday, February 19th.

We have received some donations already, which is wonderful. Family and friends are asking what they can do, which is awesome. We have been fortunate, in that God has provided financially for us to cover the fees associated with the adoption. We did not have to fundraise, we did not have to worry about how we'd pay for the next phase of the adoption. That doesn't mean we haven't saved, "sacrificed" (read this loosely as well, since we in America really don't know what is means to have to sacrifice) some of our "wants", worked to cut corners a bit, and prayed that God would provide. However, we are thrilled when someone asks if they can help in some way.

I am toying with the idea of asking for help from our church. Unfortunately, we give little to no recognition of the orphan crisis of the world at our large church. Maybe just by asking and sharing just a bit of our story, it might start an awakening?