Group S

After a month of being computerless, my new Dell laptop came today and I can reenter life...I can't beleive how much of life involves a computer and the internet. Anyway, that and many other changes in life that I will have to tell about later have kept me from keeping this page up to speed on what we are doing.

I am happy to say though that we are in Group S, which means we will be going to court soon, and I think we will be in the last AAI group to go to court before it closes for 2 months. We should be travelling in September, God willing.

Lisa and I will both be travelling this time, and we are so excited. We haven't been away without kids for 17 years now, so our 2 days to get there and pick up kids alone will be unique for us. I am really excited to have her see Layla and AHOPE and Addis and meet so many people I have grown to love. I would have gone alone again, but this will be so much better.

Before sending our paperwork into court, we had to make a last minute decision. As I said before our paperwork was done for up to 4 kids. We wanted to make sure that we would be prepared for any unknown siblings that Terefu and Ashenafi might have. A couple weeks ago we got confirmation that there were none.

Well, with the changes in family size requirements being imposed by the Ethiopian government we figured this may be our last opportunity to bring home kids from there, so we were discussing what to do about our approval for 4 kids. Long story short is that we have added a second sibling set of 2 kids to our case, and hope to be bringing home 4 kids this fall instead of just 2.

We will be bringing home Terefu (13), Ashenafi (5), and hope to also bring home Freweyni (12) and her little brother Alemayehu (9). I know Freweyni from my 2 trips, and know who Alemayehu is but don't really know him. I spent lots of time with Freweyni though.

We aren't sure if the courts will let us adopt them all, but AAI is confident enough to try. They have been so good to us, and have supported all of our many special requests. Thanks Merrily.

When we were uncertain, and praying for God to make things clear for us, this is the scripture that He gave Lisa.

Psa 68:5
A father of the fatherless, a defender of widows,
Is God in His holy habitation.
Psa 68:6
God sets the solitary in families;
He brings out those who are bound into prosperity;
But the rebellious dwell in a dry land.

Until that point we weren't sure what God wanted us to do. We hadn't heard anything. My only direction came from a certain theology I have. I believe that in the absence of hearing clearly what God has for you to do at a certain time, while you are waiting, that there are constants that we are to always be living. Loving our neighbors, caring for widows and for ORPHANS. Little things like that. That was good enough for me, and then at the last minute God gave Lisa that scripture, and just confirmed what we had been discussing.

So at this point it is up to Him. If they are all ours He will ensure we have favor in the courts and His will will be done. That is our prayer, and if you wish to join us in that we would covet your prayers.