We’re coming, Sweeties!!

We are leaving tomorrow on a 24+ hour trip to the other side of the world to meet the children that were conceived in our hearts five years ago!  Michael pretty much explained everything that’s about to happen in his post from today.  I want to add to that our recent update from some dear friends whom we’ve never met. 🙂  As I type, the Braun Family are on their way back home to Texas with their new kids–a sibling group of 4 to add to their other 3 kids to make a “wonderfully crazy” family of 9!!  (Be sure to scroll down their blog to see pics!)  We have been in contact for several months as I found out they were adopting this sibling group that I met a year and a half ago on our mission trip.  With several bumps along the way, they were finally able to go this week for their Embassy appointment and bring their beautiful children home!

While there, the Braun’s graciously brought Aidan and Eva some care packages we sent a couple months ago, including a couple of those recordable Hallmark books where we record ourselves reading the books so that they can hear our voices.  Here are some of the Braun’s sweet remarks about our kids:

Your kids are so precious!!!!! ….I read your books from cover to cover with your kids individually.  Aidan loved it!  He was so surprised when he heard your voices, and grinned when Yonas told him that it was his new mommy and daddy.  He also loved the bubble maker.  I have the best pics of him.  He is excited that you will be here next week.  Your daughter is beautiful and very happy!  You will be blessed by both of your new kids….Thanks for letting me take care packages for you!  It was a joy to spend time with your children and love on them!

We are so thankful that the Braun’s got to spend time with our babies and tell them that we are coming very soon!  I know it is going to be an amazing week and that God is going to grow our hearts closer to Him, to each other, and to our kids during this week!  I am expecting great things from our great God!!!

Our third set of care packages

On the eve of our departure

It is now the evening before Suzanne and I leave for our court date appointment in Ethiopia. Our first three children are all in bed now. We’ve spent most of the day packing: Suz and I are bringing a carry on and two checked bags each, full to the airlines’ allowance. Why do we need so much stuff? It’s probably not what you think. In fact, we could probably get everything we need for the week into three small bags–and that includes a bag dedicated to camera gear 🙂

We’re bringing care packages to several waiting children from their stateside soon-to-be families. We’re packing clothes, baby items, gifts, and all manner of other necessities for kids and staff and the transition home and orphanages. Boxes and boxes of toothpaste and toothbrushes, formula, baby wipes, medicines, cloth diapers. And Suzanne has done a fantastic job of getting everything in. With lots of empty bags for the trip home, we’ll have space to bring gifts for family and friends. Coffee anyone?

During our visit, we’ll get to meet and spend time with our children for the first time. These are days we’ve anticipated for months–it seems strange that they are finally here. This chapter of our story that began two years ago is coming to an end, all so that a new one can begin.

Many thanks and blessings to our family and friends who’ve supported us up to this point. We could not have gotten this far without you, and there are two kids on the other side of the world who we pray will be blessed immeasurably because of your love, encouragement, and gifts. Thank you.

Thank you.

In the upcoming days, please pray that our court appointment on Thursday, Nov. 4, goes well. We’ve been told that the appointments are brief–maybe 10 minutes–and that we have about a 75% chance of passing. If we pass, there’s a good chance we’d return to Ethiopia in December to bring home the kids. Immediately following our court appointment, though, we may have an opportunity to meet the children’s birthmother. This could be a very emotional meeting–pray for grace and peace. Please pray that God continues to open our eyes and move our hearts and hands (and by “our,” I mean the Church: all of us) to meet needs of “the least of these.”

If you’d like to follow along over the next several days, look for the “Subscribe” box in the sidebar to the right. You can have updates sent directly to your email inbox–easy. We’ll do our best to update the site during our trip as we’re able.

Thanks again–we’ll be in touch soon.

Gleaning the fields

While we were riding in the combine the other day, “helping” with the last of the harvesting, God was making some connections for me to his Word and to my studies.  I was reminded of the research I have done lately for my thesis: “God’s Heart for the Fatherless.”  It seems that so much of the Israelites’ life was tied to and formed around the harvest.  Their social status was determined by whether or not they owned land, the widows and the fatherless being at the bottom of the class system because they had no property or land.  Their understanding of God’s blessing was displayed by how well the harvest did that year, and many of their prayers revolved around that blessing.  Every seventh year, the land was to have a Sabbath: no one was to plant or harvest on the land but the widows and orphans were allowed to pick what sprang up voluntarily.  The tithes and free-will offerings were mostly given from their harvest, and God instructed the landowners to give to a storehouse every three years enough to provide for the widow and fatherless.  Some of those tithes and offerings went to a community feast that God made sure included the widows and the fatherless so that they felt a part of the covenant community as well.  And God gave explicit commands to His people on how to provide for the widows and the fatherless by leaving the gleanings behind for them to harvest themselves.  The landowners were commanded not to go back to a wheat field or to the olives and grapes a second time to make sure they didn’t miss any.  Some especially generous landowners, like Boaz, actually left extra behind on purpose to provide for the poor.

As you can see, Israel’s life was intimately tied to the harvest and the orphans and the widows depended on it.  As I experienced the harvest the other day, I realized that some very generous, gracious people have left behind some of their gleanings, purposefully, to help provide for the fatherless children we are bringing home.  Thank you, Father, for that connection and for that very tangible display of blessing in our lives.  You are truly “Father to the Fatherless.”

Helping with Harvest

Our friends Tim and Connie own a farm just west of Lincoln.  Tim and his brothers are the fourth generation of their family to farm on this land in central Illinois, their great-grandfather having emigrated here from Ireland in the 1850s.  “In those days, it was either leave or starve,” Tim told me.  In fact, Tim’s brother still lives on the property that was originally owned by his great-grandfather.

They have been in the corn and soybean fields 12-14 hours a day for the past several weeks bringing in his crops and we had the opportunity to ride along in the combine yesterday.  Tim was gracious (and trusting) enough to let each of us take a turn at driving the combine, too.  Though it was a fun novelty for us, I imagine it becomes wearying to do it day in and day out for weeks on end.  Still, Tim loves his work and considers himself grateful and blessed to be able to do it.  We’re grateful to have had a chance to join him on this new learning experience for us.

Suzanne and the kids are packed into the cab of the combine while Tim reaps the soybeans.

A soybean plant before it is harvested.
The combine moves through the field, collecting the crop.
Soybeans after they've been collected by the combine.
One of Tim's dogs stands alertly by the semi-truck, waiting for the combine to return.
Suzanne takes a turn at the wheel.
The combine empties its load into the semi trailer. From here it will make a short trip up the highway to offload at the grain elevator.
Tim watches as he carefully maneuvers the combine to offload the harvest.

Court Date and Garage Sale!

Last Friday was so crazy I haven’t even had a chance to post this yet!  But we got a call from AWAA for our court date!!  We are finally going to get to “touch our kids,” as our 8-yr-old boy put it!  Our court date in Ethiopia is Nov. 4 and so we fly out Oct. 31 and return Nov. 9, while Grandma comes to stay with our other three here in IL.  We will get to spend time with Aidan and Eva a few hours everyday, as well as do some sight seeing and visiting other orphanages, etc.  Families do not always pass court the first time (usually because the court wants some Ethiopian paperwork written differently), but we will have made our appearance and will not have to stay for the following court dates.   After we pass, we will return to Ethiopia again 4-12 weeks later for our US Embassy appointment and to bring our kids HOME!!!  (We are praying that is before Christmas!)  We are SOOO excited!!!

Our wonderful phone call came during our busy garage sale we had that weekend!  We explained that everything was “for donation for our adoption” and people were very generous!  We made over $1100!!  Thank you, Lord!  Our two upcoming trips will be about $5-6,000 each, so if you are interested in helping with that, please click on the fundraising tab above.

Please be in prayer for our upcoming trip and for our first meeting with our kids!  Keep watch on our blog as we will post a video of them when we officially pass court!  We will also try to journal our trip some on the blog if the internet in Ethiopia cooperates.  Pray also for all the planning and packing and thesis writing that needs to happen between now and then!  And lastly, please pray for Aidan, our 4.5 yr old boy who has the mumps.  🙁  Our hearts yearn to hold and take care of him and to love on them both!  Thanks again for being a part of our journey!

Yes, We’re Crazy

A number of friends have asked us how things are going with the adoption process.   Since we received our referral in July, we’ve been in a holding pattern. We’ll need to travel to Ethiopia for a court date but court has been closed in August and September. We expect, though, within the next week or so we’ll get a call assigning us a date and Suzanne and I will then likely travel sometime later in October. That’s our best guess.

This intermission, though, has given me time to reflect. When people learn or ask about our adoption, responses vary from “That’s awesome!” to “Wow, you guys are so brave–I could never do that” to “Are you sure? That sounds crazy.” There’s a wide gray swath on the continuum between bravery and foolishness; most days, I’m in that gray area.

Our church is going through a series on love and, as a congregation, we’re reading Francis Chan’s book Crazy Love: Overwhelmed by a Relentless God. In the foreword, musician Chris Tomlin writes:

Crazy Love is the perfect title for this book. When Jesus was asked, “What is the greatest commandment?” he responded with “Love.”

“Love the Lord your God with all your heart and with all your soul and with all your mind.” This is the first and greatest commandment. And the second is like it: “Love your neighbor as yourself.” (Matt 22.37-40)

As Francis so brilliantly illustrates, the life Jesus calls us to is absolute craziness to the world. Sure, it’s fine and politically correct to believe in God, but to really love Him is a whole different story. Yeah, it’s nice and generous to give to the needy at Christmas or after some disaster, but to sacrifice your own comfort and welfare for another may look like madness to a safe and undisturbed world.

As I look back, our entire journey as a family has involved some manner of madness at each step. We had to undergo fertility treatments to have our first child and there was a real possibility that we could have had multiples. Instead, Erin was born eight weeks premature and Suzanne nearly died in the process.

The second and third pregnancies did not go well either–in both instances, Suzanne was debilitatingly sick for months. When we came to the hospital for delivery each time, the nurses remembered us from our first experience and looked at us with shock: “Are you crazy?” During that last pregnancy, Suzanne’s mom stayed with us for seven weeks. I was working full-time and in grad school and taking care of our other two children; we would not have survived that time without her help.  Do we regret the journey?  Of course not and we have three wonderful children.

Now we stand on the doorstep of inviting two more children into our lives, children from another mother on the other side of the world. We have not entered into this on a whim. Suzanne and I prayed through the fall of 2008 for God’s direction about this decision. We then spent nine months completing paperwork, being interviewed by social workers, attending training, reading books, being scrutinized by state, federal, and international governments. We will invite these two children into our not-so-very-big home on our not-so-very-big income. We are giving up our established routines and rhythms and some of the few comforts that we enjoy to stretch our lives and budget further. There are undoubtedly challenges in front of us that we can’t imagine. Frankly, it doesn’t make sense for us to adopt.

But we believe that the love of God compels us. I’m aware of how unlovable I can be, and even then I fail to grasp the depth of my own darkness. And yet God reaches into that darkness at tremendous cost to Himself and gives me hope and a future. Crazy–that’s the kind of love that God has for us. It’s a love that defies common sense and reason. When that kind of love embraces a person, it’s not uncommon for unusual decisions to follow.

***

In the film As Good As It Gets, Jack Nicholson portrays Melvin Udall, a self-absorbed obsessive-compulsive misanthrope who also happens to be a best-selling writer of romance novels (go figure). In one scene he dismissively tells a visitor to his apartment, “Sell crazy someplace else, we’re all stocked up here.” When it comes to crazy love, though, there’s always more room somewhere on the shelf.

Do our plans to adopt make sense?  No–I readily admit that and can’t justify our decision.  Do we know that adopting is risky, that we can’t predict how our new children will fit into our family?  You bet, and at times this is scary.  Seriously: who goes around looking for ways to make their lives more complex, forgoing what is known and safe and comfortable?  I don’t.  But in this case, I think God–who loves us relentlessly–has called us to demonstrate His love in a crazy way.  That’s the best explanation I can offer.  I trust, however, that if I play my part to the best of my ability, God will be faithful.

Giving in to God’s crazy love is dangerous and will lead you to into an unpredictable, possibly uncomfortable life.  What, though, is the alternative?  Consider that Jesus was often accused of saying crazy things.  On one occasion he told a crowd that if they wanted to be God’s followers, they’d have to eat his flesh and drink his blood.  Unsurprisingly, the crowd found this hard to accept and many walked away.  When Jesus asked his closest disciples if they were going to leave as well, his friend Peter responded, “Master, to whom would we go? You have the words of real life, eternal life. We’ve already committed ourselves, confident that you are the Holy One of God.” Indeed: to whom would I go?

So, yes, we’re crazy–but only because the love of God is crazier than ours.

Care package #2

We have the opportunity to send care packages in ziploc bags to our kids through other adoptive parents who are traveling to Ethiopia.  This time I went through our baby tubs stored in the basement and pulled out some of our favorite outfits and toys to send to little brother and sister.

The extra special part of this delivery was the deliverers!  Ryan Mott offered to take the packages with him when he left to join Deanne and their girls in Ethiopia.  They are all flying home to IL now as I type!!  Everyone is anxious to meet Fikerta and Kongit in person and I am sure they are all going to be glad to be HOME!  You can follow their family blog as well.  We were blessed to have them love on our kids while they were there, and we are excited to see all the pictures they took of our cuties and hear about all their experiences!  Blessings and safe travels, Mott Family!

The Puzzle is Finished!

Our puzzle is finished!!  Thanks to everyone who donated!  Our puzzle donations paid for the bulk of our referral acceptance.  We still have about $12,000 or more to pay for our two upcoming trips (one time for our court date, possibly in October) and one time for our Embassy date and to bring them home (hopefully before Christmas!!).  The kids had a great time working on the puzzle—we’re almost sad it’s done!

We are currently getting the puzzle framed so we can put it up in our upstairs hallway.  I have some verses I want to put above it and I can’t wait to show you!  The matting we are putting around it will be white on the back side, so if anyone still wishes to donate toward our adoption, we will write your names on the back of the matting since the puzzle pieces are filled.  What a great problem to have!  Donation information is located on the blue Fundraising tab above.

8-6-10

Saying “yes” to the referral

As Suzanne wrote the other day, we received our adoption referral from AWAA at the end of last week. Yesterday we signed the referral acceptance to say, “yes, we will accept these children into our family.”

Suzanne put together a “care package” last night for the kids as well. Another AWAA couple is making their way to Ethiopia soon and they will bring the gifts over for us. Included are some small toys and things plus a note from us for each of the kids.

We were also blessed yesterday when Suzanne’s friend Bethany stopped over with a couple of balloons to help us celebrate. Thanks, Bethany, for your thoughtfulness.

Family Trip to Oklahoma

Each summer we visit Suzanne’s family in Oklahoma.  This year, we mixed it up a bit by attending a few days at a family camp at New Life Ranch in Colcord, OK.  Suz worked there one summer in college and signed us up for the first time as family campers.  Since the trip would take close to nine hours from our home in Illinois, we spent a night in Springfield, Missouri, where we swam at the hotel, ate at Lambert’s Cafe (where they throw food at diners), visited the Bass Pro Shops headquarters, and were nearly eaten alive by wild camels at a safari animal park.

We all had a great time at New Life Ranch.  I believe there were about 50 families there during our camp, and each family was assigned a staff member to help however the family needed assistance.  The first morning of our stay, for example, Suzanne and I took a trail ride on horseback into the hills for breakfast, so our staff assistant, Mr. Luke, took the kids to breakfast at the dining hall and had them ready to go for the rest of the day when we returned.  Sweet.

Each day began with a brief  group worship time after which the kids went off to age-appropriate Bible lessons and activities while the adults spent time learning about parenting.  Our speaker was Chip Jackson from Fellowship Northwest Arkansas church–he was terrific. Suz and I came away encouraged and with some good things to help us continue in our parenting journey.  After lunch, we had the afternoon free to explore the camp’s numerous activities and facilities: ropes course, climbing walls, swimming pool, waterfront with huge slides, mountain biking, horseback riding, rifle/shotgun ranges, and more.  Evenings involved more teaching time and group activities.  Although we spent only two and a half days there, we were all exhausted from late nights, early mornings, and full days.

From Colcord, we went on to visit Suzanne’s family. We’ve posted a few photos from our trip here, and there’s a video below of Suz and I going down the zip line at the ranch.  Although we signed up everybody to ride the zip line, only mom and dad were brave enough to climb to poles and go down.