The Announcement, Ethiopian Food, & Christmas

It is only a few days from Christmas and we are one step closer to bringing home a child that we do not yet know. It is fun to imagine what he / she might look like, what they will think and say, what they would want for Christmas if they could tell us - if they knew us. Over the past several weeks we have had the joy of telling people about our plans to adopt from Ethiopia and although we have been met with a lot of questions, everyone has been so supportive - it is fun to have so many family members and friends excited with us.

Friday night we had Ethiopian food for the first time as the Queen of Sheba Restaurant. Not only was the food exceptional, but the atmosphere was positively delightful. It was wonderful to experience (even in a microcosm) the culture into which our child will be born - to listen to the music of Ethiopia and to see the faces of her people. We were both so enamoured that we could hardly bring ourselves to leave.

Each step of the way we are reminded that faith plays an important role in this journey and that we have little control over the process. We are both anxious to see our child's face and we are even more anxious to bring him / her home to be a part of our family; yet, we are both constantly aware that the timing of this monumental event is not in our control. We are increasingly aware that we are slowly (sometimes painstakingly) being prepared for the experience of a lifetime - something that relatively few people have had the opportunity to be a part of.

Ryan

One more step...one mustard seed

Yesterday, December 18th and only 1 week before Christmas 2008, we mailed back step 2 to the adoption agency. We are both so excited. As we looked over all of the forms that needed to be signed and homework that needed to be done, we became a bit overwhelmed by the process, and frankly, it just took us a while to get through it all.

There was a workbook complete with CD computer lessons for our completion along with a "short questionnaire" which was more like two pages of essay questions on how we would handle various difficult scenerios related to our new child. Some of the questions seemed a little outlandish, but we took them seriously, thinking through what we would do. Who knows...someday we may run into one of the trouble spots and look back on our answers to determine what to do next. Maybe you are more clear-headed when you are not right in the middle of it all. Anyway, the "homework" made us consider lots of things we had not researched and caused us to ask lots of good questions of ourselves and others.

Needless to say, even after the overwhelmed feelings and the "academic research on transracial adoption," we have decided this is still the path for us. We are more committed than ever to learn as much as we can about raising children who don't look like us next to those who will.

What's next? Lots of documents, background checks, and detailed information on us...Then homestudy. We expect to be TO the homestudy in about 8 weeks and for the study itself to take another 8.

About the mustard seed. It seems we need just one more mustard seed of faith to move forward through each step. We look forward to finding the next one and using it to get closer to having a beautiful African baby.

Rebecca