The Lord has found it necessary to keep me entertained as we go forward on this journey. I spoke with the ELL (English Language Learner) staff person today - she was very encouraging about the language acquisition and suggested that a child 1st grade or younger should have little trouble with picking up the English language. Our kindergarten and 1st grades - here in the US - are centered around letters and sounds. In the scheme of things - God being the source of all of this - I was not at all surprised that her roommate in college was from Ethiopia -
Addis Ababa! She even said "I would love to go with you!" Last night Bob flipped over the Compassion International magazine to show me the "Ethiopian" themed t-shirts (pictured above) that upon purchase, help to support the feeding program there. Of course we bought two. You could buy some too at "
https://store.compassion.com/Customer/ViewProductDetails.aspx?CatID=16&SubCatID=102&ProdID=152&Type=N" Then he opened the magazine to share the full spread article on Ethiopia. Needless to say, I have said and heard the word "Ethiopia" more times in the last two weeks than in my entire life! We eagerly await word from our previous agency (who completed our domestic home study) on what it will take to update our home study to make it international. One "reference family" from the Children's Hope International agency has been very good to correspond with me about our questions. In her words, we have so many similarities in our stories, "it is like we are living parallel lives"! She has been so helpful and encouraging. I know that the Lord hooked us up! They live in Pennsylvania, but email has brought our worlds side by side. They adopted two sisters from Ethiopia (ages 7 and 5). We were excited to hear how quickly their experience went (applied in October, traveled in April!). I know the Lord will take care of this in his time....Pray that I can be patient. We found an Ethiopian
restaurant here in KC and are going to go there - just Bob and I at first - then eventually take the kids. A co-worker of mine and her husband pastor a church in town and know an Ethiopian pastor. She is getting his contact info to us and we are going to get together with him to "pick his brain" then we want to take the boys to one of their services. I want them to experience what it will be like for our girls to come here and not know the language. I hope it gives them perspective. Through prayer and leading, we know that we are going to bring two girls home. Please pray for them as they cling to each other and also to us. My new friend in Pennsylvania shared this from a Ethiopian adoption chat..."every day I wait for my adopted child(ren) is one more day a mother has to say goodbye."
