He Binds Up Their Wounds

“Mommy, God told me I need to tell you why I don’t like Ethiopia,” she said, so matter-of-fact.

Something which peppered our lives back-home became medication while we were in Uganda. The days when we weren’t out chasing paper and when the power was on in our guest home, I turned on 5 or 10 or 15 minutes of worship music and asked the children to just draw what God brought to their minds. “Something about this is necessary for right now,” I told Nate one morning. I knew that this short stint was inviting healing, I just couldn’t put my finger on how.

This particular morning, as each of them shared their drawings — Lily’s of ..read more

Now We Are Six

In keeping with Hagerty tradition, I’ve written a note to my not-so-little girl today, on her sixth birthday. You get to lay your eyes (at least this year ) on what our children will not see until they are thirteen or eighteen or somewhere in there. And though these letters will collect dust for years before they get read by their subjects, the words I say, speak and write about my little ones are another piece of sewing life into them.

A mama’s words matter.

My sweet Eden,

When I stood at the window and watched your young frame take to first position as if your body were made to dance, I caught my breath. In your ..read more

Highlights

We’re back. I’ve blocked the flight and travel from Ethiopia home out of my mind and only have the best of thoughts about our trip and ever-forming adventures with our children. So much to say, but no time to write.

Over the next few days, we’ll post some photo highlights from our trip and maybe someday again I’ll have time to write about the great ways in which God has shown Himself to us through this adoption and these two new little tikes who are nowfamiliarizing themselves with our home.

In the meantime, we’re having lots of laughs over here as we try and figure out this parenting thing … and loving the children God has given ..read more

We Are Coming Home … With Children in Tow

For months we have been praying for July 15th …even before we received our court date.

He blessed us with this embassy date. It came and went and we are as official as we can possibly be.

We still haven’t quite mastered the language barrier, but we are now ones whose ears perk up when we hear “Mommy” or “Daddy” from across the room. They have learned those two words, “I love you” and “Ok.”

The children are absolutely delightful. We are having some incredible highs here along with a few not-so-great lows as the children walk through this transition. . . but nothing beyond what we might have expected. We are both overwhelmed by the tenderness of ..read more

Learning Them

We continue to realize (with some added help from some experienced parents staying in the guest home with us) that we are in survival mode while we’re here. It’s sort of like bootcamp.

Although the guest home (we’d HIGHLY recommend it — Ethiopian Guest Home) is amazing, it’s still a small space for 5 families and their children.

Ethiopian adoptive families have been asked by the Joint Council on International Adoption to not take the new children out in public so as to respect the Ethiopian people and the pride they have in their country and children. So we’re here all day … with lots of helping hands around us to hold and love the kids and ..read more

Embassy Appointment Tomorrow

We have our official embassy appointment tomorrow (tonight for those in the U.S.) at 1pm here. Would love your prayers for this as it is the last step before we bring them home (and have the honor of being indoctrinated into parenthood by a 17 hour flight).

There should be no hitches …we’ve heard all the kinks have been worked out. But we’re still pretty aware of the battle for these children’s lives — so would love your prayers.

Sadly our camera broke The pictures in the post below are the last we got before it died. Thanks to all the families here we’ll hopefully be able to fill in the gaps of our trip ..read more

A Little Window Into Our Trip So Far…

Some shots from our first days in Ethiopia

(on Facebook)

They Are In Bed!

After a day of meltdowns — all around meal time — they are asleep. We had a very good ending to a rough day. Maybe it was bathtime?

This is more like a full contact sport for Eden who scrubs herself furiously and sings little ditties in Amharic while she does. Unfortunately, it hasn’t registered yet that shampoo stings when you take it from your head and scrub your face and eyes with it. She’s too quick for us to stop her.

Today I shouted “Nate, go ask one of the staff here how to say ‘don’t put it in your eyes.’” He wasn’t fast enough.

Caleb has a silent strength and a great sense of humor. His ..read more

Day Three

As I type the first floor of our guest home is filled with orphans-no-longer. Eden is walking around playing a plastic flute (the girl loves music, truly) while two of the boys who just met their parents today are playing indoor soccer. One of the moms is holding her new daughter who has just cracked a smile at her for the first time and I have a boy crawling underneath my feet to retrieve his toy car.

This is awesome.

Our children are so full of life. Eden has a laugh that is contagious. She is a little drama queen and quite the chatter box. At one point she and Caleb were going back and forth laughing ..read more

Day 1 As a Family

Trying to post something brings me back to early-college dial-up where we knew nothing other than waiting 5 minutes for a page to load. After composing a long email that got lost when we lost our connection I’ve decided I will probably wait on email until we return.

In summary today has been better than we could have expected. God has gone before us in every detail from the airline stewardess checking carry-on bags that should have been checked bags without a fee to catching every plane, train and automobile we needed in order to make it to Addis this morning.

I am overcome by the poverty here. It’s like nothing I have ever seen. I’ve never ..read more