African Children's Choir

On Saturday we traveled to East Lansing to see the African Children's Choir. It was an amazing experience. If you ever get a chance to go see them, make sure you do! We also got a chance to meet Cindy and Steve another family who is working with our agency to adopt from Ethiopia. Apparently they had sat behind us at our agency's travel expectations meeting, but we did not really have an opportunity to talk with anyone after that meeting because we were speaking with our caseworker. They had also brought with them Tibebe and his daughter. Tibebe is from Ethiopia, is a professor at Calvin College and recently talked to families who have adopted or are in the process of adopting from Ethiopia at Gojos (Ethiopian Restaurant) in Grand Rapids. We were not able to attend that event so it was great to be able to meet him and his daughter here. All in all, it was a great evening and it was exciting to meet another family who is just ahead of us in the process and to meet Tibebe as well. Hopefully the group will be able to do another get together with him in the future.

It was great to be able to spend a little bit of time around East Lansing too as Colleen went to MSU, but I wish the weather would have been better. It rained all day and while we were at the concert the rain turned to snow. I am so sick of winter. It is supposed to be 70 here tomorrow though. I can't wait!

1 Month........

Today we have officially been "in waiting" for one month. It has yet to be seen how many more will follow before we get to travel to Ehiopia to meet our daughter for the first time. This week there was a referral from our agency, but that was the first one that we have seen in quite a while. At the travel expectations meeting last week, our agency told us that they expected referrals to start coming again. In the mean time, we will just try to keep busy educating ourselves and reading other blogs and finding joy in their good news. Knowing that every other family that is completed, brings us one step closer to completing ours.

We are very excited for the growing network of families that have adopted from Ethiopia who live so close to us. It is comforting that we will be able to raise our daughter knowing other children born in Ethiopia that have similar experiences to hers. As we have moved through the process, one of the things that has impressed us the most, is the amazing sense of community that surrounds adoption. Everyone has been extremely supportive and encouraging. For that, we thank everyone that has read our blog and provided support through comments and sharing their own experiences with group posts and blogs. It will be a tremendous help in getting us through the months to come which I hope will be the quickest months of our life, but which will inevitably end up being the longest of our life.

We wish everyone a quick journey and hope to see a flurry of referrals all followed by quick and successful court dates! We also look forward to meeting more of you that our sharing in this incredible journey to Ethiopia!