Adoption

Ah, adoption. One of the most beautiful things ever invented by man, or, more directly, inspired by God. I've obviously shown you how it's touched our family and continues to. For example, today was a reason for excitement connected to Adoption. We found out we have an extra month to get our dossier wrapped up! While we've technically finished our part, we need a couple more things from other agencies (namely our USCIS clearance) to be officially done with the dossier (and just so you know, the word Dossier almost makes me nauseous now after three times :) ). I haven't however, really told you how it all started, or what my view has been through all these years of experience.

I think my parents had always known they would adopt from the second they got married. My parents heard enough about it through the Christian Music community of artists they listened to and through friends who had adopted that we certainly knew what it was like. After my little brother Josh was born, My parents decided it was time to begin adopting children. Honestly, I kind of forget what it was entirely. I remember the social worker coming for our home study, seeing monthly pictures of our little Guatemalan baby, but I don't think anything really registered until my parents packed us all up in a van they had hired a driver to bring us down to JFK in and we were down in JFK airport in NYC awaiting our case worker with our tiny little girl. Back then Guatemala allowed children to be escorted out of the country by a social worker from the agency, so rather than my parents having to find a bunch of people who could watch us while they were in a foreign country, my Parents decided it would be better to have an escort for this time. My Parents got all excited when they saw our Case worker pushing a little stroller with our 6-month-old peanut in it. My Mom got to hold Gabby first, and hence got the welcoming baby spit-up :) which is a joke among the family to this day. After that, we got in the van and headed back home. I remember Gab was really out of it, and was pretty cranky until we got home. Once we got home, Dad plopped most of the already sleeping kids into their beds. I, however was up way past my bedtime.

This photo was taken at about 2 a.m. As you can see ,my 8-and-a-half year old sis was quite a peanut as a baby. :)

For the longest time, we were a family of Six. We didn't mind it either. And then, in 2008, my little brother Josh started lobbying for a little boy in China we were sponsoring. I won't show his picture since he's adopted now , but I'll guarantee you he was the cutest little guy I'd ever seen. He did this Popeye face as we called it that was simply precious. My parents prayed about it and decided we were gonna be a family of Seven. We found out our little sponsored child in China had already been referred to a family, so we stumbled across an agency called All God's Children and decided to adopt from Ethiopia. Our Dossier was done pretty quick, and then we were told to wait up to four months for a child to be referred to us. A month later, we got an e-mail with this little face:

 We were captured instantly. Even now, I couldn't believe how tiny and cute my little man was then compared to now. We signed all the papers, were completely ready for a court date so we could pass court and then travel to get him (you didn't travel for court with Ethiopia when we adopted). and then, our road  bump came. In transit to Ethiopia, our Dossier had gotten lost and we needed to redo our whole dossier. We redid it as quickly as possible and then we were back on track. Within a month or two we had passed court and were getting ready to head over. We decided just my Dad would go, and we would anxiously await them at home. My Dad had a problem-free trip to Ethiopia and within a week he was home
With Addisu. He has completely transformed our lives, and I feel that entirely. we all get our special times when Addisu likes to hang out or be with us, and I enjoy those greatly. I love him so much.

 Well, at this point, my Mom had found the Adoption blog community. She found out about Reece's Rainbow, and when we decided to do a yard sale to support them about 6 months later, my Parents decided to go again. This time, we will be bringing home our beautiful Jenny.

That's one adoption story for ya. I strongly advise you to consider if you haven't, and if you have once or twice, consider doing it again. It is truly taking God's call to care for the orphan and the widow to heart.