The Journey

Our adoption agency sends us a weekly update about Ethiopia and the adoption process. I haven't ever posted their weekly update to our blog, but I thought this week was one you would all be interested. I have discussed the rainy season with many of you, and thought you would like to read more. I did edit the weekly update a little, but most of it is pure copy and paste. Ethiopia’s Rainy Season There are three seasons in Ethiopia. From September to February is the long dry season known as the bega ; this is followed by a short rainy season, the belg , in March and April. May is a hot and dry month preceding the long rainy season , kremt , in June, July, and August. Total annual precipitation varies from 20 to 40 inches (500 to 1,000 mm). Source: Britannica Online  During the rainy season, many roads are impassable until dryer weather. This makes it difficult for Ethiopian court staff to get to the court, and more difficult in general to travel around Ethiopia. In the capit

I feel like a lot of my post lately have been more of updates than anything, and although I want to keep you all informed, I also want to write more. I intended to write this post actually a while ago, but I wasn't really exactly sure what I wanted to say. This week, I was talking to my friend, Steph, about this topic, and I decided to just go for it......... "Happy Birthday to you! Happy Birthday to you" "They say it's your birthday!" "A Happy Birthday to You! A Happy Birthday to you!" There are many renditions of the birthday song. Some families I know even have their own special versions or traditions that go along with birthdays. Right around my birthday, I was receiving cards, text messages, Facebook posts, etc, and I started to think how birthdays are such a huge deal here in the United States. There are even special birthdays that are even a bigger deal than others. Jeffrey and I have been so blessed to be a part of many first birthday

We want to say THANK YOU, THANK YOU, THANK YOU to Myrah Whittington and Teresa Fehrenz! These two ladies both approached us about doing fundraisers for our adoption. Thanks to all their hard work, we raised almost $900 this summer. Teresa held a 31 Party  for us, and she so kindly held it at her home even though she was undergoing a big home improvement project. She was a wonderful host with great snacks including my favorite Eckerts chips and salsa =) People were able to make orders online which made it nice for those who were not able to come to her house. This was her first party ever, and I think it was a great success! Baby Woodson was also able to get a diaper bag from the party which was nice even though daddy wants to use it as a camera bag. She also donated one of the 31 bags for the raffle at the Zumbathon and worked the raffle table. Teresa has gone far beyond anything we could ever ask for; we have been so blessed by her and can't wait for Baby W to meet her! Myrah

Today, Jeffrey and I submitted the online portion of an adoption grant. We are hoping that the letter we need from our adoption agency will be in the mail today, so we can mail out the paper portion of the grant. We know that God is going to provide for this adoption, but we also know that we must be active and do everything we can to help the cause. ShowHope is an organization that gives out grants to families who are in the middle of the adoption process. We had to wait till all our paperwork (homestudy) was finalized, and we have to apply before we are matched with a child. There are several deadlines for the grant, but we thought we would write the grant over the summer since I have a little more time. You can only apply for the grant once, so we will either be accepted or denied. They have to deny people due to the fact that there is a large number of applications and not enough funds. Please pray that our application will be selected. Every little bit of help we can get is h