Feels like weeks since home. Huge thunderstorms today. Woke up to the sound of rain and was mostly rain all day. I thought Fits was sleeping so great, finally I had to get him up. When I went in, his eyelids were sealed shut. Yep, joy. No washed clothes, no power, rain everywhere. The day began with, wow, how do we do this.

Well, the few spots we saw on Fits, multiplied in the night. And yep, you guessed it; we have full blown chicken pox. Many of you know I’ve been trying to give my kids the pox for years. Looks it will be a bonding thing for the Yonan Five.

Despite that the boys are wonderful; they are most likely not 2 and 4. But won’t that be fun to find out for sure.

I left the boys with Matt at HH for a while. And when I returned Fits was at the gate saying” momma”. That makes today a perfect day. Thank you for praying for us. This is our God that does these breath taking things, over and over and over.

Tomorrow is Birth Mother day. Pray for her. Fits looks like a train ran over his sweet face and I know it will break her heart.

Yonan 3, I adore you!

Xoxo from the land of “the lion of Judah”

Amanda and Co.

PS. Our room has about 10 spots...it's leaking from the roof. We might need an arc come morning!

Today was another milestone as we went to the Embassy and a one minute meeting took over two hours. Not terrible accept that Fits is a little sick. We have him on antibiotics and giving him a lot of TLC.

(Matt and Amanda no longer have internet access, so there will probably be no more pictures).

All for now.

We meet the BIG family 1PM Ethiopian time on Wed. That makes it 4Am Denver, 3AM Pacific, 6AM Eastern. We would covet your prayers for this meeting.

Grace and Peace

A highlight of the day was watching Jonah give out pens to boys on the street near the Embassy. He is truly a giver. So we spent the rest of the day playing in the courtyard of the hotel. Jonah and I played soccer while Fits clung to Amanda. After that, we ate dinner and Jonah ate a hoover. It was impressive.

At bathtime, well it was special. I think it was the first real bath for them. Jonah didn't want to sit down at first. But once they relaxed they had so much fun. Fits giggled so hard I thought he was going to cry. At bedtime we watched a VeggieTale video and off to bed. And I tell the truth, they were asleep in 90 seconds. Jonah likes to sleep with the covers over his head. It's cute.

Tomorrow is "going to the market day".

Today – we had a surprise! So, just as I was ordering our morning coffee downstairs, Adana – a nice man here – came up to me with a paper that had my name on it. It was a note from Almaz, the director of Hannah’s Hope. At the top was quickly written, “meet us downstairs at 2:30 to meet your boys….”

Yep, that was it. Can you believe it? We weren’t expecting this meeting until Monday mid-day. We did plan to go to church with Ephraim our driver, so after a quick lunch and a HUGE rain storm we headed back to meet the group.

Of course the biggest rain storm to ever hit Addis struck as we were heading back and we were late for our meeting time. We quickly shuffled off to HH.

They brought Jonah in to us, he immediately sat in Matt’s lap. Then we headed down to meet Fitsum, who was reluctant to meet us. His favorite “special mother” Genet, quickly apologized for his lack of hospitality and willingness to take the cues given, and we of course gave many allowance for this 2 year- old, afro-maniac! He is the cutest darn thing you have EVER seen. He already knows how to give dirty looks and can get his way in any situation, usually that means FOOD. Yep, loves it and is hardly without it. When one is given he wants 2! Watch out!

We visited for 2 hours and headed back to the hotel. Fitsum was happy to see us go.

But sweet Jonah, held my hand until we left and said that he was “ok” with us leaving but acted differently. He is the smartest little guy, caring for others, looking for ways to help, and loving his daddy…. already wanting to be quizzed in english and seriously, no kidding… brought a math book to Matt to practice! Can you believe it?

I just have to say, this was my prayer this morning….

“show me your ways oh Lord, teach me your paths.

Guide me in your truth and teach me, for you are God and Savior,

And my hope is in you all day long….”psalm 25:5-6

Pray for Fitsum- he is anxious!

Love you all.

Amanda & Matt

Ps…. Yo yo’s- big kisses from us, you’re going to love your brothers, we can see you together already. We can’t wait till Friday.

What could be better than waking up to a macchiato. Brought to your room by the sweetest Ethiopian man. His name – we think – is Wadasa. His smile is contagious and lights up the room. When he knocks, you can barely hear it. You have to listen very carefully.

Our day was full today. Shopping, some sight seeing – and we went to the most beautiful park in the hills. Not sure, but it was some sort of plantation and the old house is still on the property. Now they show art in the house and we were able to meet one of the artists. He showed us all of his work including one piece that took him an entire year to make.

The highlight of the day was meeting the director of Bethazata Children’s Home that the boys went to before they went to All God’s Children. It is run by a man named Samuel and we were able to spend about an hour with him. It was a gift to hear him talk about his philosophy on the children of Ethiopia and what he thinks about adoption.

We were grateful that we both believe that if the family can be given assistance, it is better for the children to be with their family. However, circumstances can be such where assistance cannot help and then adoption is the best alternative. He also provides assistance for families and gives them monthly provisions so they are able to keep their family together. He also seeks to get the church involved with the community. He is a leader in his own church, but people aren’t interested in helping the poor. He said that people in Addis don’t even come to the home to provide any help.

He gave up a successful marketing career at the Sheraton (big hotel here) to start this ministry nearly 15 years ago.

We also visited Ethiopia Reads – a Denver Based organization – that started the first children’s library in Ethiopia. Their main goal is to start libraries in schools around Addis Ababa and Awasa. You’d be amazed at all the books. Amanda even found her favorite childhood book on horses. Another part of their ministry is to provide safe jobs for young girls to help at the compound – which also teaches them the skill of reading. We met a young American boy (12) who is spending his summer in Addis to teach other children how to read English.

We were at an art gallery today and ran into a woman that started a bible school in Awasa. They have trained more than 400 pastors to reach out to the muslim community.

So, today has been a day filled with hope for Addis.

The Lord is working here. We are thankful to have seen it with our own eyes and heard with our own ears.

The body of Christ is at work.

Blessings – M & A

Shout out to Abigail…. The doro-wat was too good tonight. We’ll make it when we get home J we thought of you all through dinner.

Day one cont…

The afternoon – it rained. And rained. After spending nearly an hour trying to email my sister to post on our blog, we headed out of the “dial up” café. Our driver had a “burger” and we shared a hummus sandwich…. Go figure?

We’ve been to a few markets and we ended up at Kaldi’s coffee…does the sign remind you of anything? Pretty funny.

I think that the highlight has been the beautiful kids- dirty or clean, clothed or not, begging or playing, they are simply breathtaking. We love to see them smile. So, it’s been helpful to have a candy. Amanda gave one boy a fruit cup and he looked at it like it was the first time he had seen anything like it. Our driver told him what it was and then other kids started asking for one too. Lots of smiles.

Thank you for praying - we are blessed!

Already looking forward to bed and have been for 9 hours, despite 3 coffees.

Love from Addis, Matt and Amanda.

We are having a great day today.  We were met by our driver who is
most excellent.  He was supposed to meet us at the airport last night
but there was a mix up.  Well, the Lord provided and our agency (All
God's Children) sent someone to pick us up and they were waiting when
we got off the plane.  Nice work Lord!  He is the master of covering
the bases.  The mix up was solved before we even knew about it.

We started our morning with the strongest coffee made on earth (but
very good).  We drove around the village that Jonah and Fits are from
and the orthodox church in their neighborhood (see photo).  Then we
were off to AHOPE (a children's home for AIDS babies).  This is the
place that Abby is doing her triathlon for.  See photo of amanda and
the three babies.  They just lit up when we walked in.  the care is
amazing for these kids.  they are truly loved on.

Next we went to a small shop and then off to see little Bedlu - a
friends baby that they are adopting.  We had to make two stops and
several phone calls to even figure out where the orphange was.  We met
these two boys on the street.  We gave them pens and crackers - which
they enjoyed.

It's just 1:41 in the afternoon...and we've had a full day!

Thankful for a safe trip and thankful for Ephraim our driver.

We said our goodbyes and with 8 bags (about 350 lbs total) we headed towards the airport. Right from the start...a feeling of needing help! An Ethiopian man asked to help us...so kind.

We had a smooth flight and are now sitting in Dulles International. So about 1 hour ago, our trip really started. With 4 1/2 hours till our flight left, we sauntered to our gate. With five people in line, it took an hour to get to the counter to get our ticket and face this:



this scale is not our friend. we found out we had a 15 lb weight limit for each of our carry-ons. well, one was 43 and the other 35ish. not good. so, now those bags have been sent to the bottom of the plane. again, we smile and recite: blessed are the flexible for they will not be bent out of shape. we've got our gumby game faces on.

m

so here it is... the schedule as it might go but we do head out with this motto "for the flexible shall not be bent out of shape."

early, early, did i say early this morning.... 4 am to be exact my baby sister had her 3rd baby.
after many of hours and 4 labor coaches later, the most beautiful event happened. sweet baldwin baby #3 was born into this world and our hearts forever.

he was a whopping 9 pounds 6 ounces and 21 inches long.
his name to be shared later.

joy unexplainable to witness life being born and God's amazing blessing!
children truly are a gift!

Today was the day that our agency told the boys that we are coming to get them..... so they have one week- how much can a 4 1/2 and 2 year old process such a huge change?

seriously. That's big!

In just one week from today we will be together, for the week, the month, the rest of our lives.
Can't wait to smell them, touch their skin, hear their laughs, their voices, tell them the one and only phrase that I can seem to remember in Amharic "a-weud-de-hal-lo"= I love you!

love to you-
amanda

we got "the" call yesterday...the "come get your kids" call. totally expected, but somehow it was surprising. i guess its like the people that say every year, "wow, didn't christmas come early this year?" to that i say - "doesn't christmas always come at the same time?" well, right back at me i guess.

so in a day we went from DEFCON 3 to DEFCON 1. In other words, we're getting ready, really fast. Not sure about you, but 8 days notice to get your "stuff" together for this particular trip is a bit outside the comfort zone.

Oh, and funny thing happened on the way downstairs - more leaks. some of you might know about our house issues at the moment. i guess we can just add the three leaks downstairs that miraculously appeared on our punch list.

So, i think that they should add something to the murphy's law list about this house - whatever should be easy will end up complicated.

can't wait to leave and get there. we plan on leaving the 24th back the 3rd!

m