Our Adoption Journey

A Final Post and a Few of My Favorites

2009-11-18T14:11:00.000-08:00

As a final post to this blog, I want to link back to a few of my favorite and/or important posts from our adoption journey. I hope those who stumble across our blog will read it from start to finish, and be BLESSED in hearing about the emotional journey we took and God's faithfulness through it all. However, I know that sometimes those of you skimming adoption blogs are mainly just looking for one particular thing, so these links may help you if you only want to read the "most important" stuff :) Even though I'm no longer posting here, please leave a comment if you desire and let me know how I can pray for you (or if you have a blog I can follow) throughout your own adoption journey. If you care to see what our family is CURRENTLY up to, you can find us HERE.

If you enjoy shedding a few tears and hearing about adoption journeys through video, you can find ours by clicking to these posts:

Click HERE (and scroll to the bottom of the post) to watch Part 1
Click HERE to watch Part 2

If you'd like to read more about our journey through specific posts, here are some links and descriptions:

Click HERE to read about why we chose to adopt from Ethiopia
Click HERE to read about why we chose to adopt through Holt International
Click HERE to read about the day we submitted our dossier
Click HERE, HERE, and HERE to read about moving on Holt's wait list for a referral
Click HERE to read about immunizations
Click HERE to read about receiving our referral
Click HERE and HERE to read about passing court
Click HERE to read about receiving our travel dates
Click HERE to read about the start of our travel to Ethiopia, and then click through all of the October posts for the details of our trip and our homecoming

Peace and God Bless as you enjoy the upcoming holiday season. Our family has so much to be grateful for this year, we pray that you have also experienced a multitude of God's blessings in 2009.

Drumroll Please...

2009-11-14T21:52:00.000-08:00

Photo and video editing at www.OneTrueMedia.com

Congratulations to our two t-shirt winners! I will email you privately to get your color/size requests :)

Celebrating the End of a Blog with FREE tshirts!

2009-11-09T14:20:00.001-08:00

Alright folks, so here's the deal... I absolutely loved maintaining this blog throughout our adoption journey. I am so glad I stuck with it! Thanks to everyone who reads it, leaves comments, and has taken part in this journey via "bloggerville." I love all of you out there in bloggerville! :)

I am not going to delete this blog by any means... I want this blog to remain as both a document of our journey, and a resource for adoptive parents who come after us. However, now that we are home together as a family of four and our journey "to adopt" our daughter has ended, I will be posting all future updates of our family's continued journey, as well as our transition, on my other blog Hutchison Happenings. I have already completed a few posts there since we've been home, and would invite any of you to become "followers" of that blog so we can continue to stay in touch. Some of the posts will be just pertaining to our family, pics of things we do, etc. But I also plan to use that blog to continue writing about adoption issues and advocating for orphans.

So, instead of having a sad good-bye, I would like to celebrate the end of this blog by giving away some FREE tshirts! Do you remember THESE? Well, we fortunately still have some left in stock and would love to give away 2 of them!

There are two ways to enter this tshirt contest, and you are welcome to gain two entries by doing BOTH options if you wish:
1. Leave a comment to this post (say anything, as long as it's not rude! ha ha!)
2. Become a "follower" of Hutchison Happenings. You'll have to choose to be a "public" follower or I won't know you're there. Just click the "follow" button on the right sidebar (I just added it!).

This contest will end on Friday, and Eli & Mikayla will draw names out of everyone who entered. We'll then announce the two winners with a final post on this blog. Hooray and good luck!!

Adoption, Orphans, and Trusting God

2009-11-07T19:46:00.000-08:00

Did you know that approximately 33% of Americans have seriously considered adopting, but only 2% actually follow through? I have found this to carry some truth even within my own personal friendships. Ever since we started the process of adopting our daughter, I have had a number of friends from different walks of life tell me that they have either considered adopting in the past, or are considering adopting in the future. However, the number of people we know (outside of those we met through our adoption process) who have actually, or are actually in the process of adopting, is quite small. I can count them on one hand. Many people I know who considered adopting in the past, but decided against it, can give a long list of reasons as to why they made that decision (not enough money, not enough space, not enough time, etc). In some cases, it is obvious that the Lord led them to make the decision they did. After all, we are not all called to adopt a child. In other cases, it is more obvious that the decision was ultimately made out of fear or a disbelief in God's ability to provide (not just referring to financial provision, but in some cases even emotional provision).

I can tell you from experience, there are so many reasons to have fear in the adoption process.
There are so many reasons NOT to do it. But if you are considering adoption, the questions must be:
1. Is God calling you to this?
2. And if so, do you truly believe he will provide everything that you need? ("Everything" might include: finances, time, space, love, courage, wisdom, faith, endurance, patience, perseverance... and the list could go on and on)

"Therefore I tell you, do not worry about your life, what you will eat or drink; or about your body, what you will wear. Is not life more important than food, and the body more important than clothes? Look at the birds of the air; they do not sow or reap or store away in barns, and yet your heavenly Father feeds them. Are you not much more valuable than they?" Matthew 6:25-26

"So do not fear, for I am with you; do not be dismayed, for I am your God. I will strengthen you and help you; I will uphold you with my righteous right hand." Isaiah 41:10

The adoption process can be big & scary, and seemingly insurmountable at times (ie - how will we raise all that money? - typically the most common question), but God is BIGGER. He can make a way for you, the same way He did for us. We are not rich people. We did not adopt out of "charity" to "save" a child. We did not adopt to be like Hollywood movie stars. We adopted because we wanted to grow our family, and felt the Lord calling us to open our hearts and our lives to a child already in need of a family. Why reproduce ourselves again, when there are so many children around the world just waiting for mommies and daddies to love them? :)

We began to feel very deeply God's burden for orphaned and vulnerable children. The Old Testament contains more than 40 scriptures that show God's concern and compassion for orphans. God's people then and God's people now must care for this disenfranchised and neglected segment of society. Adoption is the most loving and permanent way to care for these little ones. Psalm 68:5-6a says about God, "A father to the fatherless, a defender of widows, is God in His holy dwelling. God sets the lonely in families..." (Christian Advocates for Adoption).

Not every person is called to adopt a child. However, I do believe the Bible is very clear that every Christian is called to care for orphans in some way or another. This may be through adoption, foster care, sponsoring a child, volunteering at a children's home, providing baby-sitting for adoptive parents or foster parents, praying daily for a specific child living in an orphanage or in the foster system, giving financially to families who are adopting or agencies that help orphaned children. Honestly, there are so many ways to help care for the orphan. The question isn't IF we are called, it's WHAT are we going to do since we are ALL called?

“Religion that God our Father accepts as pure and faultless is this: to look after orphans and widows in their distress and to keep oneself from being polluted by the world.” James 1:27

Tomorrow, November 8th, is "Orphan Sunday" sponsored by the Christian Alliance for Orphans. All around the world, churches will be taking part in this event at the local level by creating awareness in their congregations in regards to the plight of the orphan. Please pray for this day - pray that many Christians would feel the call to take a stand and "defend the cause of the fatherless." (Isaiah 1:17). If you are interested in learning about ways to get involved in praying for or caring for orphans - please take a look at this website. Lots of great information and great ideas! I personally love the "40 Days of Prayer for Orphans" listed under "Prayer Guides."

Time and time again throughout our adoption journey, we would find ourselves at an impass. There were times that we broke down and cried. There were times that we asked God why He would have us start a process, that we would never have the money to complete. There were times we questioned our decision, or even had to face loved ones who questioned our decision. There were times that we wondered if we could love an adopted child as much as a biological child. There were times that we wondered if were really willing to take a risk and trust God completely. There were times we wondered if we had enough faith. Did we just imagine that God called us to do this?

In every situation, and every circumstance, God reminded us that He was there. He reminded us that He loves each and every one of His children and has a plan for all of them. He provided ways when there were no ways. No joke people, let me speak to finances for a moment... If finances are holding you back, I would encourage you to step out in faith and prepare yourself to be amazed at the ways God will provide. For us, it was in ways and through people that we least expected. Honestly, I believe at the same time God calls YOU to adopt, He is calling another person in your life to help fund your adoption. I truly do. In our case, God brought some "financial angels" who would honestly tell you what a blessing it was for them to play such a significant role in bringing home our daughter. One such angel stepped out in faith to help us in an incredible way. She said, "This money is not mine, it's Gods. It belongs to Him. I am just taking care of it for Him." A short time after she gave to us, an IRS mistake in her taxes gave back to her the exact same amount she had given to help fund our adoption. It's no wonder God wants her to be a caretaker of that money :) Praise God! I tell you that one story, but honestly, there were MANY stories just like that throughout our entire process. Time after time, God proved Himself faithful. Time after time, He made a way where there was no way.

My prayer is that those who are in the "considering" phase, might continue to pursue the Lord fervently in prayer to see where He may continue to lead them in this journey. It brings my heart great joy to know that our adoption story has encouraged others in their own paths toward adoption, and I pray that as our journey continues on, we might continue to impact others in the same manner. Even if you are not called to adopt, I encourage you to ask the Lord to burden your heart for orphaned children, in the same way that His heart is burdened. Ask Him what role you can play in caring for orphans. While it's true there are 143 million orphaned children in the world, do not fall into the trap of believing that you can't make a difference. Have you ever heard the Starfish Story? Just think about the ONE, and know that God will take what you have to offer and multiply it in ways you could never have imagined.

"This is what the Lord says to you: Do not be afraid or discouraged because of this vast army. For the battle is not yours, but God's. ...Take your positions, stand firm and see the deliverance the Lord will give you. ...Go out and face them tomorrow and the Lord will be with you." 2 Chronicles 20:15,17

VIDEO: Our Adoption Journey (Part 2)

2009-11-04T15:29:00.001-08:00

Here it is!

Photo and video editing at www.OneTrueMedia.com

Stay Tuned...

2009-10-26T21:35:00.000-07:00

Sorry for the silence, we are still here and still alive :) I have a couple of posts in the works for this blog... a few thoughts to share now that we're home. But, they are still in the works. I am also in the process of creating "Part 2" of the video that we shared with you in THIS POST. If you haven't yet watched Part 1, be sure to check it out! More to come soon...

Ethiopia Day 10 - Welcome HOME!

2009-10-22T19:08:00.000-07:00

Our trip home can be summed up in one word - LOOOOOOONG. The flight from Ethiopia to Amsterdam went great, but after boarding the plane in Amsterdam the pilot announced that due to some weather conditions we would be arriving in to Detroit late. This was bad news because we knew we had to make it through customs, and didn't have an extremely long layover in which to catch our final flight to Phoenix.

Once we made it to Detroit, we actually thought we were okay to make our next flight, but that must have been the jet lag getting to our heads :) We missed the flight by about 10 minutes! Ugh. Fortunately, there was another flight out leaving in 3 hours. Unfortunately, it was overbooked. So, we ended up being placed on the very last flight to Phoenix that night which was scheduled to depart at 7:35pm.

After seeing everything we could see in the Detroit airport, Micah (being the wonderful husband that he is) conceded to my wishes to get us a room at the airport hotel for the next 7 hours we were stuck there. I have to say, this was the best decision ever. We all enjoyed naps, showers, and room service for lunch! We tried to make the most of it, even though all we really wanted was to just get home.

The flight departed about 10 minutes late (due to weather again), and we finally arrived home to Sky Harbor airport just shy of 10:00pm. I knew Eli (along with my parents) would be there waiting for us, but I had no idea that so many wonderful friends would make the late journey to the airport just to greet us. We felt so loved and it was wonderful to see familiar faces.

A few photos from the welcome home reception at the airport... (thanks to Jeanetta, who didn't actually appear in a single shot but we SO appreciate her being there and snapping pics!)

Eli waiting excitedly with Grandma & Grandpa (my parents)!

Eli greeting Ryan and Terri, friends from Harvest (or as he calls them "Kaylee's mom & dad")Bonnie (my lovely sister), Melissa (thanks for updating my blog during the trip!), and Lee (our Pastor... and Melissa's husband, he he)

Brenda (Micah's sister), Grandpa, Bonnie, and Papa (Micah's dad), and of course Eli (our little Linus) with his beloved blankie

Terri, Melissa, Lee, Papa, Nicole (thank you for the cute stuffed animals - kids loved them!!), and Ryan

Do they see us yet??

Here we come!!

The Hutchison Clan, happy to have Kathy back home safe and sound!

My First Goal: Grab my little buddy Eli and give him a big hug!

Hi Mikayla!

I think she's a little tired, don't you? Who can blame her!

So glad to see my boy again.

Finally.

All Together.

And Home.

Ethiopia Days 8-9

2009-10-22T14:22:00.001-07:00

Day 8
"This morning we attended the Farewell Ceremony at the care center for all of the children who were heading home with their new families. It was a wonderful time of sharing, laughing, and oohing/aahing over all the children being adopted who were dressed in their traditional Ethiopian clothing. Mikayla looked stunning wearing her beautiful dress! The nannies served us a traditional coffee ceremony, complete with popcorn, and we also enjoyed cake from Kaldi's Coffee. Dr. Fikru shared a few words at the beginning in honor of the adoptive families, and said a prayer for all of the children who were leaving and the futures they have ahead of them. A medical team from the U.S. had just arrived (sponosored by Holt) and came to watch the ceremony prior to making the drive down to Durame for some volunteer work at the Holt medical clinic. All of the children (toddler age and up) were brought down to watch the farewell ceremony and enjoy some cake with us - they blessed everyone by singing some wonderful songs before we left (I think I may have a few on video... but still sorting through it). At the end of our time, each adoptive family had the chance to share about their time in Ethiopia and thank the nannies and Holt staff for their hard work in caring for the children. Micah was "nominated" to say the final group prayer before we all left, and prayed for the endurance of the Ethiopian staff in caring for the children, as well as all of the children currently in care - that each and every one of them would soon have a family to call their own. Beautiful."

Set up for the ceremony

Ethiopian Princess

Sharing something with a nanny...

Each child who was leaving had the chance to cut the cake

Eating it was the best part!

Being Silly!

Waiting with Mom

She already has dad wrapped around her finger

So happy together!

Travel Group 24: Ten families (our friends) now home together... forever!

"After eating lunch and playing back at the hotel for awhile, those who wanted to go shopping dropped our kids off back at the care center one final time to play and take naps until we returned. Mikayla was a bit upset about this, and we went back and forth as to whether or not one of us would just stay at the hotel with her, but in the end we knew it would be nice to experience one last outing in Ethiopia together as a couple and purchase some items we could bring him in honor of our daughter's beautiful country to share with her later. I think the nannies enjoyed having a few final hours with the kiddos too :) The shopping trip consisted of a stop at the Leprosy Hospital (definitely the highlight) where we purchased most of our goodies. The people there made everything by hand, and it was truly a miracle to watch them work! We also stopped at a few little shops, and a coffee store. The aromas in the coffee store were so strong that it was impossible to stay in there very long - I have never inhaled such STRONG coffee fumes in my life. By the time we arrived back to the care center to retrieve our daughter, she was happy and playing. We were glad we made the decision to take that last outing together." :)

Day 9
I didn't actually write in my journal on this day, as most of it was spent packing our suitcases. We came home with two LESS suitcases than what we brought over, thanks to everyone who sent donations with us! I spent most of the day doing the packing, while dad entertained Mikayla outside and in the hotel lobby. Kathy and I went to the bead store to make some final purchases (the pic of this was posted under Day 3) and enjoyed the cool, rainy weather. This was the first day since we arrived that it was rainy outside.
After the bead shop, we sent Micah out for a final run to the Chinese restaurant for take-out, and took naps in the hotel room. We actually encountered a truly special moment in the hotel room with Mikayla just after nap time. Due to the fact that our hotel room was on the right side of the building, and located on the top floor, our window directly overlooked Holt's Care Center next door. At one point, we noticed Mikayla (sunglasses on and all) just peering out the window and watching the care center. There was a nanny outside on the balcony at one point, and Mikayla just stood there quietly for quite a lengthy period of time... watching. It's almost like she knew she was leaving and wanted to have a final look. Who knows what she was thinking, but it was a special moment that we were lucky enough to catch on camera...

During the late afternoon, one adult from each family went to the care center a final time to retrieve the children's visas. It was surreal to actually hold my daughter's passport in my hands, as well as her visa paperwork that would grant her entry into the United States. We were also given back the family welcome albums we sent which was a nice surprise because I didn't think we would ever see it again. I am happy to have it so I can save it for Mikayla - it was the first thing we ever sent to her after receiving our referral. In addition, Holt gave us a DVD of the Farewell Ceremony and a DVD of some video footage of our trip. Very cool!

We headed to the airport around 6:30pm and battled through the craziness of Ethiopian checkpoints and security. By the time we boarded our flight (about 10pm) we were pretty wiped out. Mikayla was giddy with excitement about the TV screens located on the back of each chair :) We tried to explain to her that we were on an airplane, but have no idea if she actually knew we ever flew in the air. She probably just thought we were on a bus for a long period of time! It wasn't long into that first flight that we all fell asleep...

Ethiopia Day 7

2009-10-21T21:25:00.000-07:00

Our Day #7 in Ethiopia was a Tuesday, and I will admit that this day was a "low point" of the trip for me. The first half of our trip was jam-packed with activity and excitement, but the last half was spent having tons of down-time at the hotel. I was missing Eli terribly by this time, and since we had taken custody of Mikayla, I was just ready to be back home in my own comfort zone. I'm not sure what it was, but emotionally I just had a hard time snapping out of my negative feelings on this day. I actually felt much better by Wednesday, but I guess Tuesday was just Tuesday and I needed to have a pity party or something. :)

So here's the journal excerpts, as well as some pics... though it wasn't quite as exciting as some of the other days.

"Today was a difficult day in many respects. While it's great to have custody of Mikayla, we are now confined to the hotel. I tend to get stir crazy in situations like this and having a new daughter in the mix makes it quite overwhelming at times. Mikayla had a couple of "breakdowns" today where we had to tell her "no" in a couple of situations, and she retaliated each time by hitting Micah repeatedly. We noticed this is tendency that many of the children have from the care center. I am sure for her it's frustrating to not be able to communicate through the language barrier with us, and it's difficult that we can't explain our reasons for saying "no" like we can with Eli. It's like she is forced to trust us, and deal with it, even though she probably isn't quite ready to be trusting us yet. Fortunately, her meltdowns were short-lived and she was soon back to her cheerful self each time."

"Our appointment at the U.S. Embassy was quite simple, however, the timing was very bad since all of the kids missed naps. It took awhile for all ten families to have their interviews, but everybody got through without a hitch and the Embassy will have our kids' visas ready on Thursday before we fly out. Once we returned to the hotel, I sent Micah out to get take-out Chinese (yes there was an authentic Chinese restaurant down the street from our hotel) for lunch, followed later that evening by pizza for dinner! I guess we needed a little taste of home or something." :)

"In general, I am just feeling ready to be back home again. I'm looking forward to the farewell ceremony and shopping tomorrow, and I want to make the most of the last two days we have here. Ethiopia has truly been amazing, and I'm so grateful to have had the opportunity to travel here and experience firsthand a taste of our daughter's native country/culture. I'm just ready to be back home, with BOTH my son and daughter in my arms."

I think the Union Hotel doormen must love it when families from each travel group take custody of their kids, because they definitely had fun-filled days of kicking soccer balls, batting balloons, and making sure small children didn't fall off the ledge of the courtyard :) Ha Ha! They were wonderful guys and we enjoyed getting to know them.

There's no words for this - so stinkin' cute!
They would just watch cars go by for loooooong periods of time :)

Dad was tired by Tuesday as well.

Mikayla enjoyed coloring with Nana in the hotel room.

Hopefully you don't stop reading due to a boring Tuesday :) I promise it gets good again tomorrow. I'm also finally starting to go through our video footage, and can't wait to start sharing some of our special moments with video! Stay tuned...

Ethiopia Day 6

2009-10-19T13:52:00.000-07:00

Prior to leaving Durame, our group was taken to Holt's medical clinic. The clinic provides much-needed medical services for families living in the area. We toured the different rooms and even had the privilege of seeing a newborn baby with his mom (many babies are delivered at this clinic). The clinic offers routine health care for people of all ages, pre/post natal care, and minor surgical procedures. There is a full-time doctor who works at the clinic, and he guided us around the facility. It was obvious to see how critical a clinic such as this one is, and it was amazing to see the ways that they are able to help people with what they have to work with.

We arrived back to the Union Hotel around 2:30 pm, and our schedule indicated that at 4:00 we could go over to the care center to take custody of our kiddos! There was an excitement in the air for all families :) When the time came we headed over and enjoyed a happy reunion with Mikayla. We all stayed at the care center for quite awhile and played with the kids there, because we weren't quite sure whether or not we could just walk out the door. Ha! Eventually, someone confirmed that we could leave, so families started heading out. It was quite surreal to finally gather our daughter in our arms and walk out the door with her! Here's a few pics of us back in the hotel room... including her first bath sitting in a bath tub!

Pieces of my journal entry that night....

"Wow, Mikayla is actually here in our hotel room - so hard to believe :) It was fun to dress her in her new clothes and shoes. She knew that something special was happening. We spent a lot of time playing in our hotel room. She loved imitating Micah's funny faces and chasing him around the room on hands & knees. She is still very reserved and quiet, but comes out of her shell around us a little bit more each day. Right now she is tucked in her own little bed, right across the room from ours, and she's playing with her new dolls. She is also sneaking a peak at me every few minutes and smiles each time we make eye contact. She was very ready to leave the care center today, and pointed at the exit door while clinging to my neck after she saw another family leave ahead of us. Guess she wanted to make sure she got the point across! It is somewhat surreal to have her here... it's a strange mix of feelings that stem from being overjoyed and yet scared of the unknowns. At times I feel like I have known her all her life, and then other times I look at her and think "This is my daughter? Who is this little girl, I don't even know her!" That's just the raw honesty of the situation, and of course it will take time for all of us to grow in knowledge and attachment toward one another. I trust God will see us through the unknowns and hardships that will lie ahead of us. Mikayla is a gift from Him, and we can move forward in confidence that bonds and love will continue to grow. What a blessing to be sleeping under the same roof tonight."

Ethiopia Day 5

2009-10-18T14:31:00.000-07:00

"Our drive down to Durame took about six hours, with a short stop in the middle. It was such a beautiful drive - the countryside and hilly mountains here are just amazing. The closer we got to Durame, the greener and more "lush" our surroundings became. It's so nice to be able to take a breath of fresh air and not breathe in car fumes :) We passed a number of small towns/villages and saw many individual mud huts or homes made of straw/thatch along the sides of the road. Many of the people were farming the land around the homes in order to feed their families, as well as buy/sell/trade with others. Much of the land we passed on our drive was quite fertile, and producing good crops. We would learn that in the small town of Durame, which sits on a beautiful mountainside, this is sadly not the case."

"The drive through the more rural part of Ethiopia honestly made me feel like I was driving through a movie set at times. I had to pinch myself to remind me that we were actually here, and this was real. It just seems so crazy to think that we all live in the same world, yet here are tons and tons of people whose lives are almost completely untouched by technology or any modern amenities (washing machine, dishwasher, etc.) that we rely so heavily upon in the U.S. I have traveled to a developing country before and have previously had my eyes open to this reality, but I think that unless you are surrounded by it you tend to forget just how different our worlds really are. In many ways, it was calming to be in a place where people were just living for the moment, and not rushing about with cell phones, laptops, ipods, etc. In the U.S. you can walk down a street and just "feel" the stress that people carry with them... almost compounded by the fact that we are always connected due to technology (you can never just get away!). But here, that isn't the case. Life is simple. People are just genuinely happy, even though they have so little material wealth."

"The sad, heartwrenching side to this, is that in many rural areas of this beautiful land, the poverty is so extreme that people are starving. They have no idea where their next meal is coming from, and the current crop famine is not helping the matter. Our drivers explained to us that although the land near Durame looks so fertile, it's very deceiving. The land is barren and people are not able to grow the food that they need to survive."

One of the reasons we chose Holt as our adoption agency, is because of the holistic care that they are offering for the Ethiopian people and communities in the area of Durame. Holt currently has in place a child sponsorship program, a family preservation program, and a recently renovated medical clinic (which we visit on Day 6). These things are in addition to the two intake centers for children who are available for adoption, as well as the transitional center in Addis. Holt believes that poverty alone should not justify international adoption, and we wholeheartedly agree with that stance. There has to be, if at all possible, ways to help a family stay together first and foremost. Holt has in-country social workers who provide aide/counseling to families and offer services to assist parents in raising their children, even in the midst of extreme poverty. Unfortunately, even with these services in place, there are so many situations that families/parents face in such a harsh environment (death, illness, etc), and children are often abandoned or relinquished due to no other options existing. It is in these situations, where Holt's intake centers exist to take in children who are orphaned, providing them safety, food, shelter, and love... with the eventual hope of uniting them with loving adoptive families.

"We had the chance to visit Holt's intake center in Durame, which was our daughter's home for about four months when she came into care. The facility itself was quite lacking, in comparison to the facility in Addis. But the love of the caretakers and nannies was abounding! Currently, there are 74 children in this particular center... waiting to be matched with families, or waiting for the families they have been matched with to be assigned court dates. It was pretty unreal to see so many children living in this environment. My heart broke for them, and it was difficult to leave and not want to scoop them all up and bring every one of them back home."

The gate to Holt's Durame Intake Center:

The sign that hangs in the front room of the intake center

An infant/toddler room

A preschool-age room... our daughter most likely slept in one of these beds

Educational/Singing Room

Eating Area

70+ children = lots of clothes and dishes to wash!

If you have ever considered international adoption from Ethiopia, please consider contacting Holt International and looking into their program. Right now, families with completed home studies are being matched with children immediately because there are more children in care, than there are families waiting to adopt them. Feel free to contact me if you would like to ask any questions!

While in Durame, we had the amazing privilege of meeting Mikayla's birthmother. Holt provided this option for all adoptive parents and birth parents whether to participate or not. We chose to do so, and are so glad that we did. The meeting was incredibly precious and dear to our hearts. Our goal from the meeting was to find out anything we could that would benefit our beautiful daughter in the future, and soak up every small detail to one day tell her about it.

Many people ask why our daughter was relinquished, and want to know about her birth family. We understand the curiosity, and we do appreciate that people love Mikayla and are interested in her past. However, out of respect to her, we are choosing to keep all of this type of information private. We are creating a "Life Book" for her, which will document anything and everything from her past that we know of... similar to a scrapbook (which will also be made), except that a Life Book is private. We feel that it is healthy for her that we keep this information to ourselves, because she came to us owning nothing of her own - except her name and her story. You all know we are keeping her beautiful Ethiopian name, Aynalem, as part of her legal name... out of respect for the fact that it is her name (not to mention we love it!!). In the same way, we want to respect that her story is her story. It should be left up to her who knows about it and who doesn't. Since she isn't old enough to make that decision right now, we'll just keep quiet until she is :) Thanks for your understanding!!

Streets in Durame...

All in all, this day was one of my favorite and most-treasured days of our time in Ethiopia. Probably second to the day we met Mikayla :) Stay tuned for Day 6... the day we finally took custody and for the first time slept under the same roof as our little princess! Yay!

Ethiopia Day 4

2009-10-17T13:03:00.000-07:00

"Neither of us slept well last night. I woke up not feeling great, but wanted to participate in the day's events so just decided to push through. Holt arranged for our drivers to take us to see the National Museum of Ethiopia. It was a fun outing, and would have been much more interesting had I not been feeling entirely sick by the time we got there. I think the combination of starting the day feeling "off," mixed with the crazy driving and fumes of Addis, just didn't sit too well with my stomach. Micah enjoyed most of the museum tour, until I absolutely had to get outside for fresh air... poor guy had to miss the the last 20 minutes or so. We were then taken to a cute "cottage" for lunch, and although I wasn't choosing to eat anything at that point in time, the ambiance was really nice and the rest of the group enjoyed the food. Most people went for a taste of home and ordered pizza." :)

"After returning to the hotel we took long naps, and I felt much better afterward. I was relieved, because we had time scheduled to go back over to the care center to play with Mikayla, and I definitely didn't want to miss out. We had so much fun with her today, and really started to see more of her personality shine through. We played the usual games, and she drug out the "educational materials" stored behind the bookcase so that we could practice English words :) She would name items in Amaharic and then repeat the English words that we told her. So cute! We also had the chance to meet with Holt's pediatrician, who advised us on more of her health history and things to follow up on when we return to the U.S. During her final check-up, the pediatrician asked her (in Amharic) if she liked her new family, and she said "yes." He then asked if she was ready to leave and she said "yes." He asked if she would come back to visit them someday and she adamantly said, "NO." He just started laughing so hard and interpreted the conversation for us. We all laughed. It was very apparent with her, that although she had received great care during her time in Holt's center, she was definitely ready to be going home with her family. Once again today, she cried when we left her. It was a bit more difficult this time because we know we won't see her again for 48 hours due to the upcoming overnight road trip we will be taking to see the area where she is from. Fortunately, the next time we see her will be when we get to take custody!!"

"Tonight the Holt scheduled a cultural dinner outing for the group, but quite a few of us (including myself) just stayed behind at the hotel to get some rest. Micah attended and brought back some pictures/video for me. He really enjoyed it, and I'm sure I would have too if I had been feeling a little better today overall."

A few pics Micah took at the cultural dinner:

Since we spent much of this day driving around Addis Ababa, I thought it would be fitting to post some pictures of some of the regular "sites" around the city...

Walking down the street from our hotel

The view from the back of our hotel

Streets of Addis Ababa...

A VERY common site :)

Donkeys were definitely put to work!

This is a bead shop down the street from our hotel, run by women who are supporting their families. They offered very cute necklaces/bracelets at great prices! Kathy and I "technically" walked here on the last day of our trip (you can see it was rainy out), but decided this was a good spot in the blog to post the picture.

"Tomorrow we are heading south to Durame to meet Mikayla's birthmother and see the area where she is from. We will also be visiting Holt's intake center, and medical clinic that was recently built. We're really looking forward to this trip, and our drivers told us today that we have not seen the "true" Ethiopia yet, but that we will tomorrow."

Ethiopia Day 3

2009-10-15T17:06:00.000-07:00

"We woke up this morning after a few hours of sleep and excitedly got ready for the day ahead. Holt's drivers picked up our group in the morning and took us to the Holt Office Headquarters in Addis, where we met the Ethiopia Program Director and the rest of the staff who had been diligently working to help us pass court and meet all of the "paper obligations" in-country over the past year. We had a brief overview of what to expect during our visits to the childcare center, as well as what was was planned for us in the days ahead. We also brushed up on a few important Amharic vocabulary words, which was especially helpful for those of us adopting children who were already speaking :) Once we toured the offices, we loaded back into the van and headed back toward the hotel. Although we all knew we were going to the childcare center to meet our children, it still took my breath away when our vans took a right-hand turn into the gates of the building..."

"The inside of the care center was immaculate, and we truly felt like the guests of honor as we were led to take off our shoes and head inside. This particular care center is Holt's "transitional center," where children are moved once parents have a court date or are close to passing court."

(On a side note - we did have the chance to visit the child intake center in the southern, more rural part of Ethiopia later in the week, which is where our daughter (and most of the children) first came into care. Mikayla was in the southern facility for about 4 months, and was then moved to this facility in Addis Ababa where she lived for about 2.5 months. The care that the children receive in both locations is just amazing, but the difference in facilities is very evident, just due to the luxuries available (or not) in each region. I will post more about the intake center when I write about the Durame trip.)

The winding staircase greets you as you walk inside the front doors to the center

The play area

The eating area

"We were told upon being taken inside that we were going to tour the center first and then meet the children. This proved to be partially true :) We toured a few rooms and then upon walking into the baby room, one couple was handed their little baby girl. My heart almost stopped at this point because I knew at any minute we could see our daughter. The group shuffled down a little hallway, and another door was opened. I was toward the middle of the pack, and a fellow adoptive parent made eye contact and motioned me toward the front... I knew this was it! A little sign on the door greeted us as we entered the "Pre-School Age Girls" Room." :)

"Micah walked into the room ahead of me and saw her immediately. She saw him too and ran straight into his arms - then into mine! She knew exactly who we were. She knew we were mommy and daddy! We had not seen a picture of her smiling up to this point, so it was wonderful to see her first smiles in the midst of that moment. I honestly was not expecting our first meeting to go like this. I was prepared to have a little girl who was crying and entirely scared of us, but instead we were greeted truly with a fairy-tale-like greeting. It was an exhilerating moment, and honestly I can't even remember what was happening to anyone else around us during that moment. I guess we were just lost in our own world, which is how it should be right?"

Fortunately, we do have some of our first meeting on video... but that will have to come later because I've barely had the energy to get the images off our digital camera at this point!

Here's the three of us, together for the first time with beautiful Mikayla Aynalem

She was enthralled with my hair that day, and loved touching it

"We took her downstairs and blew bubbles, played balloons, tickled, laughed, read books, and just started getting to know one another. We took lots of pictures and she really enjoyed seeing them on the digital camera. She would laugh every time she saw a picture of herself. We stayed through lunch - the nannies helped feed her in jera with meat & veggies - she ate slow, but ate a TON! She even gave me the first bite of her food." :)

"Mikayla shared a room with 6-7 other girls ranging in age from 2-8 years. There were not enough beds in their room to accommodate every girl, so she and another little girl shared one together (I guess because they were both small!). Eli's birthday card that we sent last month was taped up over bed, which was so fun to see! Before we left we helped lay her down for her afternoon nap. Then we headed back to the Holt office to fill out more paperwork needed for our Tuesday appointment at the U.S. Embassy."
"Fortunately, we had the chance to go back to the care center again later that day to play some more with Mikayla. The children were all getting their evening baths, and put into their pajamas. Micah introduced her to a game of sitting & bouncing on a balloon while he held her hands, and then flinging her high up to the ceiling. She just squealed and wanted to repeat it over and over again. We spent a lot of time playing with the balloon, as well as looking at picture flashcards, books, and stickers."

"This time when it was time for us to leave the care center, there was a noticeable change in Mikayla. Her body kind of went limp as I carried her upstairs to her room, and the tears just started rolling down her face. She suddenly withdrew from any type of interaction or eye contact, and I had to hand her off to a nanny while she was still upset. That was hard :( On the other hand, it was a good feeling to know that she was forming an attachment to us and actually wanted to us to stay with her. Yay! We left knowing that she was of course in good hands, and we would see her again tomorrow. All in all, it was truly a wonderful first day together - couldn't have asked for it to have gone better. Later that evening we walked about a mile from the hotel to have dinner at Kaldi's Coffee (somewhat like a Starbucks), where we enjoyed burgers, fries, cokes, and ice cream. It was a wonderful way to finish our day!"

Ethiopia Days 1-2

2009-10-13T21:15:00.000-07:00

Alrighty, here goes... figure I'll post some pictures of each segment of the trip and tack on some of my journal entries as well.

We left our house at 3:45am on Wednesday, Sep. 30th to make it to the airport for our 6:50am flight from Phoenix to Minneapolis. Everything with our flight went smoothly, and once in Minneapolis we met up with our friends Josh and Renee (who we met online) who were adopting 2 little boys through our same agency. We enjoyed eating lunch at Chili's with them, and we were on the same flights together for the remainder of our journey to Ethiopia. It was fun to meet up with another family from our travel group and share in our excitement together!!

Micah enjoys the use of his iphone one last time before heading out of the country...

Here's the plane that carried us from Minneapolis to Amsterdam. It was funny because we actually flew Northwest, but due to the merger with Delta, many of our planes were actually Detla planes. Since KLM is their international partner, we also had that name in the mix!

The KLM plane took us from Amsterdam to Sudan to Addis Ababa, Ethiopia!

Short layover in Sudan, but we didn't actually get off the plane.

Sudan from the air

Tired, but happy, as we prepare for the final leg of our flight journey :)

Meeting up with our travel group and drivers in the Addis Ababa (Bole International) Airport

The Union Hotel, our home for the next seven nights!
It was comparable to a Motel 6 in the U.S.

"It's just past 1:00am on Friday, October 2nd and we are finally settled in our hotel room at the Union Hotel, preparing to sleep. The travel time was looooong, but my Tylenol PM was a lifesaver in helping me get some rest on the plane. Eight of the ten families in our travel group arrived at the airport at about the same time earlier this evening, so we squeezed all of us (and our luggage) into two vans. It was quite amazing that everything, and everybody, actually fit! We all arrived to the hotel about 11:30pm. Our room is on the top floor, and there are only stairs in this building, so I think we'll be in shape by the end of this trip. Honestly, there aren't that many stairs, but the elevation change certainly has catching our breath at the top! It is difficult to wind down after battling the chaos of the airport, and trying to take in all the sights and smells on our drive here (the fact that it was dark made it hard to see much, but it was fun nonetheless). It's also hard to sleep knowing that Mikayla is sleeping right next door to us in Holt's care center. We can look out our window and see the center - almost close enough to touch it! :) We are only separated by a small sidewalk and two gates. Tomorrow morning we have an orientation at the care center with the Holt staff and then we will meet Mikayla! Not sure how I'll sleep tonight, but thankfully I'm tired..."

Finally...

2009-10-12T21:23:00.000-07:00

Finally - we are HOME!

Finally - I am feeling better!

Finally - I am posting some pictures on this blog!

I plan to update the blog throughout the next few days with some of my journal entries from our time in Ethiopia. It was truly amazing. We unfortunately had an extra-long journey home, and I managed to come down with a virus that caused the lymph nodes in my neck to swell large enough to swallowing and talking almost impossible (due to pain). This was on top of the jet lag of course :) Thankfully the nice urgent care doctor that I went to see Sunday gave me some medicine that has helped to shrink them away (mostly) and provide much-needed pain relief!

So, until I get to posting more... here are a few pics (which I know are what everyone wants to see anyway)!

Arriving to the airport in Phoenix... just shy of 10pm Friday night,
finally together as a "tired" family of four!

First morning, successfully eating cold cereal with milk! Frosted Flakes... chosen by Eli.

Figuring each other out... :)

The day we first met Mikayla...

The evening that we finally took custody!

Our Princess at the Farewell Ceremony at the care center in her traditional Ethiopian dress

MUCH more to come!

Wednesday Update

2009-10-07T07:33:00.001-07:00

"Today we went to the farewell ceremony at the care center. Aynalem looked esp. beautiful in her traditional Ethiopian dress. It was a very touching ceremony.... The nannies said goodbye to all of the children and each set of parents had a chance to share about their experience in Ethiopia and thank the Holt staff. We did some shopping this afternoon which was fun =) Tomorrow is our last day here and we will spend it packing and hanging around the hotel. Our flight leaves Ethiopia at 10:25 pm tomorrow which is 12:25 pm in AZ. If we make all our flights we will arrive home to PHX at 1:15 pm on Friday =) It's bittersweet to say goodbye but we are ready to get home. Can't wait to see everyone, esp. Eli who we miss like crazy!!!"

Update

2009-10-06T07:32:00.000-07:00

Texts from Bethany at 11:50 P.M., Monday night our time (Tuesday morning in Ethiopia):

"Had an amazing trip to Durame - enjoyed the beautiful countryside. Met Aynalem's birthmother - a meeting we will forever treasure in our hearts. We took custody of Aynalem yesterday and she did great sleeping in our hotel room last night. Now we are playing with dolls and the magnadoodle before heading to the US embassy for our interview to get Aynalem's visa to enter the US! We are feeling anxious to get home now and have our whole family together! =)"

Saturday news

2009-10-03T08:35:00.000-07:00

From Bethany this morning:

"It's Saturday evening here =) We spent more time with Aynalem today and saw more of her personality shine through. The Dr. asked her if she liked her family and she said 'yes', then asked her if she was ready to leave with us and she said 'yes', then asked if she would like to come back and visit them sometime and she said 'no'. The Dr. just started cracking up and translated the conversation for us =) She cried when we left her tonight... She is ready to come home! Tomorrow we are headed south to the region where she was born. We'll be spending one night there and be back in Addis Ababa on Monday. At that point, we will officially take custody of Aynalem =) Please pray for my health, I was a bit sick today. Thanks!"

Texts From the Hutchison Family!

2009-10-02T10:48:00.001-07:00

Hey All -

Bethany's friend Melissa here! Just received a few texts from Bethany this morning and wanted to share them....

"We can text from this phone, yay! Hotel phones aren't working. Made it safe and sound, travel went very smooth, it was just exhausting. =) Met Aynalem (Mikayla's African name) today for the first time - She recognized us right away and ran right into our arms! It is just amazing to finally be able to see her smile and hold her in our arms! Adoption is truly such a miracle and we see God's hand at work in placing her in our family. =)"

Obviously awesome and exciting news! God is good!

I will update whenever I get any more info or news.

Ethiopia-Bound

2009-09-29T10:05:00.000-07:00

Well, I can't believe it but we will leaving our house for the airport in just under 18 hours! Yes, that will be 3:45am for those doing the math :) EARLY! From what other families have experienced, we know it is highly unlikely we will have internet connection long enough to post anything from Ethiopia. However, we are hoping to stay in contact with our friends (aka our Pastor and his wife) through phone calls, and Melissa is going to post anything pertinent to this blog for me. So hooray for updates!

So, I finally got the suitcases packed... yes, there are A LOT of them. The awesome thing is that at least 50% of the luggage space is entirely donations for the care center - a huge THANK YOU to everyone who donated items or gave money to us financially (we were able to purchase a number of needed items with that money). The final thing I would like to leave you with is a video/photo montage of our adoption journey up to this point. If you've never seen a picture of Mikayla Aynalem... here's your sneak peak :) Thank you all for sharing the journey with us, what an adventure this has been... and it's truly only just beginning.

Photo and video editing at www.OneTrueMedia.com

10 Days...

2009-09-20T15:33:00.000-07:00

We are now down to only 10 days until we are boarding a plane for Ethiopia. Since receiving our travel dates, it seems like time has just flown by. The to-do list is becoming shorter by the day as we are busy crossing things off little by little. With the exception of a few items, the shopping is complete!

We've also completed quite a few projects around the house... specifically involving the two kids' rooms and the play room. I bought a new organizational shelf with tubs that is working perfectly in the play room to hold all of those small, loose toys that have cluttered my house for the past year. Eli thoroughly enjoyed "assigning" specific types of toys (ie - animals, transformers, balls, play food, potato heads, trains) to the different colored tubs, and he has actually been doing a great job of keeping everything organized :) This pic gives you the idea... although a couple of the bins are participating in play time at the moment...
I think he takes after me in that neither of us are necessarily "neat freaks" (I was more so before having a kid, but now playing with my kiddo takes precedence over cleaning everything up all the time), but we both like to put systems in place and bring organization to life. You might find my counters to be dirty during the day, but open a cupboard or my pantry and you'll see what "organized" truly means. :)

We've also rearranged the placement of toys within our house. We decided that all toys will be "everybody's toys," with the exception of very special items like blankets and special stuffed animals. There will be obvious girl and boy toys, but everything at this point is fair game for any child to play with. Same goes for books! So, we moved the bookshelf out of Eli's room and put it in the play room, along with all of the random stuffed animals collected over the last few years. We actually had to purchase TWO hammocks to have room for all of those stuffed animals!
We also made room in the play room for a few "new" girlie toys passed on to us by some lovely friends who have three little girls. Micah even added an IKEA Leaf Canopy to each child's room... we mainly had this idea for Mikayla's room to go with the flowers, but we had our first experience with having kids so close in age and were quickly informed by Eli that he needed one too. Well, what the heck, leaf canopies for all!
I am now preparing to do the bulk of our packing. I'm not one to pack much in advance of trips, because I always pack things that I need and have to dig them out... so I've been putting it off. But, the other night I did manage to pick out and pack all of Mikayla's stuff. I feel like I'm taking a lot of clothing for her, but mainly it's because we aren't exactly sure what will fit. So, a few outfits are very similar just different sizes. Same with shoes! Now all that's left is... well... everything else. I also have to pack up Eli to go to Grandma's house for 10 days, and Petey (our beagle) to go to his pet-sitter's house! I am planning to conquer all of this packing next weekend, and hopefully be completely finished by the end of the day next Monday. I would love to be able to spend Tuesday hanging out with Eli and just having fun, before we drop him off at Grandma & Grandpa's that evening.

In addition to all the personal stuff, I'm also trying to wrap things up at work in preparation for my maternity leave. My last day in the office will be Thursday of this week. I then have to attend a final job-related workshop on Friday morning before heading home to participate with Micah in our travel conference call with Holt. Yay for Travel Group 24!!

Oh, one other random thing that is happening in the midst of preparing to travel is that we are changing social workers. Our SW is not through Holt, it is through our local agency who did our home study. The local agency is also responsible for our post-placement visits and follow-up reports, so our contact with our social worker is just about to become very involved as she helps us navigate our transition once we're home. Without going into a ton of details, this change needed to occur. It probably needed to occur back when our home study was being completed, but by the time we were educated enough in the process to realize that, things were pretty much done. I somewhat had a panic attack though, now that we're moving toward post-placement, and knew that I needed to say something before we traveled. It was tough, but if anything, I have an even higher view of our home study agency due to the way they handled it, and am excited to begin working with our new SW very soon. We will be chatting with her this week so we can all be caught up to speed prior to traveling.

So is that enough for you? Figured I better blurt it all out in this post, since the next post will likely be another week away... hopefully showing pictures of PACKED luggage :)

Happy Birthday!

2009-09-13T20:13:00.000-07:00

Dear Mikayla,

Today you turn 3 years old. We thought about you all day and could only wish that you were already home so we could celebrate with you. I wish I could spend this post writing about all of the things you love to do at age 3, and all of the character traits you possess that make you so special... but unfortunately, those things are still unknown to me. I am so thankful that we will be meeting you in less than three weeks, and bringing you home - forever. Today I pray that God continues to watch over you, protect you, and hold you in His arms. It's amazing how much love we have for you, though we haven't yet met you. You are a miracle, and we are so incredibly blessed to have you as part of our family.

Love,
Mommy

Melkam Adis Amet! (Happy New Year!)

2009-09-11T22:38:00.000-07:00

Happy New Year in Ethiopia! It's 2002! Ethiopia follows the Julian calendar, which has 13 months. One of the months is only 5 days long, except on leap year. That's the reason why they are now 7 years behind the calendar we follow here in the U.S. (Gregorian). Our daughter's U.S. birth certificate will read that she was born in the year 2006, but her Ethiopian birth certificate will read 1999. Interesting, isn't it?

We decided to try out a local Ethiopian restaurant tonight in honor of the Ethiopian New Year AND Mikayla's 3rd birthday which is on Sunday. It was a great night! We thoroughly enjoyed the food at Cafe Libela and pretty much stuffed ourselves. We had the pleasure of treating my mom, and Micah's parents to their first-ever taste of Ethiopian food. Micah's mom will actually be traveling with us to Ethiopia, and she is looking forward to the trip even more now after tasting the food tonight :) Unfortunately, Eli wouldn't touch a bit of it... he's in that picky toddler phase, what a surprise! Well, the next time we come back he will have a sister with him who just might be able to convince him to try some injera!

We even had the pleasure of meeting Heidi and her beautiful family - she is one of my "blogging buddies" and they brought home their son Tommy within the past year at age 3. I've learned a lot from reading her blog, so it was wonderful (and such a coincidence) to actually meet her :)

39 hours and Lists

2009-09-10T21:45:00.000-07:00

39 hours is the amount of time we will be spending inside an airplane during our trip to/from Ethiopia. Wowsers. Our total travel time is even longer than that if you consider layovers!

So what are we up to? Well, a million things to tell you the truth. I made a crazy detailed packing list... helps me feel better. That packing list brought on a new shopping list and a new to-do list. So far I have purchased 8 items out of the 44 on the shopping list, and I have crossed off 3 items out of the 37 items on the to-do list. This doesn't even include the to-do list I have at work of things I'm trying to wrap-up before happily wishing everyone there farewell until Christmas :) And the packing? Well, it's a work in progress. There are piles of things around my house preparing themselves to be packed.

Needless to say, not much time for blogging. Better get back to those lists...

TRAVEL DATES!

2009-09-03T16:19:00.000-07:00

Today we were notified that we are one of ten Holt families in Travel Group #24, with an embassy appointment scheduled for Thursday, October 6th! HOORAY!!! I spent the day attempting to get things done at work, while at the same time keep in touch with various travel agents to hunt for the best flight deals. In the end, we were able to secure our flights for slightly LESS than what we originally anticipated! Praise God!

We will be departing from Phoenix early on September 30th, and flying through Minneapolis, Amsterdam, and eventually (21 hours later) landing in Addis Ababa, Ethiopia. The route home is just as exciting... passing back through Amsterdam, then Detroit, and landing in Phoenix 22 hours later on October 9th (assuming we make our connection going through customs in Detroit... it's a little tight).

The best part of all of this is knowing that in 28 days we will be meeting our beautiful daughter for the first time :)

Birthday "Package"

2009-08-25T20:51:00.001-07:00

Mikayla turns 3 years old on September 13th, so today we mailed off a few items for her birthday. Everything we send has to be flat, so our friends Josh and Renee (who we are hoping to be "travel buddies" with) suggested paper dolls - great idea! I found a very cute paper doll book on Amazon which arrived yesterday, so I cut out all the pieces and took pictures of the doll wearing different clothing items (so she would hopefully understand the concept). We sent her a "singing" Winnie the Pooh bday card from Mommy & Daddy, and a Snoopy birthday card from Eli. We also stuck in some puffy My Little Pony stickers, and some new pictures of our family and her bedroom! Can't wait to read her bedtime stories and tuck her into her own bed.

Bummer News

2009-08-20T22:02:00.000-07:00

Today we found out that Holt's Embassy Date for 9/8 was canceled due to the Ethiopian New Year holiday. This means that the 15-20 families currently waiting to travel have all been pushed back on their travel dates. Some families fortunately found out today that they will be traveling for the 9/22 embassy date, which although we are sad it's not us, we are happy that more children will be coming home soon! We will "likely" be assigned an embassy date of October 6th... at least that's what we're hoping for at this point. Not the end of the world, but not quite what we anticipated. This whole process has been in God's hands, and this too is all part of the Plan. I'll be honest though, tonight I just feel frustrated and kind of depressed. And I think that's okay! Tomorrow is a new day :) Before we know it, she'll be home.

Still Waiting...

2009-08-19T17:44:00.001-07:00

I was sure that today was the day. I was sure we would hear about our travel dates. But we didn't. Bummer. It is just so difficult to know you have a child on the other side of the world, and you have to wait to be told when you can go see her. I don't understand what the hold-up is right now, or what paperwork still needs to be in place, but at this point I don't care. I would hop on a plane tomorrow if I could, and just stay there with her until the paperwork is done :) That's where I'm at! Even at this point in the process I need to constantly remind myself that God is the one ultimately in control, and His timing is perfect (sound familiar?). Well, tomorrow is a new day... here's to hoping! Please God?

Twitter

2009-08-13T22:45:00.001-07:00

Okay, so due to the fact that blogging and Facebook take up too much of my life already, I purposely had not signed up for a twitter account... until now. I finally made the leap a couple of days ago due to the fact that some adoptive families have been successful posting "tweets" from Ethiopia to let everybody know what's going on throughout their trip. It is quite likely that we will not have an internet connection during our time there to support emailing or blogging... but we might be able to tweet from the phone. Not sure yet. If it works out, fabulous. If not, well, at least I can know what other random things people are doing or thinking at all times. :) If you are on twitter and want to "follow" me, here's the profile: http://twitter.com/bjhutchison.

P.S. We are still waiting on any news of travel dates... waiting... waiting...waiting... in the meantime, I think I cleared out the travel and medicine sections of Target the other day during my massive pre-travel shopping extravaganza (aka: "let's think of everything that could go wrong or that i might possibly need on this trip and make sure i have it")

FREEBIE!!!

2009-08-11T21:40:00.001-07:00

Okay, so we have very cool friends and we feel very blessed :) Over the past few days, with our travel time drawing close, we have been thinking through the remaining finances we have yet to raise. I thought about once again highlighting our tshirt sales on our blogs, but I've already done that... not to mention the link sits on the sidebar 24/7. So many friends and family (and even people we don't know) have played a role in helping us bring Mikayla home, whether through prayer, words of encouragement, or financial assistance. In the past I have mentioned an upcoming post about God's provision, and I promise that is still coming... it's just that the story hasn't ended yet, so I wait with eager anticipation knowing full well God will come through and what a testimony it will be share!

Needless to say, within the same 24 hours, two friends contacted me to ask if they could purchase an extra tshirt to do a "freebie" giveaway on their blogs!! This not only meant a couple of extra shirt sales, but also a couple of amazing posts on OTHER people's blogs about our tshirts, and caring for orphans. These posts have led to other posts on blogs of people we have never even talked to before! WOW! So why am I telling you this besides the fact that it is awesome they did it? Well, I want you to have the chance to WIN a FREE tshirt and support the care of orphans at the same time! If you're interested please visit:

Stephanie, my beloved friend from college who traveled to India with me where our eyes were opened and hearts were broken to learn what it truly means to be an orphaned child. Go leave a comment on her blog for a chance to win!
Megan, my adoption buddy... we have never met in person, but they are preparing to bring a little one home from Ethiopia just like us and would love to have you follow their journey!! Right now, she is hosting "Guess the Referral Date" game... so go play!
Oh and if you don't win, but still desire to purchase a shirt, you can always click on the picture of the tshirts in our sidebar to go to the ordering website!

Our prayer is that these tshirts would speak a message, far beyond helping us bring Mikayla home. We pray that as they are worn, others would NOTICE... would ask QUESTIONS... would come to KNOW... and come to CARE. Everyone has a role to play, and the stakes are high. Let us be bold and do our part. The children are counting on us.

Celebrating!

2009-08-05T23:26:00.000-07:00

Tonight we celebrated being the parents of our new daughter by heading to one of our favorite restaurants... Pei Wei! Eli had his own celebration at Nana's house, which was equally exciting as she had just purchased some new toy dinosaurs :)

The above picture is us smiling with joy because we have a beautiful new daughter whom we can't wait to bring home! Our agency takes the conservative stance when it comes to posting pictures of her, and advises us not to post any pics on websites until we travel. So, you'll have to wait a bit longer to see her gorgeous face on this blog.

We now wait to be assigned an appointment date at the U.S. Embassy in Addis Ababa, Ethiopia. Hopefully we'll know what the date is within a few weeks! We're crossing our fingers for September travel dates :) We know our agency has two reserved Embassy appointments in September, and each appointment can accommodate 10 children... so we're hoping to be in one of those two groups.

Stay tuned...

Praise God!

2009-08-05T10:17:00.000-07:00

WE PASSED COURT!!!!!!!!

(More later...) :)

More Waiting...

2009-08-04T16:24:00.000-07:00

No news about our court outcome today. Our agency informed me that they hope to hear news about it tomorrow.... I hope so!! :)

Totally Dependent on God

2009-08-03T17:18:00.000-07:00

At our Harvest launch team meeting last night, we talked about how it is difficult to truly depend on God in many situations. Even if we want to depend on God, it's so easy to step in and control things ourselves, or to convince ourselves that "we know better." I will admit, if there were a switch I could flip tonight that would ensure our court case would pass, I would be extremely tempted to flip it. Fortunately, that temptation doesn't exist and we are left in a situation where we have absolutely no control over the outcome of what could happen just a few hours from now, on the other side of the globe. All we can do is trust that God is good and He is working. He has brought us to this point in this journey, and He already knows what will happen. Everything will come together... in His time. As I have been pondering and praying for tonight, the Lord brought the words of Isaiah 45 to mind... although we are not preparing for a physical battle, our court date is, in a sense, a spiritual battle. So, tonight we will PRAY. And we will rest with assurance that the Lord has gone before us, and has already paved the way for His Will to be done.

"I will go before you and will level the mountains;
I will break down gates of bronze and cut through bars of iron.
I will give you the treasures of darness,
riches stored in secret places,
so that you may know that I am the Lord,
the God of Israel,
who summons you by name."
Isaiah 45:2-3

Priceless Tidbits!

2009-08-02T14:37:00.000-07:00

This weekend has been very exciting, in that we have received multiple emails from families just returning from Ethiopia who had the opportunity to meet and play with our sweet little princess. It means so much to me that despite being jet-lagged, and trying to settle in with their new children, they took the time to email us such treasured information :) Here are some tidbits of the info we received from each family (you can see the similarities that jump out from the separate observations):

Family #1

YOUR DAUGHTER IS........ DROP DEAD GORGEOUS. Seriously! She is simply stunning.
She is very reserved and quiet. Super shy.
She has a smile that will melt your heart and eyes that will brighten any day!
She is a charmer, not a fighter. Many of the kids have the "survival of the fittest" attitude and steal toys, kick, hit, bite, scream....not your girl.
She is tall and skinny, has a full set of beautiful teeth, good coordination, can carry on conversation (in Amharic), and is very attentive.

Family #2

She is gorgeous. We all knew it was her immediately.
Her hair has gotten a little longer, and she has the most beautiful smile.
She is kind of quiet, but not in a shy way.
She seems like such a little lady for being just three.
She was definitely one of the tallest toddlers there.

Family #3

First of all, she is GORGEOUS! We couldn't quit staring at her. Absolutely beautiful.
Her hair is a bit longer now, curly all over her head.
The first time I saw her, all the kids were eating lunch. The other kids had food all over their faces and hands, but "A" was eating careful, dainty, little bites.
She is very quiet, and seems kind of reserved.
Another day I watched all of the kids playing with balls in the courtyard. "A" stood very quietly in the middle of the group. She seemed to not quite know how to play or who to play with. I'm sure she must feel very overwhelmed by all the new kids.

Needless to say, now more than ever we want to bring her home as quickly as we possibly can. We are so thankful to have received this information and appreciate those of you (you know who you are!) who passed it on to us. It means more than you know.

We now continue to trust and pray for our court date...

2 Days

2009-08-01T20:55:00.000-07:00

"I lift my eyes up to the hills, where does my help come from? My help comes from the Lord, the Maker of heaven and earth."
Psalm 121:1-2

"Seek justice, encourage the oppressed. Defend the cause of the fatherless, plead the case of the widow."
Isaiah 1:17

3 Days

2009-07-31T21:10:00.000-07:00

"Commit your way to the Lord, trust in Him and He will act."
Psalm 37:5

4 Days

2009-07-30T21:07:00.000-07:00

Be anxious for nothing, but in everything by prayer and supplication, with thanksgiving, let your requests be made known to God; and the peace of God, which surpasses all understanding, will guard your hearts and minds through Christ Jesus.

Phillippians 4:6-7

5 Days

2009-07-29T20:49:00.000-07:00

We would appreciate anyone who will commit to praying every day, for the next five days, for our August 4th court date. Technically, our court case will be heard sometime after we are sound asleep Monday night, as Ethiopia is 10 hours ahead of the U.S.

Due to the timing of our court date being right before the annual court closure in Ethiopia, it feels like a "high stakes" gambling situation :) Should we not pass, we would not be given a new court date until October at the earliest. Only about 60% of adoption cases "pass" in Ethiopian court the first time they are heard. What are the reasons for not passing? Well it could be anything from a piece of paper missing (due to the many government agencies that handle our paperwork and the many hands it goes through), a judge being out sick, electrical outages (which are far too common), running out time to hear all of the cases scheduled for that day, the birthparent not showing up, and the list goes on. If we do not pass court on August 4th, it doesn't mean that we will never pass court. It just means we will not be able to travel to bring our princess home as soon as we would like. We will be back in the "waiting game."

Fortunately, although the whole scenario does draw quite a comparison to a high-stakes gambling situation, we know that is not actually the case. We know and believe that God is in control of everything surrounding our court case. Though it would be difficult to have to continue to wait if we don't pass, we would have the assurance that God's hand is in it. He loves our princess more than we do, and His plan for her life (and ours) will prevail. He knows and understands every detail of what is happening with our daughter and this adoption process, far better than we ever could. He has proven faithful in this process so far, and even in delays and glitches we already have experienced. We know He will prove faithful again. Please join us in praying for our court date, praying for our princess, and praying that God's will prevail in all things.

"For everything there is a season, and a time for every matter under heaven." Ecclesisastes 3:1

To Our Princess, With Love

2009-07-23T23:05:00.000-07:00

Turn your volume way up for this one... we're putting this in the mail tomorrow :)

Video: Eli sees new pic of his Sister!

2009-07-22T21:43:00.000-07:00

Yesterday I took a little video footage of us showing Eli the new picture we received of our daughter. He was so cute about it :) You also may notice we mention the name "Mikayla" in the video... we went back and forth on deciding whether to just use her given name or to give her a new name. We knew we definitely wanted to keep her given name "A" (I'll post it after we pass court) as part of her name, and ended up deciding that we feel it is significant to give her a name from us as well. We chose the name Mikayla, after her daddy's name - Micah. We felt that giving her part of her daddy's name was a symbol of our new "covering" over her, as her forever parents and forever family. She will always be part of her birth family and her heritage, but she will also always be part of us. We plan to use both names with her while she is growing up, and then later in life she can choose which one she wants others to call her by. So, without further adu... here is a little video for your enjoyment...

New Court Date, and an Update!

2009-07-21T21:16:00.000-07:00

Today was full of great news! We received a new court date of August 4th, exactly two weeks away. Fabulous. We also received an unexpected update on our little princess! We got a new beautiful picture of her... still no smile, but someday we'll see it. She is just a gorgeous little girl, we must admit! Eli enjoyed looking at the new picture too, and noted that she is wearing a different color shirt :) In addition to the picture, we received a court document from Ethiopia pertaining to our daughter's history which was helpful for us in filling in a few "holes" from past information we have gotten. AND, we got the news that she has been moved from the Durame care center to the care center in the capitol city - Addis Ababa. This is exciting because other families who travel there to pick up their children in the next couple months will be able to hug and play with her for us :) Yeah! We love her so much already, and just want to be there now to scoop her up and bring her home. All in all, a great day :) Now we wait and we pray for a successful court date on the 4th! Travel could be as early as the very beginning of September if we pass...

USCIS - NVC - Embassy

2009-07-20T22:08:00.000-07:00

So, once we received our I171H approval from our local immigration office last April, it was supposed to go to the National Visa Center, and then sent to the Embassy in Addis Ababa Ethiopia, so that our daughter could be given a visa when the time comes to bring her home. Apparently after the NVC... we have no idea where it went. This is a little dilemma I have been working on during the past couple of weeks. To complicate things, we had an addendum done to our original approval in order to account for the older age of our daughter, so now that addendum needed to be included in the mix as well.

First, I checked in with our local USCIS office to ensure they received our amended home study. They had, so they sent out our NEWLY UPDATED 171H approval - both to us, and to the National Visa Center. They also forwarded our original 171H approval to the NVC, just in case. CHECK!

Then today, I called the National Visa Center and asked if they had received our updated paperwork. Fortunately, after being placed on hold a number of times, I was able to get confirmation that they received it AND that it was all being sent electronically over to the Embassy in Ethiopia TODAY! Hooray! CHECK!

Finally, I emailed our agency to ask them to check again with the Embassy to verify that everything is in order so that it will not hold up our travel dates. They will check-in with the Embassy next week, in order to give the paperwork time to get there and be accounted for.

Let's hope and pray! :)

Postponed

2009-07-16T21:05:00.000-07:00

Tonight would be the night I would be staying awake, praying nervously that our case would pass court in Ethiopia and we would legally become the parents of our little girl. But, due to the recent MOWA closure, all we know is that our case will not be heard tomorrow and it is postponed until.......???? Since hearing of the MOWA closure last week, I have been stocking my email every day waiting for the email from Holt giving us our new court date (and hoping it's soon!). But so far, no news :( The bright side in all of this is that there are rumors flying around the Ethiopian adoption community that they federal high court in Ethiopia might remain open for the entire month of August, and might possibly remain open through the entire rainy season this year. Either way, it would provide a greater chance for us to be assigned a new court date sooner than later. So, tonight I will go to sleep knowing I won't hear about the outcome of our court case tomorrow, but praying that maybe we will hear about newly assigned court dates!

Oh, and on another note... we are still working on our USCIS "mess" to try gain confirmation that the Embassy in Ethiopia has a copy of our 171H approval. That is how our daughter will get her visa to travel home with us, so we won't be approved to travel over there until our agency has confirmation the Embassy is in receipt of that approval form. It's been kind of a nightmare to deal with for several different reasons, but hopefully that will work itself out within the next week.

And to our dear sweet little princess... we think about you every day and just can't wait to bring you home. Your big brother is so excited and continues to ask us when we will meet you. We know God's timing is perfect, but it's so difficult to be patient sometimes. We look at your beautiful face each day in your picture and pray that God would bring you to us very soon! We love you!

Garage Sale SUCCESS!

2009-07-11T21:36:00.000-07:00

Despite the fact that we held our garage sale on quite possibly the hottest day of the summer in thePhoenix area so far this year, and despite the fact that we only got two hours of sleep the night before, we had a FABULOUS day! Thanks to the numerous donations given by many friends and family members, as well as the offer of a great sale location (my parents house), we raised twice as much money this morning as we thought we would!! It has been truly incredible to see the many ways God has provided for us financially in the past month. We still have a little ways to go, but have no doubt the money will all be there when it needs to be. Sometime soon, I plan to write a longer post about the financial side of our journey and hopefully encourage others to step out in faith and do what God has called you to do (whatever it may be), fully trusting he will give you what you need to complete it (finances, time, strength, patience, etc). Needless to say, this sale was just one more testimony of God's faithfulness to us. We are blessed to be surrounded by people who love us and want to support us in this journey to bring our daughter home. From the bottom of our hearts, THANK YOU.

Here are a few pics from our exciting day...

Disappointing News

2009-07-09T20:42:00.001-07:00

Although it hasn't been confirmed, "word on the street" is that we will likely NOT be having our court date next Friday after all. :( The day after receiving our court date, we found out that the Ministry of Women's Affairs (MOWA) in Ethiopia, decided to suddenly take a break for two weeks for "training." Although MOWA is not the court, they have to submit a recommendation for every case that goes through court as to whether it should pass or not. Without MOWA, the courts basically can't process adoption cases. We have heard that their "training session" will last for 2 weeks. The other unfortunate news is that the courts in Ethiopia will be closing in 3-4 weeks for the rainy season (this happens every year). The courts are then usually closed for the months of August and September - no cases are heard. At this point, we do not have "official" confirmation that our court date will be postponed, but we are pretty certain that is the case. The thing we are praying and hoping for, is that we will not be postponed until after the court closure... as that would mean October(at the earliest) before another court date would be assigned to us. We are hoping they might somehow still be able to hear the cases that were previously scheduled, prior to the closure. Our agency is working on gaining more information regarding this sudden turn of events from their staff in Ethiopia... so in the meantime, we just wait. I have been reminding myself that God is in control, everything happens for a reason, and His timing is perfect. Hopefully we'll hear something tomorrow from our agency, so we don't have to wait through the weekend wondering about it. Fortunately, we are having our big garage sale this weekend, so we will not have a problem staying busy and not dwelling on it too much. Your prayers are appreciated!!

Court Date!!

2009-07-07T10:36:00.001-07:00

Found out this morning that our adoption case will be heard by the high court in Ethiopia next Friday, July 17th! Things continue to progress much quicker than expected, which is AMAZING but also keeps us in a state of shock. :) We have to remind ourselves that this is real and if we pass court we may be bringing our little girl home as soon as August or September! YIPPEE! The reality of the situation though, is that many families do not pass court the first time their case is heard. Many end up passing on a 2nd or 3rd court date. We are so blessed to have received a court date prior to the closure coming up, but now I feel very nervous about not passing. It's hard not to get my hopes up, and to think that failing court would mean waiting through the closure. Ugh. But, let's not dwell on that! Let's dwell on the awesome fact that we have a court date and that we JUST MIGHT PASS! :) Please pray for us and for our court case throughout the next 10 days. In the meantime, we have a HUGE garage sale in the works for this Saturday, so at least that will keep me busy over the next few days! Woo Hoo!

Singing Angels

2009-07-05T16:45:00.000-07:00

Today we received a beautiful email from a fellow Holt family who just returned home from Ethiopia with their little girl. Mike and Magan visited Holt's intake center in Durame, which is the location where children come into Holt's care for the first time - whether they are relinquished or abandoned (a rural area located about 125 miles south of the capitol). The children are then moved to Holt's care center in the captol of Ethiopia, Addis Ababa, one parents are assigned a court date or pass court. When we travel to Ethiopia to bring him our little princess, she will already be in Addis and all of our interactions with her will take place there. However, we too hope to take the trip down to Durame to see where she came from and learn as much as we can about the first years of her life. Needless to say, at this point we know that she is still in the Durame intake center and thanks to Mike and Magan we know that she is one of the many "singing angels" who reside there. Magan wrote: "In Durame, your little girl was in the room with the children that were singing. I cannot write this without tears in my eyes. To hear the children sing was the most beautiful thing I ever heard in my life. It will echo in our hearts forever." Due to the fact that there are currently 71 children being cared for in the Durame location, they were not able to personally see or speak to our daughter, but it is still absolutely amazing to picture her there, ministering as a beautiful singing angel. What a highlight to our weekend, we are so grateful for this little piece of information.

Movie "Orphan"

2009-07-02T22:22:00.000-07:00

I am re-posting this from Holt's blog... I viewed the trailer for this movie and it definitely struck me (as an adoptive parent) as quite offensive. It's media attention such as this (though seemingly innocent) that give people a negative portrayal of adoption, especially of adopting older children who make-up a large part of the population of children needing families. If, after doing your own research, you feel the same, I encourage you to add your name to the petition Holt mentions below (it takes about 5 seconds of your time)...

We at Holt International want to inform our constituents about a movie entitled “Orphan” scheduled to be released in July by Warner Brothers. We are concerned about media depictions that demean or degrade children. We are especially alarmed about the movie’s negative portrayal of adoption and children in need of families.

As adults we have a responsibility to speak out and advocate on behalf of our children. Many people have already contacted Warner Brothers with their concerns, and at least two groups have developed petitions to respectfully protest the messaging of this movie. One group, Orphans Deserve Better, has developed a website to mobilize efforts against the film. Please review their petition’s information and include your voice among those who are making it clear you do not support the movie “Orphan.”

Warner Brothers has already responded to initial protests about the movie and made efforts to remove some the offensive language from the movie’s original trailer. In response to pressure from adoptive parents and other concerned individuals, Warner Brothers has removed the line: “It must be hard to love an adopted child as much as your own,” from recently released trailers. However, it remains unclear whether or not the line was removed from the movie.

Tshirts Shipping Out!

2009-06-30T21:11:00.000-07:00

Woo-hoo! The first batch of t-shirts will be shipping out tomorrow, July 1st, for everybody who has placed an order up to now. The orders received have been pretty much all across the board as far as colors and sizes, so we haven't run out of anything yet :) Thanks to everyone who has ordered! Some of you I don't even know, but I know you read this blog (or at least I do now), which is awesome! Thanks!!

Getting Ready!

2009-06-27T22:44:00.000-07:00

The past two weeks since we accepted our referral, have been full of "to-do's!" We pretty much knew we needed to kick it into high gear to prepare for the arrival of our little princess, since there is the possibility we could pass court and travel sooner than later. Here are some of the things we've been working on:

1. Putting together a "Family Welcome Album." Here is a glimpse of our first few pages... we are also adding in some stickers and a coloring page for FUN! Our agency allows us to send anything flat (paper-thin). It was fun to put together the album, but very surreal knowing that we are sending these things to our daughter on the other side of the world.

2. Growing a closet of "girly things!" Yeah, what a blessing this has been. Some generous friends from church started our collection with a bunch of clothes their little girl had outgrown, we then added a cute pj set as a gift from another friend, and a whole stock of cheap (but great) "finds" from a local thrift store. I am a 100% believer in used and hand-me-down clothes for kids... they just outgrow things way too fast! Sure, I love shopping for the new outfit for holidays or pictures, but for any other day I am happy to take the cheap and free stuff :)

3. Reading books. We ordered some books from Amazon (ones we've been meaning to get for awhile) and have now begun the process of filling our heads with helpful information. Here are a few that we just purchased, as well as a special book for Eli called "A Mother for Choco." Such a CUTE story - really helpful for "waiting siblings" in explaining the concept of adoption... in kid-friendly terms that is!

4. Fundraising. We sent out some support letters, have a garage sale planned for two weeks from today, and are selling some great t-shirts from our website: www.4africa4life.org. We have kids sizes available now, and we will begin shipping this week for everyone who has already ordered. THANK YOU! I also applied for two adoption grants this weekend. The grant applications take so long to complete, and typically there are tons of people who apply and not very many who receive anything. I'm not getting my hopes up, but at least we have a chance :) Please keep our fundraising in your prayers.

5. Dealing with USCIS and updating our home study. Fortunately - we THINK we are GOOD TO GO! Our home study agency amended our home study (for the 2nd time in the past week) to now say 0-4 years, so that we are still okay if we travel after our princess's 3rd birthday. We were able to reach a lovely woman at USCIS who found our previously submitted amendment and agreed to hold on to it, to swap out for the new one... this way we are not having to send two things to Addis Ababa (talk about confusion that would create), and we are also not having to pay a fee for requiring more than one amendment. We now wait for our next I171H approval... then we can truly breathe easy.

UP NEXT: Painting a cute girly bedroom and preparing for a garage sale!

1:00AM

2009-06-27T01:11:00.000-07:00

I think I've completely lost it. It is now 1:00am and I just finished filling out a (long) grant application that is due by Tuesday. In order to not pay for overnight shipping, it must be shipped out tomorrow... thus the reason I am up so late finishing it tonight. This has been a crazy, productive, and busy week all at the same time! More about that later though, because I'm tired. Please pray for that we might be awarded some financial help through this grant. The chances are slim because so many families apply for grants like this, but we are still short in our finances, and this would be a huge blessing. No matter what though, we know God will provide. I always add that in, because it's true (and I have to remind myself of that). Whether or not providing through this grant is part of His plan, we will have to wait and see. But until we find out, we can rest in confidence that He is taking care of us and our little girl half-way around the world.

4 Africa 4 Life

2009-06-22T22:15:00.001-07:00

My hubby has been working so hard to launch this website. We had the idea to start this site when we attended the Christian Alliance for Orphans Summit back in April. Our goal is to promote awareness and advocate for the millions of orphans around the world. The site is still in its early stages, but CHECK IT OUT! http://4africa4life.org/ Oh, and we would love it if you would consider buying a t-shirt - hubby designed those as well... (we have had a couple requests for kids sizes and we're hoping to add a kids size soon!)

Back to the Paperwork!

2009-06-22T13:18:00.000-07:00

This picture describes what I am feeling right now - I just want to give up on paperwork! Good thing I have the beautiful face of our little girl to stare at all day - my constant reminder to keep pushing through and not let "glitches" get me down.

Last week I worked hard to gather the paperwork needed for our home study amendment and immigration approval amendment. We need both of these amendments due to the fact that our daughter will likely be three years old by the time we bring her home, which is older than our original approval for 0-2 years. We spoke to our social worker, and had her write the amendment to approve us for ages 0-3, since we figured that would "cover" us until she turns four. However, after this was ALL completed, and ALREADY sent to USCIS... we find out that we actually need the approval to say 0-3.5 or 0-4 years. Apparently, if your child is one day past their birthday, you have to be approved beyond that age. I only knew to ask about this thanks to Michelle and Norm (THANK YOU for posting about that - it saved us from dealing with this later which could have been a disaster). When I talked to our agency this morning I told them that they really need to give more directions about being approved for "over the age" because we would have never known. They apologized for not being clearer in their intial communication with us, and did clarify that we will have to re-do everything. So, here we go again... :)

WHAT?!?!? REFERRAL?!?!?

2009-06-12T17:12:00.000-07:00

Absolutely amazing news in the Hutchison household... WE GOT A REFERRAL!!!!!! This was totally and completely UNEXPECTED. After all, we were #18! And it has only been 2 months since we submitted our dossier! We are over-the-moon excited... here's the story...

Since Wednesday, I have been on a work retreat at a cabin up north, without cell phone reception or internet access. I thought to myself on my drive up there how ironic it would be if our referral came during the one week that I am "unreachable." I called Micah using a calling card on Wednesday night, but it ran out of minutes while we were talking. He didn't have the chance to tell me that Stephanie (from Holt) left a message for us around 4:30pm that day, saying she had a few questions and wanted to "check on our adoption process." It's probably good he didn't get a chance to tell me that because I might have been tempted to drive all the way home :)

Since the calling card was out of minutes, I figured I would just talk to Micah when I returned home on Friday. But Thursday evening, the cabin phone rang. I left the phone # to the cabin with Micah so he could use it in case of emergencies. When the person who answered said my husband was on the phone, I was wondering if something bad had happened. Here's some of the conversation that followed, to the best of my memory...

Me: Hey what's going on?
Micah: Were you planning on calling me tonight?
Me: No, the calling card ran out, remember? Why what's going on?
Micah: Well, we had a phone call today... from Stephanie at Holt.
Me: (stunned silence) Uh-huh...
Micah: She is wanting to know if we would consider adopting a child slightly older than two years old.
Me: (still stunned) Uh-huh...
Micah: They have a little girl who will be 3 years old in September, and they really want to place her. She said if we are willing to adopt a child older than our original preference, then they will be giving us her referral.
Me: (absolutely shocked, with my co-workers all staring at me) :)

We chatted awhile more (and I then called him again later when everybody was out at the campfire and I regained my composure), and decided that Micah would go ahead and call Stephanie in the morning to tell her to send us the referral information. As you can imagine, I couldn't WAIT to get home! I shared the news with my coworkers and they were so excited for us. They all listened to me blab on and on about it, and were so GREAT in allowing me to process the news. I went to bed that night dreaming about our new little girl.

On the drive home, my coworker pulled our car over into a parking lot as soon as we had cell phone reception so that I could get on the internet and look at the picture of our beautiful little princess. She is adorable. I completely teared up because she looks so sad in her picture, and all I want to do is hug her and bring her home. Unfortunately, we can't post any pics on websites (Ethiopian government doesn't allow it) so you will only be able to see it if you live close enough! We also cannot post her name, but she was named by her birthmother and the name/meaning are so special to us. We will definitely keep her given name as either a first or middle name. For the purpose of this blog I will just call her our "little princess."

The bad news is that it would be close to impossible for us to be assigned a court date prior to the Ethiopian court closure in August/September, so we likely will not pass court or travel until later in the fall. The months ahead will be so hard as we wait to bring her home, but we know God's timing is perfect and He already knows the plan. Little did we know in starting this journey, that His plan was different from ours... but we know His plans are always best, and we move forward trusting in that completely.

So Little Princess... we will come for you soon, we already love you!

The Waiting Game

2009-06-09T21:12:00.000-07:00

Well it's been awhile since I posted something on here, but to be honest... not much has been happening! Last I heard we are still sitting at #18 :) The good news is that there will be large number of families traveling during the next 6-8 weeks (a group actually just left today). So with all of those beautiful children going home, I can only imagine that a large amount of new referrals will trickle in over the summer months... maybe one of those will be our new son or daughter??? Work has been really busy the past few weeks with the school year winding down, so that has kept my mind off the wait. I'll have some time off starting next week, so it might be a bit harder to maintain the patience but I will try! We are at least going to spend a couple days having an "in-town" vacation at a nice hotel in Phoenix or Scottsdale. We are saving money this year by not actually going out of town. The great thing about an "in-town" vacation where we live, is that the hotels substantially drop their rates in the summer due to the fact that nobody wants to visit the Phoenix heat. So that means rock bottom prices for us to stay in a nice suite, have a free breakfast, and spend a couple days relaxing poolside. Yeah!

Little Brother or Sister?

2009-05-28T12:35:00.001-07:00

Eli, our 3-year-old, doesn't really have much of a clue that we are adopting. It's a bit of a hard concept to explain... much harder than mommy's growing tummy that has a "baby inside." The other day I had my first "real" conversation with him on this topic, and I was actually impressed with how much sank in...

Me: "Guess what Eli? You are going to have a baby brother or sister someday soon who will come live in our house!"

Eli: Looking confused "Who's it gonna be?"

Me: "I don't know yet, but it will be a baby brother or sister."

Eli: "I'm going to have a baby sister" (smiling) "And she will be Emmie" (referring to his beloved cousin)

Me: "No, it won't be Emmie. Emmie already has a mommy or daddy. Our baby will come from a place called Ethiopia. Our baby will need a mommy and daddy, so we will bring the baby home to our house to be part of our family!"

Eli: "When's he gonna come?"

Me: "We don't know yet, but hopefully someday soon."

That was the end of the conversation, but apparently Eli continued thinking about it. The next morning when Micah woke him up, the first thing Eli said was... "I'm going to have a baby sister but we don't know who it is yet." Ha Ha! So cute! Hopefully he won't be too disappointed if it ends up being a baby brother :) I'm sure once we have some pictures and a name this will be the excitement of his life!

It has also been interesting to watch how God is moving in his little-boy heart to help him understand this treasure of adoption, even though we haven't tried to explain it. Lately, whenver we are reading stories, Eli seems to point out any "baby/child" (whether human or animal) who doesn't have an obvious mommy or daddy nearby. He repeatedly asks "Where's his mommy?" or "Where's his daddy?" The other day he told me that the baby bunny in one of our stories "needs a family." I was like... what?!? How do you even comprehend the concept of "family" at such a young age? But he does, and I think this is part of God's beautiful plan in helping our"big brother" gain a heart of compassion and love for his new sibling, as well as giving him a childlike understanding of the beauty of adoption - finding families for children.

Welcome Home!

2009-05-24T10:36:00.000-07:00

It is always so exciting for EVERYONE when other Holt families travel to Ethiopia to pick up their children. Many of us have gotten to know one another through a Yahoo group, blogs, and emailing... even though we've never met face to face. It's such a great support system to have since we are all going through the same thing. As families return from Ethiopia, it's wonderful to hear about their time there - how the other children are doing (they usually bring back reports for parents who have been matched with children, but are waiting to pass court or travel), what's happening at the care center, updates on travel tips, and of course their individual stories of holding their beautiful children for the first time. I just love it, and it's still so surreal to me that one day this will be US.

So today, we are rejocing with the Czarnecki Family, the Bertram Family, and the DeAndrea Family who all returned home within the past few days with their gorgeous children and are transitioning back to "normal" life, or at least a NEW normal life! Be sure to click on the family names to visit their blogs and see pictures of these cuties! Blessings to all three families!

Drawn From Water

2009-05-23T20:47:00.000-07:00

Drawn From Water is an incredible ministry that I discovered last month, and am glad to finally have the chance to highlight it on this blog. There is a tribe in a rural area of Ethiopia, called the Karo tribe, who are very superstitious and believe that certain children are born as "mingi" or "cursed" and will bring bad fortune to their tribe unless they are killed. An example of a child who would be considered "cursed" is one whose top teeth come in before the bottom teeth. This ministry, Drawn From Water, exists to save these children. They have given the tribe an alternative to killing the children, by far-removing them from the tribal land. Recently, Levi Benkert and his wife left their successful business in California (LJ Urban) to relocate their entire family to Ethiopia to help establish an orphanage for the rescued children, and care for them (this occurred approximately 10 days ago... so please pray for them in their transition). You can visit their website and view the video below to find out more information about this amazing ministry. I know God has great plans in store for this ministry, this family, and the beautiful children from the Karo tribe.

Drawn from Water from Drawn From Water on Vimeo.

Yippee!

2009-05-18T16:58:00.001-07:00

Lots of Shots!!

2009-05-15T20:02:00.001-07:00

This morning we went to the travel clinic and started our immunizations for traveling to Ethiopia. I really hate shots, so my desire in getting these done so early just stemmed from my desire to not think about them anymore :) We had a total of six shots today: Hepatitis A, Hepatitis B, Typhoid, Meningitis, Polio Booster, and Yellow Fever. The typhoid shot was the worst of them all - left a welt on my arm, and is especially sore tonight. The rest weren't too bad, my arms are both just sore. The worst part of the whole thing though, was the COST. Yikes!! Who knew that most insurance companies don't think travel shots are "medically necessary." So are they saying they would pay for the cost of treating me if I come down with typhoid, meningitis, or yellow fever? Seriously. I still have to get two more Hep B shots, and Micah has one more Hep A shot. We also both need tetanus boosters, but we will be happily paying for those at our regular doctor's office since fortunately tetanus is considered by the insurance to be "medically necessary."

Highlights of Attending Summit V

2009-05-06T20:33:00.000-07:00

What a great conference, it was such a privilege to be able to attend! If you are interested to hear about some of our highlights from the trip, you can read about them HERE.

Heading to Summit V!

2009-04-28T20:53:00.001-07:00

Tomorrow morning we will be dropping Eli off at "gwamma's" house and then heading to catch our flight to Dallas to attend Summit V, sponsored by Christian Alliance for Orphans. We are really excited about the opportunity to attend this conference, and looking forward to learning more about what we can do to meet the needs of orphans both here in the U.S. and abroad. Besides that, we are just looking forward to getting away for a few days, just the two of us! Spending some quality time together and having a chance to just relax for a few days will be very welcome, especially after a very busy month! Please pray for safe travels, and that God would use this time to speak to our hearts and teach us more about His heart for orphans around the world.

Dossier in Ethiopia! And More Waiting!

2009-04-27T15:00:00.001-07:00

We received an email today informing us that our dossier arrived in Ethiopia last Friday (4/24)!! Prior to that, it traveled to the US State Department for authentication, and then to the Ethiopian Embassy in Washington D.C. for further authentication. Now that it has arrived in Ethiopia, the Holt representative over there will translate it and ensure that all documents are prepared for court. Although we still have no idea who our child is, we are so excited to reach every milestone and just know that the paperwork side of things is in order and ready to go!

Many people ask what our next step is, and the answer is WAITING :) We are on the list to be matched with a child, and many factors can affect when that occurs. Our agency says to expect a 6-9 month wait for a referral from the time our dossier was submitted, so that would put us receiving a referral sometime between September - December. We have seen some families' timelines move quicker than that, so I'm secretly hoping we'll get a referral this summer, but trying not to get my hopes up to much. After we accept our referral, the Holt staff in Ethiopia begins the process of submitting our paperwork through the court system. We would probably wait about 3 months until our court date. If we pass the first time, we would likely travel to Ethiopia to pick up our child about 2-6 weeks after that. It's not uncommon to not pass court the first time though, so the wait before we travel could be even longer.

Everyone who knows me, knows I am a planner. Sometimes it's hard to just wait for things to happen, and really have no idea how it will all play out as far as the timing of everything. But, it's definitely a time of growth for us, and a time where God wants us to really just trust that He knows what will happen, and His timing is perfect. I feel good about that, and secure in knowing His plans will ultimately prevail in all situations pertaining to our adoption.

We are just so privileged to have this opportunity to adopt, and know our lives will be incredibly blessed. Many people comment that the child we are adopting will be so lucky to join our family, but we actually feel that WE are the lucky ones! Just as a biological child brings great joy to the family he or she is born into, the same is true of an adopted child. Us as parents are just the privileged recipients of the extrodinary gifts we call "our children!"

Movin' On Up

2009-04-20T21:56:00.000-07:00

Our "official" number as of today!! Yippee!!

I-171H Arrived Today!!

2009-04-15T17:42:00.000-07:00

Yeah! Today I was so excited to open the mailbox and find our I-171H! For those of you who have never adopted internationally, that probably means nothing to you :) But for those who have, or are in the process, you know this is a very important step. Basically, this "approval" letter is given to us by Immigration (per the application we submitted back in January, and fingerprints we had done in February), allows us to bring an orphan into the United States on a Visa. Immigration actually forwards our "approval" letter to the embassy in Addis Ababa, Ethiopia so that everything is in order for our court date and eventual travel to pick up our child. Tomorrow I will be sending a copy of this form to Holt, so they can add it to the dossier. I was surprised this approval arrived so quickly after our home study was submitted, but I guess since we applied earlyand had our fingerprints taken in advance, they had things ready to go! Nice!!

We're GOING!! Are YOU?

2009-04-12T14:02:00.000-07:00

We are so grateful for the opportunity to attend Summit V in a couple of weeks. We had actually decided not go, but couldn't shake that nagging feeling that we were supposed to be there. So... we found a great deal on plane tickets, registered for the conference, "reserved" a room for Eli at grandma's house, and we'll be on our way in less than 3 weeks!

Lucky #25!

2009-04-06T16:53:00.000-07:00

Today we found out that we are officially #25 on our agency's waiting list for families adopting from Ethiopia. The average wait time to receive a referral for a child is approximately 6-9 months, then a court date would be given about 3 months after that, and then travel would occur 1-2 months after passing court. So, if our process follows all of the "average" time frames, we would end up traveling around this time next year. There are so many things, however, that can impact how slow or fast the process moves, so as much as we try to predict things, it's really very unpredictable. A great example of this would be our "cyberspace friends" Heather and Brian, who received a referral today after just four months of waiting! Congrats you guys, we are so happy for you! So needless to say, at this point we will begin working on getting our passports and travel immunizations (fun, fun) so that we are ready to go when our time comes. Hooray for making it another step closer!!

Can We Make A Difference?

2009-04-04T15:14:00.000-07:00

Micah and I just read this inspiring book:

I encourage everyone to read it. To read a few quotes and her more of my thoughts regarding the book's subject, CLICK HERE.

Journey of the Dossier

2009-04-01T20:53:00.000-07:00

A little story of my morning...

I started out bright and early driving to Scottsdale to pick up our home study from our local agency, Dillon Southwest. They had everything ready to go so it was a quick stop!

My adventure continued as I headed to downtown Phoenix to visit the Secretary of State's office to "authenticate" the home study and power of attorney documents. This involved attaching a gold seal and red stamped seal to both documents.

The final stop was a few blocks away at the nearest FedEx Kinko's I could find, where I made copies of each piece of our dossier, checked everything about 20 times, and put them in the envelope for shipping. So much work goes into this dossier that it was actually tempting to think I would take road-trip to Oregon this weekend and hand deliver the documents :) It was so scary (but also a relief) to let them go!!
Just "some" of the paperwork that went into our dossier... birth certs, marriage cert, employer letters, medical certs, letters of recommendation, financial/tax statements, power of attorney, letter to the Ethiopian Ministry of Women's Affairs (MOWA), passport photos, and more!

I then chartered a private jet so I could take this picture of our documents flying to Oregon. (April Fools! Just had to get one in there :)) Truthfully though, this is hopefully where our documents are now... in the air somewhere between Phoenix, AZ and Eugene, OR. They should arrive to Holt International tomorrow morning. Hooray!!

Woo Hoo!!!

2009-03-31T20:06:00.000-07:00

Today we received the news that our home study passed through court and we are now officially certified to adopt in the state of Arizona. Yahooooooooo!! Tomorrow morning I will be heading down to the state capitol to have our Home Study and Power of Attorney forms authenticated (ie - get the "official gold seal"). After that, I will head to the post office......... and after 6 months of paper-chasing........ will finally be able to submit our dossier for Ethiopia! Holt should receive everything Thursday or Friday, and once they do, we will find out what "number" we are on the wait list. Yippeee!!

Impatience

2009-03-19T13:32:00.000-07:00

I have really been struggling with patience the past few days. I was hoping to get the call saying "Your paperwork passed through court and your certified!" Unfortunately, that call hasn't come yet and I finally broke down yesterday and called the court myself to check on the "status" of things. It was a week ago that our social worker sent everything in, so I figured the process had begun. The bad news is that the lady who files that adoption paperwork in our county was out of the office until yesterday (when I called)! The good news is that she DID receive our home study and she was planning to file it by the end of the day. She told me she would really try to push it through in one week :) So hopefully by next week... Realistically though, this means we won't officially have everything submitted for our dossier until the beginning of April. That's what I was telling myself a couple months back so that I wouldn't become impatient, but I think in the back of my mind I thought things would move faster. It's amazing how much you are forced to rely on other people and their timeframes during this paper chasing process. Oh well, the bottom line is that God has a child chosen for us and every time our process speeds up or slows down we have to remember that it's part of the timing to bring us to that particular child. Definitely puts things into perspective.

Light At The End Of The Tunnel!

2009-03-10T21:56:00.000-07:00

Quick update - Our social worker emailed today saying that Holt requested one minor revision to our home study, which she made, and the document is now finding its way through the AZ juvenile court system! YEAH! The estimated timeframe for court approval is 2-3 weeks... let's pray for a really nice person to get our paperwork and decide to expedite the processing :)

On another note, we got a "nice" letter from USCIS reminding us that they don't have our home study (duh...). They gave a "gentle" nudge saying that if they don't receive it within 12 weeks our i600-a will be rejected. Lovely. Don't worry immigration department, nobody wants that home study to be done quicker than I do... you'll get your copy soon enough... patience, patience, patience :)

A Bit of Good News

2009-02-27T20:00:00.000-08:00

Today I received a much-anticipated email from our social worker that she is FINISHED writing our home study document - yippee!!! (That is just the word I used in responding to her!) She emailed it over to Holt today, and hopefully they will be able to give it the "ok to proceed" comment by next week so we can pass it on to the court.

In the meantime, we are putting the finishing touches on the rest of the items needed for our dossier. I had my passport photos taken and picked them up yesterday.... now Micah just needs to get his done (hint hint if you are reading this) :)

Other than that we just have a few more documents that need to be notarized, and then a couple (including the home study) that will need to be "authenticated" by the Secretary of State. Pretty official huh?

We have been paper-chasing for close to 5 months now, and I am looking forward to getting through this stage!

AIDS Exhibit

2009-02-22T11:09:00.000-08:00

World Vision is sponsoring this amazing interactive exhibit around the country to raise awareness of the AIDS crisis in Africa. Right now it looks like they have planned "tour dates" in California, Arizona, Montana, Georgia, and Tennessee, but they are looking for additional host locations. We are planning to attend the event here in AZ on March 15th and hopefully take some students from our youth group, as well as others from our church. This event looks extremely powerful and will hopefully encourage us all to do our part and get involved.

View the promo video HERE
View the website HERE
If you can't visit the "experience" in person, you can do so online HERE

If you live in AZ and want to join us, let me know, I'm reserving tickets!

More than just an adoption...

2009-02-17T19:46:00.000-08:00

"I will not leave you as orphans, I will come to you." John 14:18

Although much of our "focus" in life right now is consumed by our adoption, Micah and I both sense that we are called to do what we can in this lifetime on a larger scale to care for, and advocate for orphans. We know that our adoption is one piece of that puzzle, but feel strongly that God wants to use us beyond that to hopefully be able to make a difference in the lives of many "voiceless" children.

One step that we would like to take in the coming months as we journey down this path is to attend Summit V, a 2-day conference sponsored by the Christian Alliance for Orphans. The Summit is being held near Dallas, TX, and at this point in time we aren't sure how we would financially be able to get ourselves there, pay for lodging/food, and get ourselves home. I know quite a few people read this blog, so if you are one of them, would you pray for us regarding this? I know that God can provide, if it's His will that we are to attend this. And if not, we will be okay with that too :) If nothing else, I encourage you to click here and read more about what this amazing ministry does on behalf of orphans. Very inspiring!

A Success!

2009-02-13T16:39:00.000-08:00

Our home visit went well today, and I'm so glad to be able to check that off the list! Yeah! Man, all that cleaning just for her to "glance" at every room in the house seems crazy, but at least I'm left with a clean house to enjoy :) That will probably last for a day or so!

Eli was so excited to have a visitor here and continued to drag out toy after toy after toy to "show her." Included in these were a couple of Wii games and he repeatedly asked us if he could play them (as if this is something our 3-year-old does every day... play the Wii! Ha!) Micah and I were laughing about this afterward, because leave it to the toddler to do something embarrassing, right?

I asked her about the timeline from this point and she said that she should be ready to send the written study to Holt for approval within 1-2 weeks. Assuming it gets approved, she'll submit it to the court and that approval will take about 2 weeks. We will then take it to have the official gold seal of the state of Arizona imprinted on it, and be ready to send in the dossier. Yeah! My optimistic, hopeful side is thinking this will occur by Mid-March. YEAH!!

Tomorrow!

2009-02-12T12:14:00.000-08:00

Our home visit is tomorrow morning, please keep us in your prayers!! I am not really nervous at all since we've had three other interviews that have gone fine. Hopefully Eli doesn't throw any tantrums :) Ha! Guess it's real-life though, right? My wonderful sister is coming over in a few hours to help me clean the house - yeah!! Thanks Bonnie!

Another Step Closer...

2009-02-05T12:22:00.000-08:00

This morning we drove 2 hours down to Tucson to complete our USCIS fingerprinting. This allows our petition to bring an orphan into the United States to continue to be processed. It's still odd to me that they fingerprinted us without having our home study completed, but oh well, we'll take whatever we can get :) It was annoying that we had to drive to the Tucson office (2 hours away), instead of the Phoenix office (45 min. away), but I guess that's a "perk" of being in Pinal County. They can't just make it easy on us, right?

Another piece of good news is that our home visit is SCHEDULED for next Friday!! It will be Friday the 13th, but hopefully won't bring bad luck :) Micah went to his individual interview yesterday, and the home visit will be the final interview. I hope that our social worker will be quick about getting everything written up since it has to be approved by Holt AND pass through the AZ juvenile court system before we can get it certified and send it in with the dossier. I do think things are looking better and better for a March submission though... but in my head I will still tell myself April. :)

CPR and First Aid Certified

2009-01-31T19:16:00.000-08:00

Our local home study agency recently added a requirement that all of their families become CPR and First Aid certified. Although we were kind of annoyed to have to add this to the already long list of things to do (and it's not a requirement of our placing agency), it really was a good idea on their part. Honestly, anybody who is a parent should become certified in these areas, and I realized that we probably should have done this back when Eli was born. But who has the time unless you're "forced" right? Well, I know some of you other there make the time, but you are all better people than I am :) And SMART!

So, we went to our "forced" certification training today, and it was a very positive, beneficial experience. I feel much more confident that if something were to happen where my kids (or anyone else for that matter) stopped breathing, or their heart stopped beating, or they were choking, or having any number of other "emergencies," that I could actually help them and do more than just guess at how to help :) Hopefully this is a training we will never have to actually utilize, but I'm glad to have had it... just in case.

As a side note... Micah went to his individual home study interview last Wednesday and apparently our social worker had the wrong day written in her planner. UGH. It wouldn't be as bad if the drive wasn't an hour from our house. So, he is now rescheduled for next Wednesday. Kind of annoying, but what can you do, right? Hopefully he'll be able to get a date nailed down with her for our actual home visit, so we can have a more solid time line in our heads for wrapping up our dossier and sending it to Holt!

A Surprise!

2009-01-26T20:38:00.001-08:00

I was sure surprised today to find a letter in our mailbox from USCIS (Immigration) stating that we need to appear for fingerprinting next Thursday - I had been told they would not fingerprint us until after receiving a copy of our home study, so this was completely unexpected! But, we are quite happy, nonetheless, to be fingerprinted early and keep the process moving along :) This "should" be the last time we have to be fingerprinted during this process, let's hope that holds true... third time's the charm, right?

Lots of Movement!

2009-01-22T11:29:00.000-08:00

No matter what phase of the adoption process you are in, it's always so exciting to see "movement" occurring for other families that are with your same agency, adopting through the same program. The past couple weeks have been so exciting for Holt Ethiopia families and congratulations are in order for these families who received referrals:
The Czarnceki Family (referred 2-month old baby boy)
The DeAndrea Family (referred 7-month old baby girl)
The Gibler Family (referred 2-month old baby boy)

This family who passed court:
Darin & Becky

And all of these families who are traveling within the next couple of weeks to bring home their beautiful children:
Adam & Sarah, Sunshine & Brandon, Bobby & Kyla, Brad & Danielle, Matt & Dawna

Woo hoo!!

Amharic Worship Service

2009-01-18T20:42:00.000-08:00

Today we had the opportunity to attend an Ethiopian worship service at Central United Methodist Church in Phoenix. It was an amazing opportunity to join other families from Arizona who are also adopting from Ethiopia, to be able to worship in Amharic (the official language of Ethiopia) and have a delicious homemade Ethiopian feast. This was the first time Micah and I had tasted Ethiopian food, and both agreed that it tasted great!

Pastor Surafel leads the Ethiopian congregation at CUMC. He is the founder of an awesome ministry for street children in Ethiopia called Hope for the Hopeless. He is so thankful for families that are adopting children from Ethiopia, so that they do not have to face a future of winding up living on the streets. He prayed a prayer of blessing over us, and although we couldn't understand it, the spirit behind it was so genuine and passionate. It's awesome that we can all get together and worship the Lord, no matter what languages we speak. A small glimpse of heaven, right?!?

Eli had a difficult time sitting through the entire service, but he certainly enjoyed making friends at the lunch. Sometimes he can be quite shy around other kids, but not today! In fact, a group of Ethiopian children who regularly attend this church got up on stage to sing some songs for all of us... and low and behold, we look up and there's Eli jamming out on stage with them! Ha! He was just dancing away, having no idea that he was not a "scheduled part of the program." We got a great laugh out of it! In the 2nd picture he's looking at me like me like, "What Mom? Why are you telling me to get down?"

The Home Study Has Begun!

2009-01-15T20:21:00.000-08:00

Today we had our first home study interview!! This one took place at our agency's office, and it was a joint interview with both Micah and I. The questions weren't quite as bad as I expected, and overall I think it went really well. We found out from our social worker that the FBI did clear our fingerprints (yeah!!) so it's at least nice to know that we won't add extra time to our process by having to re-do them. I was kind of bummed to learn that the remainder of our home study process, up through being certified through the AZ court, will probably take 2-3 more months from now. I had been thinking that we would be able to submit our dossier by the end of next month, but it will more realistically be in March or even April. I think in my mind I am going to start thinking "April," just so I'm not being overly anxious about it... then if everything is completed faster than expected that will be a nice surprise!

We also received an email update from our placing agency today, that the adoption process in general in Ethiopia is slowing way down. I guess they are very understaffed for the amount of adoptions that are processed in that country, and things are just taking a lot longer than they were even a year ago. So, we pretty much just need to be preparing ourselves for what could be a long waiting game. It's at least comforting to remember that God already knows who our child is, and that ultimately the timing of everything will work out perfectly in His plan for us to bring THAT child into our family forever. I get so excited just thinking about it!!

Here's our timeline for the remainder of our home study (as of now):
Jan. 23rd - Bethany's individual interview
Jan. 28th - Micah's individual interview
Social Worker writes up most of the home study
February - Social worker visits our house to meet Eli, and have our final interview (pretty much just to fill in any holes in what she has written up)
Social Worker finishes the home study and sends it to Holt for "approval"
Revisions are made if needed, and then the final version is sent to the court

So everyone be praying for this portion of our process please!! Pray that our social worker would be diligent in dedicating the time to write our home study, our interviews would go well, and that things would be in place for approval from Holt and the court on the first submission :)

On a final note, we are so excited for a number of Holt families whom I interact with regularly through an online community board. A number of them found out this past week that they made it through court in Ethiopia and are going to be traveling Feb. 5th to bring home their long-awaited children. Please keep the Rhodes Family in your prayers, as they are in Ethiopia right now bringing home their sweet little girl!!

Waiting, Waiting, Waiting

2009-01-06T19:16:00.001-08:00

Even though we aren't at the true "official" waiting phase of our adoption process yet, I have definitely felt impatient this past week! We submitted everything to our home study agency in mid-December, as well as a few last minute items on Christmas Eve, and have since been waiting for them to schedule our interviews. Granted, this has been right in the midst of the holiday season, so I understand the timing was slightly off... but let's go!!! I couldn't handle it anymore as of yesterday and I emailed our agency just to make sure they had received everything. I received a reassuring email back (I know that she knows I'm anxious), that everything was in order and we should be contacted within this next week by a social worker to schedule our interviews. Let's get going!

In the meantime, I occupied myself by preparing our I-600A, which is an application we have to submit to the Dept. of Homeland Security (USCIS) to give us permission to adopt an orphan from another country and bring them into the United States. After our home study is completed, we will have yet another fingerprinting session with Immigration, before they will approve us to adopt an orphan.

Thinking of You...

2008-12-25T13:09:00.000-08:00

A Christmas Letter for My Child:

During this busy Christmas season, I have been thinking a lot about you. You are living so far away, and I wonder what you are doing today, Christmas Day. Your daddy, your brother, and I enjoyed our time together this morning opening gifts and having fun, but something was missing... YOU! We have been working diligently to bring you home as quickly as possible. There is so much paperwork and so much "red tape" involved, but we are making progress little by little.

Your daddy bought me a special gift for Christmas this year, it's a Prayer Box necklace. The idea behind it is that you "place your prayers inside" and then wear the box close to your heart to remind you to pray. Inside the box, he placed a small picture of Ethiopia, to remind me to always be praying for you. I think it's also a reminder that even though we don't even know who you are yet, you are already so close to our hearts.

Today, on this Christmas Day, we pray that you are happy and healthy. We pray that you have enough food to eat, water to drink, and a roof over your head. We pray that you are surrounded by people who love and care for you. We pray that you will be home with us for Christmas next year. We love you!

"He will cover you with his feathers, and under His wings you will find refuge, his faithfulness will be your shield and rampart. You will not fear the terror of night, nor the arrow that flies by day... no harm will befall you, no disaster will come near your tent. For He will command His angels concerning you, to guard you in all your ways." (Psalm 91:4-5,10-11).

Fingerprints, FOUND!

2008-12-16T09:43:00.002-08:00

Go figure... we went to the Florence PD last Thursday to have our fingerprints taken (again) for FBI clearance, and as soon as I put them in the mail to our social worker she sent me an email saying that she received our fingerprints - the FIRST round that were supposedly lost. I have no idea why it took over three weeks for that envelope to arrive there, but oh well. Now we have a back-up set, I suppose.

Our agency is currently in the process of reviewing all of the paperwork we submitted last week in preparation for our home study, and we will likely complete our home study interviews in January.

Right now we are keeping busy trying to complete our adoptive parents training, as well as continuing to gather documents needed for our dossier.

The journey continues...

Home Study Paperwork - DONE!

2008-12-08T21:41:00.000-08:00

Today I had the wonderful privilege of taking our big pile of paperwork to the post office and mailing it to our home study agency. This included our 10+ page autobiographies (whew!). This is not the end of the paperwork trail (unfortunately), as we still have various forms to fill out and our official dossier to complete (the home study will become part of that once it's finished). But, it felt great to finally get something else checked off the list, and now our home study agency will be able to move forward with scheduling our interviews and getting us through the AZ juvenile court system so that we become "certified" to adopt in the state of Arizona. Woo Hoo! Every step forward is worth celebrating :) Now if we could just get up the motivation to get those fingerprints RE-done...

Oh Where, Oh Where, Did Our Fingerprints Go?

2008-12-04T12:46:00.000-08:00

Well, it didn't take long but we just encountered our first "annoying" glitch in our journey. You may remember a couple of posts ago that we completed our fingerprints. One of the rules in Maricopa County (where our home study agency is located) is that you aren't able to touch your fingerprint cards once they are taken. You have to have the person who fingerprints you mail your cards, along with your FBI clearance forms, to the home study agency. So, we sealed everything in the postage-paid envelope and left them with the deputy to mail. And that was the last anybody saw of them!

I emailed our social worker yesterday to see if she had received them and she had not, so I knew we had a problem. They should have gotten to her before Thanksgiving at the latest. I called the Pinal County Detention Center yesterday and was able to get through (after a long series of transfers and calling back twice) to the person who mailed them, and he claimed that he did! Who KNOWS? So, we are now in the boat of having to be RE-fingerprinted and send everything all over again. I think we will visit the Florence PD this time, instead of Pinal County Sheriff. Ugh, how annoying.

Guess we should get used to it, their are families further ahead of us in the process who have many stories similar to this, and it looks like we should continue to expect them throughout the entire process and even after returning home. Did we really need a warm-up? :)

Congrats!

2008-12-02T21:33:00.000-08:00

It is always so exciting to watch things "happen" to families within Holt's Ethiopia program. Many of us converse frequently through a Yahoo group, as well as blogs, and are able to see one another's progress throughout their adoptions. I love the support system it provides, because nobody else truly understands the ups and downs of this crazy process than those who are experiencing it (or have experienced it) themselves.

November was a fairly disappointing month for many families that had court dates, as some of the rules surrounding requirements for passing court were changed at the last minute and many of the cases did not pass. They were rescheduled for January so we are wishing everyone the best and hoping the 2nd time is the charm. There are quite a few other families in our program who have upcoming court 1st time court dates this month and next, so please keep them all in your prayers. Everybody wants to bring their children home as quickly as possible.

There were two families (one being the Gratz family) that DID successfully pass court last week and we are so excited for them! They will be leaving for Ethiopia next week and will be home with their beautiful children to spend Christmas together. Please be praying for their safe travel, smooth process in Ethiopia, and transition upon coming home.

A Fabulous Book...

2008-11-30T14:47:00.000-08:00

I just started reading this book last week, and would highly recommend it! Quite a few people who are adopting (or have adopted) from Ethiopia recommended this one, so figured I would give it a try. Whether you are adopting from Ethiopia, or not even adopting at all, this is a great read for anybody! If you've read it, let me know what you think!

Inspiration

2008-11-25T20:39:00.000-08:00

Here are a few quotes/poems/verses I came across this this evening (thanks to the Google search engine) that spoke to me in some way about this adoption journey we are on and gave me new inspiration to finish writing that autobiography for our home study :)

We witness a miracle every time a child enters into life.
But those who make their journey home across time & miles,
growing within the hearts of those who wait to love them,
are carried on the wings of destiny and placed among us
by God's very own hands.
--- Kristi Larson

I'm only one. But still, I am one.
I cannot do everything, but still, I can do something.
And because I cannot do everything,
I will not refuse to do the something that I can do.
--- Edward Everett Hale

I know God won't give me anything I can't handle.
I just wish he didn't trust me so much
--- Mother Theresa

I took the road less traveled by, and that has made all the difference.
--- Robert Frost

Do not follow where the path may lead.
Go instead where there is no path and leave a trail.
--- Ralph Waldo Emerson

God sets the lonely in families.
--- Psalm 68:6

Every child deserves a home of his own.
--- Harry Holt

A Productive Week

2008-11-22T13:23:00.000-08:00

Micah had most of this past week off of work, so we took advantage of it and accomplished quite a bit towards our adoption to-do list.

We both had our physicals and blood work completed, and are now just waiting on our doctors to mail us the signed forms. We requested and received a completed form from Eli's pediatrician.

We went to the post office to purchase stamps for our Christmas letters, as well as send of requests to both of our health insurance agencies for them to fill out a form (proof that our adopted child will be covered).

We requested and received police clearance letters from the Florence PD. We also made the "exciting" trip to the Pinal County Sherriff's Office for our FBI fingerprinting session. It was a pretty crazy experience because we were fingerprinted in the same "intake" area as the inmates, so it was a strange feeling to walk back through all of the metal detectors and concrete hallways! We now get to wait approx. 1 month to see if the FBI clears our fingerprints or not. We have heard from our agency, as well as other adoptive parents, that the fingerprinting can be a huge pain during this process.

We will have to be fingerprinted (again) by Immigration further down the road in this process, and if either of those agencies don't like the way the fingerprints were done or if they aren't completely clear then we will have to re-do them and possibly add months to our process by waiting again for clearance. We'll just hope this first round is accepted and that we won't even have to go down that road :)

I also attended an "orientation session" with our home study agency, Dillon Southwest, to meet our social worker and be able to ask questions, learn more about the process, etc. I was extremely glad I went, and it put my mind completely at ease about our home study visits and interviews. All of the social workers there are so nice and so down to earth. Thank heavens (I have heard some nightmare stories from others!).

Oh, and one other thing we have made progress on is our adoptive parent training. We are taking an online course which will count for 8 of our 10 hours, and we'll complete the final 2 training hours with our social worker. The course is very interesting and helpful... it has definitely led us to some interesting conversations and given us much to think about as we move forward in our journey.

Hooray for productivity and items crossed of the to-do list!!

Endless Paper-Chasing

2008-11-16T12:08:00.001-08:00

We are up to our ears in "to do lists" and the endless "document collection" process to obtain everything we need for our home study and dossier. I thought I would list out some of the things that we're working on just to give you an idea of how much is involved...

*Complete 10 hours of training on international adoption (in process)
*Micah and I each have to write an 8-10 page autobiography (in process)
*Physicals and blood tests (scheduled for next week)
*Obtain certified copies of all of our birth certificates (still waiting for Eli's...)
*Obtain certified copies of marriage certificate (completed)
*Copies of diplomas/transcripts (completed)
*Letters from employers (Bethany - done, Micah - in process)
*Letters of recommendation (in process)
*Copies of tax returns (completed)
*Letter from bank and bank statements
*Letter from health insurance
*Letter to Ministry of Women's Affairs in Ethiopia
*Have passport photos taken
*Power of Attorney forms
*Police clearance letter
*Immigration clearance
*Fingerprints/background checks

Many of the documents we have to collect must also be notarized, certified, and/or authenticated... so it makes obtaining a simple document a more complex process and more time-consuming.

Once we have everything required by our home study agency, we will go ahead and submit those items to them and they will come out and conduct our actual home study visit(s) and interview(s). Once the visits are completed, the agency will then write up our home study which must then be notarized and approved by Holt. The home study is the most important piece of our dossier that will be sent to Ethiopia. Once the home study process is complete, we will send our entire dossier (aka "life on paper") to Holt who will then send it on to Ethiopia. It's at that point that families are normally placed on the wait list to be matched with a child.

We would appreciate your prayers during this busy holiday season that we would be able to complete our paperwork and not run into any serious glitches with obtaining documents and letters. We are *hoping* to complete this paper-chasing phase by January/February and get on that wait list!!

Clean Water for Christmas

2008-11-10T21:07:00.000-08:00

Entering this adoption process has really burdened our hearts for the people of Africa, and in general, for those in this world who are less fortunate. Take two minutes to watch the video below, and take time this Christmas season to remember those who might just be asking for a glass of water that they won't risk their lives to drink.

Did you know that...
1.8 million people die every year from water-born illnesses?
And 3900 of those are children?
And that only $10 will give a child clean water for life?

Why Holt?

2008-10-30T14:13:00.000-07:00

One of the concerns we had in regards to adopting from Ethiopia was the number of children placed for adoption by their parents, simply because they could not afford to care for them. This was heartbreaking for us, even though it is the reality many face living in a country of extreme impoverishment. We felt that in those situations, where poverty is the only thing preventing the birth family from remaining together, why not just give the money to the birth family that we would otherwise spend to adopt their child? We wrestled with this issue for quite some time, because once you are far enough into the process to receive the referral of your child, you don't have much control over how that child became available for adoption or what the situation was that led to that decision.

In the midst of that struggle, we came across Holt International and it was as if they were speaking directly to our concerns when we read this, "Holt never considers poverty alone to justify international adoption." Whenever possible, Holt actually assists birth families in remaining together, which Micah and I believe is always going to be the best situation for the child when it is possible. Holt judges each child's situation individually to determine if international adoption is really the best option for that particular child. If the birth family is unable to remain together, Holt also looks to the possibility of adopting the child to another family within the child's birth country so that at least he/she can remain within their home culture.

For many children in Ethiopia, international adoption does become the best option because adoption "within" the country does not occur very often, and the child was orphaned due to parents deaths, they were abandoned and nobody knows the whereabouts of the parents, or maybe they only have one living parent who is extremely ill or on the verge of dying. When these things happen, children in Ethiopia either end up living on the streets or they end up in orphanages... either way, they are left without a loving, forever family. Those are the situations where a family like ours is able to open our home and invite a child to join our family and thrive in a loving, nurturing, environment. "Holt International Children's Services is dedicated to carrying out God's plan for every child to have a permanent, loving family."

Holt has been around for over 50 years, and the story of how they began is truly an amazing one. It all began with a couple named Harry and Bertha Holt who in the 1950's saw a movie about children in Korean orphanages who desperately needed help, and they decided they wanted to adopt EIGHT of them! In the 1950's this decision would not have been a very popular one with most Americans, because at the time adoption was regarded as something that should be kept secret - something that would be impossible when a child is clearly of another race/culture than the parents! But Harry and Bertha had deeply rooted Christian faith and pushed through the barriers of race and nationality to show the world that "adoption is a banner of love, not a badge of shame." In order to bring their eight children home from Korea, they actually had to get both houses of Congress to pass a special law - and they did!! Talk about determination, right? Anyway, their story is truly amazing and after Harry died in 1964, Bertha Holt's legacy continued as she became known as "Grandma Holt" to many adoptive families and thousands of children around the world. "She worked tirelessly on behalf of children in need until her death at age 96." If you are interested to learn more about Harry and Bertha, CLICK HERE to go to the Holt website has some great information as well as videos that were created in tribute to the work they began 50+ years ago.

Harry Holt on the floor feeding one of his adopted children from Korea.

Bertha "Grandma" Holt at 80 years old.

Harry and Bertha Holt arriving home from Korea in 1956 with their eight adopted children

We are very excited to be working with Holt during this process, and if you found this blog randomly because you are searching for information about adopting from Ethiopia and want to hear more about our experience, please feel free to leave a comment with your email address and I would be happy to share more with you! :)

Why Ethiopia?

2008-10-21T20:19:00.000-07:00

I could talk your ear off with the "long version" about how we finally decided to adopt from Ethiopia, but in a nutshell, here it is...

We initially looked into adopting a child through the AZ foster care system, but realized from the orientation meeting that we attended, that most of the children in the system are older children. If you know us, you know we don't have any opposition to older children, after all... you have a former middle school teacher and youth pastor here! But, we did feel that we wanted Eli to have siblings close in age to him, while maintaining the birth order with him being the oldest child. We also felt that it would be very tough on a young child to experience the "loss" that can occur with fostering children and have the children leave your home. We believe that foster care does have a place in our lives though, and might be something we explore again down the road...

So, in order to adopt a young child (we are thinking 0-24 months) that pretty much left us looking toward the international arena. We soon felt a peace that although this route was filled with uncertainty, this is what God had called us to. We also felt that He was calling us to go to the place of greatest need. Not all countries are even open for international adoption, but after doing some research of ones that are, here are some statistics we learned about:

There are close to 133 million orphans in the world today (some studies put that number as high as 200 million)
Approximately 1/3 of the world's orphans live in Africa
15.2 million children in the world have lost one or both parents to AIDS (12 million of those children are in Africa - estimates predict this number will rise to 20 million in Africa by 2010)
4.3 million orphans reside in Ethiopia alone.

The bottom line is that there is a need for adoptive parents in all countries, but Ethiopia is somewhat unique in that there are more orphaned children there, than there are people willing/able to adopt them.

We know that our God is a God of the world, and although adopting from Ethiopia would require us to cross country, cultural, and racial lines, the children there belong to God - they are orphans that he loves and cares about, and they need forever families. International adoption is not the best answer for all of those children, but for many it is, and we want to be available to provide a loving home and family for a child who needs one. We also know, that this child will bless and enrich our lives in more ways than we can possibly imagine right now.

If you'd like, click here to watch a video from our agency to learn a little bit more about their program in Ethiopia.

Accepted!

2008-10-16T13:27:00.000-07:00

Yesterday we received our official "welcome email" from Stephanie, the Ethiopia program assistant for Holt International. Yeah! We're still waiting on the welcome packet to arrive in the mail, but in the meantime she emailed us information about the things we need to start collecting for our dossier. "Dossier" is a new vocabulary word I have acquired in the last few months, and every international adoptive parent knows this word :) It's basically your life on paper... to put it simply. It's pretty overwhelming the number of documents that need to be collected, certified, notarized, etc. for the dossier. The process of collecting all of these documents generally takes people 3-5 months. The dossier is what eventually gets translated and submitted to the courts in Ethiopia to approve us for adopting a child from there. Anyway, more on the process later, but in the meantime we are glad to be approved :)

Divine Intervention

2008-10-11T15:23:00.000-07:00

It's funny how God works sometimes. We have already seen His hand at work in so many ways, leading and guiding us in these initial stages of adopting. When we first began talking about adopting, we were strongly leaning toward foster care and domestic adoption. But, as we continued to pray and seek the Lord, we found ourselves drawn to international adoption... an idea we had initially tossed out because it seemed unattainable.

Soon after making the decision to adopt internationally, we prayed about what country and although we first looked into China, the Lord closed some doors and led us to Ethiopia... again, an idea we had initially dismissed.

Following this, we thought we had chosen the agency we wanted to use. Everything seemed right about it and we filled out the application. However, I left it sitting out and to my dismay Eli colored all over the entire thing, so I had to request a new one. Upon receipt of the new one, I noticed something I hadn't really noticed before when filling it out... and God closed another door.

As we began searching again for a new agency, I started battling some health problems. Well, the problems could possibly have been "major," and so this pretty much halted the process of applying because a clean bill of health is ultimately required when adopting internationally. I went through a series of tests that created long periods of "waiting"... waiting for results, waiting for the next test, waiting for results, etc. But, the waiting period, although very hard at the time, proved to be all a part of God's plan because it allowed us more time to research agencies and find one that appears to be a perfect fit for us (more on why later). In the end, everything with my health turned out to be okay (Praise God!), but we are now a couple months later in submitting the application than we initially planned. Are we truly "late" though? I'm sure not. We know God has already chosen the child that will be joining our family, and we trust that the date we sent in our application was done in God's perfect timing.

We are reminded that when God calls us to do something, we have to trust the HE will make a way. Right now we look at the process ahead of us and know that if we factor God out of the equation, we will not be able to complete what we've started. Our pastor posed a question during one of his sermons, asking something along the lines of... Are you currently doing anything in your life right now that requires you to fully trust in God for it to succeed? As I thought about that, I could honestly say that I wasn't. I mean, I trust God from day to day, but if I weren't trusting him, I could probably make it through my day to day tasks relying on myself. I realized that for us, adoption was that thing... that thing that we would not work out for us without the hand of God coming through in a major way. It was also what God has called us to do, and to walk away from it would be to miss out on His blessing and allowing Him to use our family in ways that we can't even begin to imagine yet.

There were many reasons to waver back and forth about whether or not to pursue this, and still many doubts that creep up about how this will possibly all work out, but ultimately we serve a God that is bigger than all of that. We serve a God whom we believe has called us to trust him and take a leap of faith to make a difference in the life of a child. Not saying it will be easy, but we know that He will make a way.

So what are YOU doing that truly requires you to be trusting in God for it to succeed? What would you do if you knew you could trust God with anything and it would not fail? How BIG is your God? Interesting questions to ponder... right? :)

Step 1: Send Application.... Check!

2008-10-07T22:03:00.001-07:00

"Religion that God our Father accepts as pure and blameless is this: to look after orphans and widows in their distress and to keep oneself from being polluted by the world." James 1:27

For those of you who have kept up with my other blog (Hutchison Happenings), you may remember a couple of posts within the last six months (Beginning a Journey and Adoption Update) where I discussed our family's thoughts on beginning the adoption journey. Well, we're happy to announce that it's now "official" and we have taken the first step toward bringing home our child by sending in our application to the Holt International Ethiopia program (Eli assisted by holding the important document in his car seat on the way to the UPS store). :) We eagerly await our "acceptance" call/letter from Holt so that we can take the next steps and continue moving forward. I have spoken with other adoptive parents, read many blogs, joined online adoption groups, etc., etc., to start learning as much as possible about what is to come. The scary thing about international adoption is that you never can predict what might happen... every situation is unique, multiple government agencies are involved in both countries, timelines are always changing, and basically there are just a lot of unknowns throughout the process. We anticipate many emotional ups and downs throughout the process, and covet your prayers. We hope you'll bookmark our blog to your favorites and check back often for updates... we invite you to come along on our journey!