The Chinese are pouring a lot of money into ET.  So there is a lot of road construction making traffic even more crazy.

 Goats are a common site along the road.  Today I saw a man carrying a goat in a net on his back.  This guy in pic above is walking his goat down the road.

 Donkeys packing things through the city is also a common site.

 FUMES

Cyrus and his water bottle.

a bit more about et and cyrus

So if you go for a walk on the streets of Addis Ababa, you better bring you hiking shoes or your mud boots and be ready to dodge traffic all the while keeping an eye on your feet because it is crazy out there.  The man holes are "covered" by three long stones some of which are no longer there so be careful you don't fall in because it is a very real possiblity. Walking on the street is also cyrus 's favorite pastime.  He squeals with delight waving his hands at everyone passing by, trying to grab anything and everything within his reach.

A water bottle is one of Cyrus's favorite toys.

Daddy and Cyrus on the couch in our room.

Cyrus

Cyrus has had some diarrhea yesterday and today. He seems a little better today.  He becomes a little stronger and more alert everyday.  He is so intent on seeing the world around him that he can hardly stand to go to sleep.  He loves to go on walks in the carrier facing outward, of course, waving to everyone passing by, smiling and charming them all.  He reminds me of Abe he did the same thing when we got him in Colombia.  We are falling a little more in love with him each day can't wait for you all to meet him.  Leigha

a few pics

On the top picture we we are at kaldis or ET Starbucks we had some great mocha ice cream and Cyrus is gumming on a french Fri.
And the bottom pic is of Cyrus's first bath.

more on ET

6. We are here at the beginning of the rainy season, so it rains almost every afternoon and most evenings, it cools everything off and washes the air clean.  It is winter here but it is usually about 70 degrees, so not the winter we are used to.
7. People are always sweeping here sidewalks, patios, porches, and courtyards.., but they throw their trash down where ever they are.  We can't really figure it out.  They have way less disposable trash so its not as bad as it would be in the US.
8.  Shopping is an adventure here. No Walmart and there isn't anything similar.  Their stores are more the size of gas station, with a fraction of the choices.  Makes me realize how spoiled we are.

We will go to the transition home again today to visit Cyrus and hope our letter gets written.
Leigha

Ethiopia

Here are a few things you might find when you come to ET.
1 traffic is like a huge game of frogger, people and vehicles dodging each other with great skill, if its your first time you will find yourself white knuckled and gasping, oh and if you get car sick, forget it, oh and don't forget the fumes enough to make you choke.
2  They have a saying in ET: Americans have the watches but we have the time. So true and good in some ways but not so great when trying g to complete paperwork quickly.
3. The people are quieter here.  The street can be completely full and people all around and yet it still isn't loud.
4. Shoe shine boys are everywhere.  Your shoes can look like new for 30 cents.
5. its common to see herds of goats running down a four lane street.

I will post some more later as I think of them.  Please pray we get our letter today and get to take Cyrus with us.
Thanks Leigha

We haven't been posting as much because we've been spending all of our time at the transition home with our little guy.   Nothing else matters very much.  If the paper work goes as expected we will have legal custody on tuesday & will then be able to take him out of the transition home & keep him with us full time.  Until then we are basically just passing time.  Once he is legally ours we have to get a passport, pass a medical exam, and then get a visa to bring him into the US.  This should take 2 or 3 weeks, but who knows.  Little man needs to be home sooner than later, so this is all incredibly frustrating.  Please pray that the paperwork would go quickly so that we can bring our son home. Thanks!

BEN

I thought I would give you an update of what we've been doing in Ethiopia since we got here.  A normal day starts at the guest house it's kind of like a hotel we  have a bedroom, sitting room, a kitchen, and a bathroom.  We only have internet in the lobby so we spend a lot of time there with other families who are adopting also.  They fix us breakfast every morning.  I haven't had much of an appetite so many new sites, sounds, and tastes just kind of throws the system off.  We haven't been sick which is a blessing.  After breakfast we go to the transition home which is where Hamza (that his ET name) we plan to call him Cyrus.  We spend the morning with him go out for lunch then back to the transition home spend more time with Hamza.  Then we head back to guest house, venture out on the street to find supper try to Skype with the kids and then off to bed, to do it all over again.

we didn't pass

So we didn't pass court but the jugde is ready to sign the moment our letter from moyca arrives  the moyca letter is basicly like a letter from cps in the states.  The problem is the next step is embassy  and they only submitt to embassy on wed and because our letter won't arrive until tues there won't be time to do the nessary paperwork needed for embassy submission this week.  So it looking like we won't be submitted to embassy for another 12 days, which at this point feels like an eternity.   So outside of a miracle it looks like we will be here a while.
Leigha

Africa

We made to ethiopia.  We met Cyrus yesterday. It seemed
very surreal to finally be holding him in my arms. He seems to be laid back.  Though its hard to tell yet.   We have court on fri, that will be thurs while you all in the US sleep.  We would appreciate your prayers that all would go well. After we pass court we can post pictures. Thanks all we'll post more later.
Leigha

here we go again!!

If you don't already know we received a referral of a 10 month boy and we are leaveing today to go get him.  We should be in there 2-3 weeks.  We would appreciate your prayers.  We are looking forward to having Cyrus home.

My Heart, Her Heart

Isaac holding his new baby cousin Lydia

As I sit outside enjoying the early morning quiet, Isaac wakes up and comes to find me.  He climbs up in my lap and snuggles in close under the blanket.  I'm enjoying the sweet feeling of holding my baby, all his sweetness and love.  I am overwhelmed with the privilege of being his mother, of being the one to get all these moments, to see his smiles, to comfort him, hold him, to be the one he calls mom.  Then I think of his birth mother, what if circumstances had been different.  My heart feels heavy guilty even.  But then the Lord whispers, I have chosen you for him don't try to carry the weight of a decision you did not make. So I'll rest in that, For my thoughts are not your thoughts, neither are your ways my ways...For as the heavens are higher than the earth, so are my ways higher than your ways and my thoughts than your thoughts. Isaiah 55:8-9. It's hard to reconcile her great loss with my tremendous gain.  So I pray for her and trust in the ways of my God.

Under His Wings

As I sit outside this morning doing my devotions , birds are fluttering all around me.  The last several weeks the Lord has been speaking to me about my children that are not yet home, through the birds around me and the nesting they are doing to prepare for the little ones soon to arrive. So as I sit hear listening to the birds singing all around me, I am pondering a mental image from a book I recently read. A mama eagle perched in her nest with her 3 young chicks and a storm is raging all around.  The mama has a wing outstretched covering her babies, and under her wing they slept.

Psalm 91:4 He will cover you with his feathers and under his wings you will find refuge...

so as I watched these birds fluttering around me another vs. came to mind Matthew 6:25-27, in these vs. Jesus is basically saying stop worrying, the birds don't worry and look how well they are cared for.  I don't need to worry about my precious baby birds in ET they are gently covered under the wings of the most High God. They will find refuge, though the storm rages all around, they will sleep peacefully under his feathers, finding refuge and care.  Thank you Jesus

Twins perhaps

I found this picture about a year ago. It says A DOUBLE BLESSING at the bottom.  If you've ever been to our house you know I have a collection of these baby pictures hanging on my wall going up the stairs to the boys rooms.  After I found this picture I began to see twins everywhere at church, Walmart, in ads, and on TV. So I began to make a list of twin spottings and I soon gave up after about a month because there were too many to count.  I know this is God speaking to me as only he can, reassuring me, leading me gently along this long road of waiting, encouraging me with a double blessing at the end of this long adoption road.

Hope

My fast has ended I feel God encouraging me to place all my hope in him.  I read through the book 30 Days of Prayer for the Voiceless, my hope seemed to drain out, the evil and oppression some live through is hard for me to comprehend and as I wait for our children to come home and I pray that they are not experiencing these kind of things, I must put all of my hope in him.

A couple of weeks ago I asked the church congregation to pray for our children as the wait seemed to be dragging on forever, and of course I got emotional as I always do when I talk about our adoption.  After church, people asked me if we'd been matched with a child yet, etc etc., and I knew they couldn't comprehend my bond to children I didn't know anything about or even how many children we're getting.  It's hard to explain that I know because God has told me there are two and it's hard to explain that God has already connected my heart to theirs and so my heart aches to hold them in my arms.  I know people mean well and they are trying to understand, and yet they don't understand.  I feel like an island in this adoption.  I see others on the horizon trying to see and understand but their view is limited and their understanding limited because their knowledge is all gathered from a distance.

A week or so after I shared at church, a lady stopped me after Sunday school and asked me how our adoption was going and I went into my usual explanation, but she stopped me and  held out her hand to me.  I didn't understand at first that she was trying to give me something.  She handed me a small, yellow glass disc and on it was the word HOPE.  She said, "you just hold on to this while you wait."  I teared up and thanked her.  She had touched my heart deeply, maybe she hadn't experienced the ups and downs of adoption but she had understood my despair and knew I needed hope that day.  I know she was being obedient to God, He had sent her to gently remind me where my hope should be placed. 

Romans 15:13
So I pray for you Gentiles that God who gives hope will keep you happy and full of peace as you believe in him.  I pray that God will help you overflow with hope in him through the Holy Spirit's power within you.

Leigha

Female Suicide Bombers

Day 14

Definition:  Women who are recruited to die with explosive belts strapped around their waists o kill others under the guise of equality, the promise of rehabilitating a family member, or cleansing their own reputations.

Female suicide bombers believe their destiny is to become the bride of Allah in paradise.

Streets, hospitals, babies and children's events are named after "martyrs."

A portion of the book: "The women were awkwardly silent.  Malbrook spoke a little about her daughter, spoke with pride, but there was something else in her voice and manner.  She seemed weighted with sadness; a deep, abiding grief that she had never stopped carrying since the day she lost her daughter.  Her voice was soft.  She told the women that she still cried all the time, "day and night" for Wafa--who had died several years before.

One of the women went to Malbrook, and held her hand.  She looked into the older woman's eyes as she knelt beside her.  Then she prayed, never turning away her gaze.  Tears flowed on more than one face in the room.  'Did you know what she was going to do?'  one of the women asked, referring to Wafa's plans to kill herself as a female suicide bomber.

'No,' said her mother.  'If I had known, I would have stopped her.'
(30 Days of Prayer for he Voiceless)

Oh Father the you would hear the crys' of these desperate women.  That you would intervene.  I pray you would send missionaries to reveal to them the truth of your love, that they would not feel compelled to kill themselves and others.  Oh Father be with the victims and the families of those who are murdered, only you can heal the wound.
In Jesus name, Amen.

Pornography

Day 13

Definition: Pornography is the explicit depiction of sexual activity in literature, films, photography or the Internet, that stimulates erotic feelings.

The pornography industry is a $57 billion global business, $12 billion of this is in the US.  This is larger than the combined revenues of all professional football, baseball and basketball franchises in the US.

47% of Christian men say pornography is a a major problem in the home.

A portion of the book:  "She will be invited onto the movie screen of his mind, loyal to him as he trains his body and mind to think of her as an object to grope and ravage and touch.  And then with a a single movement of his finger, the flip of a page, she will be ushered back into the dark recesses of his mind.  With the click of his finger at  his computer, she will be filed away.  She will wait there until he tires of the other lovers, old an new: a fix, a stimulant.  His beautiful lover without a name." (30 Days of Prayer for the Voiceless)

Oh Father forgive us for turning something so beautiful into something so harmful.  You intended sex to be between a husband and a wife an expression of love and when it is made into something it wasn't meant to be it wrecks havoc in so many lives.  Father help those trapped in pornography to break free and find freedom in you.  In Jesus name, Amen.

Barren Women

Day 12

Definition:  A woman incapable of conceiving or unable to get pregnant.

In some places motherhood is the only way for women to enhance their status within the family.

The impact of infertility is compounded because women are generally held responsible for reproductive failure.  This blame may result in divorce, husbands taking a second wife, difficulties with in-laws, domestic violence and economic abandonment.

This is a topic I know too well.  I don't even have to deal with many of the repercussions that many women do, but i know the pain that comes from not being able to bear a child.  God has used my infertility as a great blessing to us, we have children from Colombia and Ethiopia and without a very hard dry season of infertility we wouldn't have know the beauty of adoption.  It has taught us so much, we have a new deeper understanding of all that the Father has done for us and we better understand that he adopted us for his great pleasure.  but for many cultures infertility is viewed much differently and adoption isn't even in their vocabulary.

Let's read a portion of the book:  "I am barren.  Every month I hold my breath and say a prayer--many prayers--and every month the turning moon mocks my fragile hopes as it calls forth another river of blood.  Oh God, what would I give to stem that implacable tide!
I am despised by men who don't see any purpose for me apart from bearing children.  I am pitied by women who are more favored than I, and of whom I am jealous with an intensity that sometimes borders on madness.  I am utterly alone, and full of emptiness that devours me from the inside out -- a long, slow, agonizing death of the heart.  Little by little I am being eaten alive, and one day there will be nothing left." (30 Days of Prayer for the Voiceless)

Oh Father that you would open the wombs of these women.  That you would hear their prayers just as you did with Leah and Rachel.  Oh Father, that cultures would change and women would be valued for who they are and not for how many sons they can produce.  Open eyes to see women the way that you see them.  In Jesus name Amen.

Incest

Day 11

Definition:  Sexual intercourse or other sexual activity between persons so closely related that marriage between them is legally or culturally prohibited.

68% of incest survivors were adult victims of rape or attempted rape.

In East Africa 9 out of 10 girls are abused by the people who they trust most.

A portion of the book:  "'You're a woman now Anna.'  By this , her uncle means that she can be kicked, mutilated, sold like a commodity, burnt, at the stake, raped.  'You're a woman now, Anna,' says her uncle.

When Anna closes her eyes to pray, the memory plays out in her mind. the nightmare of that night forces itself upon her against he will.  All at once she is on her uncle's farm again , in the barn.  There to see the new litter of kittens her uncle said were born early that morning.  Before she can ask him where the kittens are, his hand is on her shoulder.

There are no kittens.  Then it all happens.  Quickly.  He grabs her by each arm and pushes her into the hay.  The scream is sucked out of her chest as she is pushed harder against the ground.  Her voice is trapped somewhere between her stomach and her heart.  She can't pull away." (30 Days of Prayer for the Voiceless)

It makes me so angry and sick to type these words, to imagine what this young girl was forced to endure.  I can't begin to imagine the suffering that she faced, by someone who was supposed to love and protect her. 

Oh God, I cry out to you with an anguished soul.  I pray you would come to these children, who are victim of incest and bring your healing to them.  I pray they would allow you to minister to them as only you can.  Bring people in their lives that can help them heal and overcome this evil violation.   I pray for your justice to come here on earth as it does in heaven.  I pray these perpetrators would not get away with their crimes.  I pray government officials would diligent tin caring out justice.  In Jesus name Amen.

China

Day 10

Definition:  China is the  world's most populated country with over 1.3 billion people, 637.5 million of which are women.

The age old bias towards boys, combined with the one-child policy imposed since 1980, has produced the largest, the highest , and the longest gender imbalance in the world. 

Women, who are up to 9 months with their second or third child, may be taken to the hospital by regional population control officials for induced abortions.

A portion of the book:  "I have buried the memory of you deeply within.  My heart feels like a hardened tomb, cold, filled with no light.  But every year around this time, the time of your birth, a memory tremors through my body, sharper, more painful than the contractions that delivered you into our cruel world.

Your father was so excited that day, he was sure you would be a boy.  we drove for hours by us a week before your arrival, winding through rice fields so we could get help from a better doctor.  Your father held me to the bed, buried his face in my chest, cried with me after he quietly nodded his head at  the doctor who took you out of the room.

I wanted to scream at the doctor, "Just one!"  That's all you were, just one more girl, surly there would have been room and food enough in this country.  But no.  It is a cruel world.  Who am I to defy its rules?" (30 Days of Prayer for the Voiceless)

God created man in his own image...male and female he created them. Gen. 1:27

Oh, Father, reveal your truth to the Chinese people that one gender is not better than another.  Please Father let the value you have for women reign their hearts.  hear the cry of mothers all over China mourning for their lost daughters.  Be merciful Father.