Process so far

I was talking to some friends yesterday at church who are very interested in international adoption, and one thing we were talking about is how complicated and intimidating the process can be when you're first thinking about it, and also how expensive it is. This is all true, but the good thing is that it doesn't all happen at once - the process and the fees that are due are spread out over many months, and you kind of learn what to do and raise the money as you go along.

Looking back over the year+ that we've been going through this adoption process, and this is what it has been for us so far:

- Contacted Amazing Grace, a local adoption agency, to start the home study process - Sept 2009
- Gathering documents, doing required training, etc - Sept-Dec 2009
- Started home study - Jan 2010
- Started home study again - Mar 10, 2010 (we had to start over with a new social worker for various reasons, but mostly because our previous one was about to have a baby)
- Decided on Ethiopia, and applied with AAI (Adoption Advocates International) - Mar 2010
- Finished home study - June 2010 (and began looking at AAI's dvds and info on their waiting children)
- Gathering documents for dossier - June-Aug 2010
- Dossier sent to Ethiopia - Aug. 26, 2010
- Chose the boys - Sept. 28, 2010
- Case submitted to court - Oct 29, 2010
- Court date assigned - Dec 16, 2010
- Court date - Jan 17, 2011

We were kind of slow getting going, mostly because it took one of us (**cough** Darren **cough**) a while to finish all the required training (10 hours each, including online courses and reading books). :) Also, when we started out, we were still praying and deciding about where to adopt from, Ethiopia or Uganda; we really only settled on Ethiopia in March, after adoptions were shut down in Uganda for several months. Some people go through this process much more quickly than we did, especially if they already know which country they're adopting from and which agency they're using, or sometimes even which specific children they want to adopt.

Ethiopia Day 5 - Last day :(

Thursday was a pretty full day - thankfully Darren and I didn't have to fly out until almost midnight, so we had the whole day there (Lindsay and Alex flew out to Tanzania the next day). In the morning we went to Layla House and hung out with the boys for a while - Z was still on break, but Melaku was back in school there at Layla, so we hung out with him during his break. He and his friends were still really into the card game Lindsay had taught them the day before, Sandwich, so they wanted to play endless hands of it. :)

At one point, I went looking for Alex and Zerihun, and found them in the library - Zerihun was practicing his math (for fun! I asked him if it was his homework, and he said no), and Alex was helping him. They were doing things like g/kg conversions. It was so funny to me seeing Alex, for whom math is his bane, helping Zerihun, who apparently loves it. But more power to him - hopefully they will spur one another on in school at home!

Later that morning we went out for some shopping and sightseeing with the other two adoptive couples who were there. The Ethiopian government really wants to make sure that adoptive parents see the country while we're there, and learn about its history, so that we will teach our new children their heritage. We totally agree with that, and would do it anyway, on our own, even if they didn't encourage it.

We went to kind of a tourist shopping area, where we bought Lindsay a really pretty traditional Ethiopian white dress for her birthday, some knives for the boys (for some reason, t-shirts just didn't excite Alex...), and Darren bought like 25 pounds of coffee. :) It's pretty inexpensive there, and really good (so he says - I'll have to take his word for it); coffee is one of Ethiopia's main exports.

We had lunch, then went to the Ethiopian National Museum, which had exhibits ranging from archeological finds (including Lucy) to thrones and crowns from various emperors to art to traditional tools, instruments, crafts, and etc. It was pretty interesting, though we went through it quickly. This is Lindsay in front of Haile Selassie's throne:

After that we went back, and were able to spend time with the boys at the Guest House until we left. That was a really nice time, because it was just our family, without lots of other kids around. We played games like Mancala and Jenga, colored, did puzzles, watched old videos of our family (both boys thought Ping Pong Remix - http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=PBMx0kxvHbw - was hilarious :)), had dinner, and talked.

It was so hard to leave - Darren and I were both in tears, and had a hard time letting go of the boys. :( It's hard not knowing how long we'll have to wait to go back. Please pray with us that the process will go smoothly and quickly, with no hold-ups, and we'll be able to bring the boys home as soon as possible! And also for the remaining funds we still need for the last trip to come in.

Ethiopia Day 4 - hanging out

Wednesday was a holiday too, and the kids were all out of school, so we hung out with them most of the day at Layla House, which was fun and relaxing.

Melaku is Alex's little buddy, and for some reason he loves to play with his hair -

Both boys have asked if we will let them grow their hair out once they come home - of course we said yes. I'm sure it will be nice for them just to be able to have control over that aspect of their appearance.

There were more soccer games, this time with the older boarding school girls joining in, including Meseret on the Phillips family team -

We played card games with the kids -

and Darren showed them pictures and played some of Lindsay's songs for them on his laptop.

In the afternoon, the boarding school girls had to go back to school, so Alex and I rode with them in the van. They go to school in an area called Akaki, on the outskirts of Addis. It felt like the countryside to me; the roads leading up to her school were dirt, with huge rocks in the road. Because of that, I think, most people get around in horse-drawn cart taxis like this -

It was sad to say goodbye to Meseret, but we told her to work hard in school, especially in math and English, and that we will do whatever we can to bring her here!

Ethiopia Day 3 - Timkat

Tuesday was the beginning of Timkat, a national holiday celebrating the Epiphany (Christ's baptism); it goes through Wednesday, so the kids were on break from school (though Melaku had a half day in the morning - he goes to school at Layla House).

We went to Layla in the morning to hang out with the kids, and got to see one of Melaku's classes -

Earlier he had shown me his school notebooks from his classes, like English, Math, Science, and Amharic. He was so proud, looking at us to see our reactions and comments on his work. :) He had a notebook from music class too, with lyrics written out to songs as diverse as If I Had a Hammer, Seasons in the Sun, This Little Light of Mine, and I'm Yours! I asked him to sing some that he knew, and he sang If I Had a Hammer - it was so cute - he has a sweet little voice.

Because it's a holiday, the girls at boarding school (including Meseret, Z's sister) were on break, and were coming to Layla to spend the night, so Lindsay and Zerihun went with the van to pick them up. We walked down to a restaurant for lunch, and soon after we got there the van dropped the three of them off. It was pretty emotional meeting Meseret. She is so sweet, and is beautiful; she speaks English pretty well too. Darren started talking to her, letting her know how hard it was for us when we found out she was too old, and how we wanted to help her however we could and that we consider her a part of our family too. We were all crying - it was really heart-wrenching. Please pray with us that we can find a way to bring her over too!

After lunch a group of us took the older girls and boys from Layla and the boarding school out to see some of the holiday celebrations. There is an ancient Ethiopian tradition that the actual Ark of the Covenant is here at a church in Ethiopia. On this holiday, replicas of the Ark are carried out in procession from 8 different churches to a body of water, where they celebrate Christ's baptism and pray all night, then they are carried back in procession the next day. We walked to one of the churches where an Ark is carried out. That's a simple statement - but it was a long walk! No one told us how far it would be. :) It probably took about an hour and a half! And it was hot. But it was really cool to see the procession. Everyone is dressed in white, or with white head coverings, singing songs, and they all jump up and down and ululate when the Ark passes them. Then they all fall in behind to join the procession. This picture is one we took the next day from higher up - the Ark replica is under the umbrellas:

Lindsay and I went back to Layla after that to rest a bit, but Darren and Alex stayed and hung out with the kids. We came back later, and when we walked in we saw them hanging out in Zerihun's room - Darren was playing songs on his laptop and the younger boys (including Melaku) were showing off their dance moves. They were so funny! Melaku was just laughing and laughing, especially when Lindsay and Alex would join in.

It is getting harder and harder to walk away from these boys every day, leaving them there. When we left that evening, Zerihun walked us to the door, and it was SO hard not to take him with us! I can tell it's really hard for him too. Being one of the older boys, who has been there so long and seen so many kids leave, you can tell that he is just so ready to go. He asks us when we'll be back to take them home - he thinks it will only be a couple of weeks, but it will probably be more like 6-8 weeks, which is going to be hard! Pray that all goes smoothly with the extra documents needed, no glitches with the court or the U.S. Embassy!

Ethiopia Day 2 - Court day

Monday was court day! We thought the boys' relatives were going in the morning, and us in the afternoon, but apparently the court called and said they wanted us all there in the morning. I was glad because we got to meet Z's older brother, and Melaku's aunt. We went there with another couple who is adopting a baby, and it was crowded; we waited around for a while to be called in.

I tried to talk to Melaku's aunt while we were waiting and get more information about his family, because we have nothing, really -- his file has no info about when his parents died, no siblings. I called Zerihun over to translate, and one of the first things the aunt said was that Melaku has four brothers and one sister that live out in the countryside, some older and some younger! I was flabbergasted. We had to go in to court, but later we sat down with her with a social worker to try to get more info, and she said the same thing. She did say some of them were children of a stepmother, which doesn't make sense because the father died first -= anyway, we have to get it all straightened out, because apparently she told the judge he has siblings, and the paperwork didn't have that info, and they have to have it for the adoption to be finalized.

When we went in to talk to the judge (us and the other couple), she asked us various questions like what did our other children think about the adoption, were we learning about Ethiopia and planning to teach our new children their heritage, etc. I ended up answering most of the questions for all of us, because no one else was speaking up - I didn't know this till afterwards, but apparently Darren and the other couple couldn't understand a word the judge was saying! She spoke English well, just spoke very quietly. They were waiting till I answered to hear what the question was. :)

At the end, she told the other couple that their baby was now theirs, but she told us that they would let us know later. Apparently this is very common, when some of the paperwork is not complete. We found out later that they were missing one recommendation because the women's ministry had been closed the Friday before, and also that they will need Melaku's aunt to come in again and give a statement about his siblings. It was hard not walking out of there knowing the boys are officially ours -- but everyone tells us these things should pose no problem. Please do pray that they won't.

The boys had gone with us to court, because often the judge wants to talk to older kids to make sure they consent to the adoption, but she didn't ask to speak with them (for which Z was very relieved! :)).

After court

We found out that as of right now, Zerihun's birth certificate says he was born on June 17, 1996, which would make him a month or so younger than Alex; but the doctors think he is probably a year older than that, so they will probably add a year when the official birth certificate is made.

Later that afternoon we went shopping for a bit, to a silk factory and a basket shop, and that evening to an Ethiopian dinner with traditional dances from many of the country's main tribes (like Oromo (Z's tribe), Gurage (Melaku's tribe), Amhara, Somali, and Tigrai). The dances were really interesting to watch - they do a lot of neck and shoulder jerking moves which are amazing, and in one dance, a woman spins her head and hair around and around, really fast, which gave me a headache just watching. The boys got to go with us to all of this too, which was awesome (they can't be out with us alone till the adoption is finalized and the papers are in hand, but we had one of the social workers from Layla with us, so it was more of a field trip).

Ethiopian dinner

Ethiopia - Meeting our sons!

Wow. What an awesome, amazing, overwhelming 3 days we have had here in Ethiopia so far. We arrived late Saturday night here, and we are staying at a guest house quite near Layla House, where our boys are.

Sunday morning we we went to Layla, walked in, taking in the compound, seeing a few kids hanging out - and then there was Melaku and his big smile! He came up and gave us each big hugs - so awesome to hold my son for the first time! Then, here came Zerihun! And again, big hugs all around, and another round of hugs, then a family hug :) - we were all teary-eyed.

We were able to spend most of that day with the boys, which was great - they were out of school, with no schedule, so we could just hang out and get to know them. The boys gave us a tour of Layla, showing us their rooms - Zerihun and Melaku are next door to each other in bunk bed rooms of about 10 beds each, and Z put a label on his bed that says, "Zerihun Philips" :) - the dining hall/TV room, the classrooms, the playground. We were pretty much surrounded by tons of kids all day, so there wasn't a lot of time alone with the boys, but it was still great (and all of the kids there are so sweet and funny and playful).

After the tour, we started a soccer game (well, I took pictures), which was so fun to watch. Z and Melaku really are good players - especially their footwork, crazy. Melaku is so small, but fast and agile. I guess we'll be back in the soccer world again. :)

The rest of the day we talked, played guitar and sang, played games, talked some more, played with all the cute toddlers (who climb all over you, competing for attention, calling us Mommy and Daddy - so sweet, but also sad), etc. I asked Z to show me his school books, so I went to his room with him for a bit and we had some good time talking alone. He speaks English really well, and is just so sharp, with a kind of quiet, laid-back sense of humor. (And don't worry, Trevor - he's not taller than you - he's probably around 5'3", something like that - but probably not for long - there are some tall men here!).

It is so great to have Lindsay and Alex here, to see them interacting with the kids, and getting to know Zerihun and Melaku. Melaku is already Alex's little buddy, gravitating to him, joking around with him. He is little - so cute, and with a great husky laugh.

I know everyone wants updates, but it has been hard for me to write, because everything is just so overwhelming and emotional. Even though I'm just writing about what happened, overlaid on all of this is the fact that these are our two new sons that we are getting to know, opening our hearts and lives to. God's grace has been so evident, and we all feel so bonded to them already. It is so cool to hear them call Darren and me Mom and Dad. We were out walking with a group of the older kids from Layla yesterday, and everyone had to have a "buddy" to keep together. Alex was Zerihun's buddy, and they were walking with arms around each other's shoulders, and I walked up and put my arm around Z too. Alex was joking with me, saying, "He's MY buddy, not yours," and Zerihun said, "But she's my mom!" :)

Off to Ethiopia!

We're leaving in just 5 days - it's hard to believe! And hard to wait! :) A few days ago we got an envelope with two more letters from Melaku and one from Zerihun, with some more pictures, which was awesome.

It has been kind of a whirlwind of getting ready, but I think we're almost there. Darren and Alex had to get their travel shots, typhoid, yellow fever, etc (I got them before when Justin and I went to Africa) - Darren ended up passing out (probably from not eating before) - Alex had a nurse on each side with syringes, counting, "1, 2, 3" and then JAB in both arms at once. :)

We had our first ever Ethiopian meal the other night - an Ethiopian family in our church invited us over for dinner, so we got to try the food and also get lots of advice and info about Ethiopian culture. The food was delicious! You roll out a piece of injera, their staple bread (spongy, made of teff flour), and put scoops of the different dishes on top of it (several kinds of "wat" or stew), and then use pieces of injera to eat it with your hands - it looks like this:

They said there's a lady in this area who makes injera for local restaurants, so we can buy it from her, which is great; it will be nice to be able to make the boys some familiar foods after they're here (or maybe I can even learn how to make it, who knows?...).