1 year ago today

1 year ago today my biggest "worry" was my National Boards.
1 year ago today I had never heard of Addisu, Marta, and Esrael.
1 year ago today if you had asked me if I thought I would be the mom of 6 in a year I would have laughed that maniacal laugh that Lilly does when she is overly tired and cranky.
1 year ago today I would have never believed that we would have been able to travel to a 3rd/4th/5th world country.
1 year ago today I never would have believed that God would be sending me an email :) and blessing me with such PERFECT additions to our family.


Oh... my faith is tiny. Really tiny. I never, in my wildest dreams, would have imagined that THIS was His plan for me. The other day Joseph was watching us put up our pumpkins for fall (he was sick on the couch but I wanted him to come watch the fun) and he was telling us about how he used to decorate his house and then later the orphanage for Christmas - he did it all by himself. He would walk really far away to get a tree and then he would make paper decorations for it. He said that he really liked doing that and he did it every year. Once again, I was struck by this gift God has given Ben and me. Here is a kid from a zillion miles away who LOVES to decorate for Christmas. In case you are wondering... we LOVE to decorate too. And one of the things Ben "worried" about while waiting to meet the kids is if they would love the same things we love. And they do. They love to decorate for Christmas, play with the dogs, play sports, watch football, read books, pray and learn about God, spend time with family and a million other things that we love too. Thanks, God.

So a year ago today I was telling my Bible Study friends we were thinking about adopting... in 2 years. We thought we would adopt 1 four-year-old boy. I asked them to start praying for us. I guess they did. :)

Today our prayer request is pretty simple. Ha! Ben has an opportunity to travel with 12 other adoptive parents to meet Mesalech and Beniam and Ashenafi. Mesalech chose to keep her two youngest children (they are Lilly and Addy's ages) until she was too sick to care for them. We don't know if that time is near but we desperately want to KNOW Mesalech before she dies. We would also like to meet the boys. We don't know if God wants us to adopt them someday but we do know that regardless they will be a very important part of our kids memories forever and we want to know them too. So would you pray for us that we make a good decision about this trip. Both the time and financial aspects scare the bejebuz :) out of me... but we are praying about it anyway.

Today I thank our God... for bringing us these children and for giving us the courage to make a gigantic leap of faith. And for surprising us with their "perfect fit" into our family. Thank you, GOD!