This evening (Saturday, July 11) we headed out to dinner around 5. We were told it was better to eat early and be in before dark since we have to walk everywhere. Tonight we decided to explore a bit.

We only have a driver to take us to the far away tourist attractions, which has actually been good for us as we’ve been able to see life on the streets for ourselves. Tonight Jenna and I admitted to ourselves that it’s not easy being stared at and seen as the rich Americans. We have been treated like royalty for sure, which actually has become embarassing at times.

Tonight we headed into a cafe that was overcrowded, but the pastries looked so good that we decided to stay. We thought we’d have to wait for a table, but a waitress came over to us, brought us over to a table, and told the people sitting there to move over to make room for us.

We thanked the man for giving up part of his table. As we were chatting, he said, “Your accents are from US. I lived in Texas and went to school at UT.”

After much back and forth about his studies, he eventually told us a story of his wife’s brother who was shot at a Dallas 7-11. He could only work the night shift. The place was held up. He was a casualty. Now, his wife hates the US; and has vowed never to return. This gentleman was sad. He loved the US and hopes to emmigrate permenantly one day. His wife won’t even talk about these plans.

It’s a shame when racial steriotypes come true. I think we helped him see that we’re not all bad. I hope that his wife will change her mind.

We had a great time eating our meal with this man. He was warm and kind and had much to share about his life. I honestly feel blessed to have heard his story.

by Jenna…

Today we went to two different museums to bone up* on some Ethiopian history.

My highlights:

• *seeing “Lucy”–the 3½ foot tall skeleton scientists have declared to be a fully grown woman whose remains are estimated to be 3.5 million years old

• Seeing what the Emperor’s living space looked like when he lived at the palace—even his blue bathroom and his wife’s coral colored bathroom

• Seeing instruments mentioned in the book of Psalms, like a lute, harp, flute, lyre, etc. Now I have a better idea of what that “joyful noise” might have sounded like.

• Some amazing “modern” art

• Reading “lost” stories that have been passed down verbally from olden times (like African Aesop’s fables—they all involve animals and end with a one-line moral—I think Dan summarized some of them in his handy-dandy notebook so that we can try to remember and share them with our kids

• Getting an idea of where Taye is coming from. Wow. His country and culture is in some ways so poor, and in other ways so rich.

After our morning tours, we were dropped back at the hotel and on our own. We walked up a very muddy street to a shopping plaza which had the “Friendship Cafe” on the top floor. We shared two Ethiopian dishes—one was injera (which was absolutely light and fabulous) with a vegan stew that was amazing ($1.70 for enough for 2 people) and the Ethiopian version of BBQ beef. The beef was so tender and the spices amazingly flavorful without burning heat. The beef was served on top of a plate of hand-cut french fries. Both meals, a soda and bottled water (3 adults couldn’t even finish everything) came to a grand total of $7.

After finishing our meal we tried to ask the waitress, who spoke a little Engllish, if they do take-away. We’re trying to figure out good places to get food after we get our kids and cannot take them outside the hotel with us—we’re still going to have to eat!

On our way home we stopped in a market that is just up the street from us. It is so nice to know that anthing and everything we could possibly want or need is within a very easy walking distance. They even sell packs of fresh-made injera at the market, so if that’s all Taye wants to eat, we’ll easily be able to get it for him.

We have the rest of the afternoon ahead of us and no power in the hotel. It is raining outside and we’re trying NOT to sleep so we might be able to sleep through the night tonight without waking up at 4am and being wide awake but then finding ourselves desperately tired around 7-8am (which is midnight US time) when we need to start our day.

Tomorrow Dan and I are going to a church service. What that means, I have no idea. But we’ll be ready to be picked up at 10am and go from there.

It’s good that we get some time to explore and get oriented before we get our little ones and have to hole up in the hotel for a few days. We figure a couple of people can go on “food runs” once we have to keep to our rooms/hotel rather than depend on room service (which has a very limited list of options and is a lot more expensive compared to the eateries we’ve found closeby).

We spent the afternoon taking a driving tour around Addis Ababa. Adoption Associates hooked us up with a great driver and tour guide, Sammi. He knows is way around the city like the back of his hand taking us through back roads, construction sites, and quasi-slums, as well as the poshest parts of the city.

The extremes are quite obvious as catching eyes with a begger brought them hastily up to the car with just the right eyes and non verbals poised to melt your heart. On the other hand, this makes the BMW 700s driving around quite obvious to everyone.

Sammi took us to a row of tourist trap sorts of shops. But with a good exchange rate, and three REALLY nice shop keepers, even the American tourists got some deals. We ended up with something for everyone in our family. Taye’s is the most traditional, but Jenna and I picked something that each of us (we think) would actually wear in the real world. The silver shop was great as well, both Jenna and I got a tenth anniversary present. She got a great pair of earings for all of less than $7.00… and for the same price I got a new wedding band. The black stripes in the center of the ring are actually strands of giraffe tail!

As we walked from shop to shop, boys selling gum and tissue packets kept coming up and begging for us to purchase their goods. As we drove, mothers with infants would come right up to the car and plead with us for money to help them feed their baby. I’ve witnessed and even experienced this before in other countries; however this time the perspective is so different as we’re adopting a child out of this desperate life that would have been his.

I think to myself why does Taye get a second chance at life that most of these kids in Addis will not get? Yet in the same moment I also can’t grasp the fact that God opened my eyes to Jesus when millions of people around the world have no clue or reject who He is. Why did He choose me? I’m filled with worship for the fact that God has seen fit to rescue both Taye and me for the life we could have lived.

After Sammi dropped us back off at the hotel, we walked around the block to Yummy Pizza, a whole in the wall crowded pizza joint. The only seats left were at the counter next to the kitchen. The pizza lived up to the name of the store. The food was absolutely delicious!

And now we’re back at the hotel, trying desperately to keep ourselves awake by flipping between a really bad Scott Foley (Felicity) movie and the quarterfinals at Davis Cup.

I have lots of pictures to accompany this post, but the wifi is currently VERY sketchy. Please check out the pics on our Flickr site as we’ll try to upload them as fast as possible.

by Jenna

Our first flight from Grand Rapids to Detroit proved to set the tone for our entire trip. Hurry up and WAIT. Although only a whopping 29 minute fight, we were about 20 minutes late in taking off because two passengers “got lost” in the Grand Rapids airport. (Rrrrrrright…anyone who has been in the GR airport knows it’s only slightly larger than a postage stamp with only two concourses…) That was our first wait.Detroit boarding went smoothly and we winged our way to Amsterdam. Once they turned on the in-flight movies I was one happy camper. I managed to watch Revolutionary Road, Duplicity, and something else (I watched so many movies I forget already!)

We wandered around the Amsterdam airport on our layover then took brief naps on some recliner-type chairs. It took forever for passengers to get settled and seated for our flight to Khartoum, but we finally got started. Lot of waiting on this trip.

I watched Changeling (SO sad), 17 Again, Confessions of a Shopaholic (I fell asleep during this one, but I read the book and the movie wasn’t tracking with it, so I didn’t feel guilty missing anything). During an hour’s stop in Khartoum for unloading and re-fueing, we were able to walk around in the plane and I watched some Food TV shows. I had about 30 min left of Valkyrie when we landed so I’ll have to finish it later.

There were various meals and a few trips to the bathroom sprinkled in, but it’s hard to have an appetite for airline food at all the wrong times and when you’ve been sitting for so long without moving around. Hard to work up an appetite.

My hind-quarters are still trying to recover from all that sitting. And we’re a little nervous about adding a lap-sitter on the flights home. It was a pretty grueling journey. There were a number of infants/toddlers on our flight and there was quite a bit of crying, screaming (which the in-flight movie headsets drowned out quite nicely) but I don’t think putting a movie and headset on and ignoring your own child’s screaming/fussing will be quite appropriate on the ride home with Taye.

We’re also hoping that there might be an empty seat nearby on one/all of our flights that we can use for Taye to sit in as things are quite cramped in the economy classes of the planes. We’ll manage, I’m sure, but I’m not looking forward to our return flights (except for the getting home part—it’ll all be worth it)

OK, upon arrival in Addis, we rushed to the line to purchase our visas. Everything was hand-written and took forever. So another long wait standing in line. We chatted with various people in line and found another GR adopting parent via AAI who is staying at the same lodge! It was nice to move through the lines together and chat a little bit.

After we got our visas, we had to go through immigration. Yes. Another line. We got stamped and approved, then off to the baggage claim. We found 3 of our 4 bags very quickly, but were wondering and worrying about bag #4 and were just about to try to find out where to report a missing bag when Dan happened to walk around a corner and found that it had fallen off the conveyor belt and was laying on the floor. Thank you Lord!

Next wait, a long, haphazard, somewhat hilarious line to have our luggage scanned (via an X-ray machine) before we took it into the country. There weren’t really lines leading up to the machine, it was basically a free-for-all. And you had to load your own bags and feed them through the machine. Pretty comical to watch and do. (We would have loved to take pix of this hilarity, but taking them is illegal in the Addis airport)

We got all our bags through the machine then proceeded to find our driver.

I won’t go into great detail here for fear of scaring our families half to death, but apparently there are two adoption agencies with the acronym “AAI” here and we happened to get into a van with the wrong agency’s driver. After driving a longer distance that we thought we should be driving and into the more “smelly” end of town, we questioned our driver and asked him where he was taking us, which agency exactly he was from, etc. THANKFULLY the adoptive dad we met in the visa line had Alemu’s cell phone number handy and we had our driver call Alemu to explain the mix-up and figure out a place to meet where we could get into the right vehicle.

We checked into our hotel rooms a little before midnight and dropped into bed. We tried pllugging in things to charge them up and found that we brought all the wrong converters (Wot, wot, waaaaah) {Thankfully, as of this morning, we have borrowed and rigged up ways to charge everything that we need.} I slept great, but apparently Dan woke up around 4am and was wide awake. An audio book seemed to do the trick and we slept in ’til 9am before heading to breakfast around 9:30.

We ate a piece of toast with strawberry-like jam (a very scant amount of jam), a very light and fluffy (I could hear the cook hand-whipping the eggs as she made them) pancake with (again, very scant smearing) of honey/syrup. The fresh-squeezed (dan even got a seed!) OJ was amazing and the coffee so strong that I only dared drink about 1/3 of a cup.

Each family got a cell phone from Alemu, but apparently ours does not work (we think there is no more money in the account as it’s the pre-paid kind). We’ll see if we can put some more $ on the phone and have it to use for the rest of the trip. We have a driver coming to pick us up and drive us around wherever we want to go around 2pm. So I think we’ll exchange some money at the bank, buy some bottled water, then see what there is to see and do…go wander and explore Addis for a little bit. Chow!

Here we are in the plane. I’m using the WordPress app for the iPhone.

Jenna is set and having a blast with her in-flight movies; I’m just giddy. It’s amazing how we’re here. I look in the lavatory mirror, look at myself in the mirror and just laugh at this adventure that we’re on.

I never dreamed this would be my life, yet here I sit on an airplane headed for Ethiopia to pick up my child! this is truly the work of God in our lives; there is simply no other explaination for it.

And who said that the journey of faith was boring?!

It’s official… we’re starting our travels to Ethiopia. We’re all checked in and relaxing in rocking chairs watching planes take off from Grand Rapids.

We said our good-byes to the kids with lots of laughs and joy. We will miss them of course, but this trip will also be so nice for Jenna and me. We’re thrilled we can embark on this stage of the adventure together with the ability to concentrate solely on Taye and welcoming him into our lives.

Thank you as always for your prayers for our journey. It’s been a wild ride, hasn’t it?!

This morning as I was grooming I began thinking about hair.

No seriously.

I was just starting to like my natural hair color after years of being a bottle blond, redhead, or punk rocker whatever color that was… and I’m finding more gray hairs every day. Now if you’ve seen my maternal grandfather and his severe lack of hair whatsoever, I know that I should be quite thankful that I have a head of hair at all.

What’s up with nose hair, and while we’re at it, EAR HAIR?!

These are seriously a mystery to me. I didn’t need hair in either off these places for the majority of my life, why have they decided to show up NOW?! Will ear hair suddenly help me hear as I get older, grabbing sound waves more efficiently than bald ears would? Honestly, if that’s the case, I’d rather be hard of hearing than need to take my tiny-tiny and SHARP scissors into my ear cavity.

Um… OUCH!

And don’t EVEN get me started on those SHARP tiny-tiny scissors and my nose…

I’m starting to think that all of these changes in our hair are sent not to torment us (though they do) but to keep us humble.

As we age and mature, we become advice-givers more often that advice-getters (I’m not saying this is a good thing). As we get older we can have a tendency to see ourselves as experts rather than fellow learners. Our ego is often stroked on a regular basis… and it feels GOOD! After all, at this stage in the game we should begin hitting our prime. And if we have any measure of success whatsoever, we can become full of ourselves and think that we’ve arrived…

…and then we take one look in the mirror and see that runaway EAR HAIR and the balloon is popped and we’re sent back to planet earth. We’re reminded that we’re not superhuman, but rather reminded that we’re not in control of this life.

…and hopefully we respond with renewed trust in the God that is.

It’s hard to believe that we’re leaving in just two days.

A few years ago when Jenna and I started the whole adoption conversation, we couldn’t have imagined this week of final preparations, the months spent re-prioritizing and budgeting, or the hours upon hours of praying and seeking God’s will for this next step in our lives.

We never could have realized the love and support that you, our community, both on-line and in-person, would have given to us in the past year. We are beyond thankful for the prayers and encouragement and money that you have given on our behalf. Taye is coming home to a group of people already committed to his care. He has NO IDEA the love he’ll get when he steps foot in North America.

Thank You. Thank You. Thank You.

Here is our itinerary for the next several days.

We’d love your thoughts and prayers for us as we travel and finish up this part of the adoption and begin our new life with Taye in the picture. Some of the requests may get very specific, but after all, our God is a God of small details. And we will bring our small details before Him to work out for His glory!

Wednesday/Thursday | July 8/9 | Travel

Leave from Grand Rapids at 3:15 P.M.
Arrive in Detroit for a short layover before boarding the next plane to Amsterdam.
Arrive in Amsterdam for a five hour layover before boarding the plane for Addis Ababa.

Prayer: We have to check luggage, which is always a risk. The obvious prayer is that our bags will arrive in Ethiopia with us. Part of that checked luggage contains 17 large canisters of infant formula that people have donated to Ethiopian orphanages. Because formula is in such HIGH DEMAND, we’re praying that we’ll make it through customs without having most of that taken from us.

Friday/Sunday | July 10/12 | Sightseeing

We’ll spend the first three days getting accustomed to Ethiopian culture. I have 12 gigs of memory cards with me in order to capture as much life there as possible on film and video. (And don’t worry, I won’t make you sit and watch all of those – unless you want to of course.) This will be an important time for Jenna and me to soak in the history and life that we want to continue celebrating in our newly blended family.

Monday | July 13 | Travel and Meetings

We’ll travel west to Ambo where we’ll meet Taye’s birth-mother.

Prayer: This is one of those meetings that I know we need to do for Taye and celebrating his story. Yet, I’ve got to say, I’m not sure I’m looking forward to this. We all will be filled with emotions. We pray for God’s peace, for the right words at the right moment, and that we’ll capture her story to share with Taye as he gets older.

Tuesday | July 14 | Meet and Pick Up Taye

We’ll travel to Kunkeet to Taye’s orphanage. We’ll receive the grand tour, meeting his care givers and seeing where he’s spent the past 6 months of his life. We’ll meet him and bring him with us as we travel back to Addis Ababa for the rest of our trip.

Prayer: With the exception of tears, we have NO expectations going into this first meeting. We can’t imagine what it will be like for us to see our son in person for the first time after waiting so long for him. On the 14^th, just pray as the Spirit leads you. We rest in the fact that He is at work and will give us what we need in the moment.

Wednesday/Friday | July 15/17 | US Embassy Appointments

We travel back to Addis Ababa for our appointments at the US Embassy to finish up the last of the paper work and apply for Taye’s visa home.
We’ll pick up the Visa on the 17^th.

Prayer: We’ll be in a hotel suite with a 22 month child with whom we don’t know and will have a hard time communicating. Pray for patience and great non-verbal communication skills as we learn to navigate life with Taye. Pray that we’ll have a smooth time getting the visas (on time, etc.).

Saturday/Sunday | July 18/19 | Travel Home

We leave Addis at 10:25 P.M.
Arrive in Amsterdam for a five hour layover before boarding the plane for Detroit.
We arrive in Detroit for a short layover before boarding the plane for HOME!

Taye will meet his brother and sisters for the first time! Wow, just writing that brings me such joy!

Prayer: rather than being in a hotel suite, we’ll be in an airplane with the same conditions. You can pray for the same things as above. We’ve heard mostly horror stories of this return flight with an adopted child. So anything other than a horror story we’ll count as blessing. Just pray that what we need to bond with Taye will happen. If that means it’s horrible, pray we’ll have joy thinking about what bringing him home means for our family. If that means it great, pray that we won’t take it for granted.

Again, thank you so much for your thoughts and prayers during the next few days. We really do appreciate it!

If we don’t see you before we leave, we’ll see you when we return.
Can’t wait for you all to meet Taye!

I’ve been trying to deny it for three days now, but this morning at 6:15 when I woke up with a pounding sinus headache lacking the ability to breathe I realized the inevitable: I have a cold. BAH!

So today, after only ONE cup of coffee (oh, the self-control I’ve demonstrated!), I’ve been downing tea and water like mad. I’ve got three days to kick this before heading off to Ethiopia, praying hard that I won’t have to sit on an airplane, hopped up on cold medicine with a box of tissues in my lap.

Well, being hopped up on meds might not be a bad idea…
but the tissues. I don’t want to deal with tissues.

I know, I know ANOTHER post on our adoption…

We decided that it might be a good idea for the kids to introduce themselves to Taye before he actually meets them. Last night we got around to recording these videos. They’re not great, but you’ll get the point of what we’re trying to do. Hey, and at the very least they were fun to make!

Liam’s message to Taye:

Elli’s message to Taye:

Addi’s message to Taye:

We’re borrowing a friend’s iPod touch for our trip. We’ll be able to put these on there, so Taye can watch them on the trip back to the United States.