Tomorrow We Leave

It is hard to describe this moment.

The bags are mostly packed. The house is mostly clean. Details mostly taken care of.

We're mostly there.

A few small things today: a final soccer game, ballet performance, haircut/donation to Locks of Love, put food in the house for the house sitter, host a Mother's Day lunch, final errands, and put the house in order.

That's it.

In less than 24 hours, we load our bags (way too many of them) full of gifts, donations and personal items and head to airport.

Ready or not, we're ready.

To hold this little one in our arms.
To start to live our new life instead of wondering about it.
To end the waiting pattern where she's there and we're here.

It's time to be a family.

As friends and family you have done more to encourage us with your thoughts and prayers, offers of help, hugs, and unexpected gifts than we could have imagined.

But your job isn't done yet--you have to pray us there and pray us home!

Below you will find our general itinerary and a few specific prayer requests.

Sunday--Leave home!
Tuesday--Arrive in Maseru, Lesotho!
Wednesday--Meet with government officials and go get Sunshine! Begin life as a family of 6!
Friday--First Embassy meeting for official permission to bring her home.
Thursday, May 30--Travel to Joburg, South Africa.
Friday, May 31--First of four appointments in SA for final permission to bring her home.
Sunday, June 9--Get back on a plane to fly home!
Monday, June 10--Arrive in our home city at the airport at about 11:30 a.m.


Here are some things to pray for:
1) Pray for safety: personal and emotional. We're traveling around the world with our three most precious gifts to receive a fourth. And the world is a scary, unknown place.
2) Pray for Sunshine--these next days will be filled with many things that she can't understand. Pray that she knows God's peace, his overwhelming presence, and ultimately the love that we want to share with her.
3) Pray for Josh, Katie and OG--this is a big adjustment for them. Pray they can be the excellent big siblings that they are. Pray they are changed by what they see and experience and that they can see God works and is present in this whole world he created.
4) Pray for Ana, our friend and babysitter extraordinaire. She will be travelling a week from now to join us in Lesotho. Pray for safety on her travels and that her experiences with our family, the orphanage, and others be a blessing to her.
5) Pray for me and Eric. We have a lot of emotion running through us. We're ready and we're scared, we have complete peace and faith, we have moments of fear. We're tired. We are embarking into a new realm of parenthood. We are inadequate for the task.

But this we know: God's got this. He has led us on this journey, full of ups and downs and highs and lows. He has called and we have followed. He has not brought us this far to drop us now. Every moment of the next four weeks, just like the past 2+ years, are known to him. There will be very tough moments--but you know what? it will be Good.

Because God is good, all the time.
All the time, God is good.

The ties that bind

I come from a small family. Just me, my parents and my brother. No living bio aunts or uncles. Only one set of grandparents.

I have long said that my 'family' is bigger than those born into it.

And this past weekend, I had the privilege of meeting family that was mine, in a roundabout way.

We tried to blend in at church--the only one who succeeded was
Eric who looked very much like part of the community. 

Years ago, I had an aunt (who was married, but never had children). She passed away when I was still a child. My uncle remarried--to a woman who had three daughters close to my age. For a while they lived in Florida near my grandparents. But after a time, they converted to a Mennonite lifestyle/belief system and moved to northern lower Michigan. About 4 years ago they moved to a community of like-believers in Indiana, just outside of Goshen.

My aunt passed away 24 years ago--that was the last time I saw my uncle.

Until last weekend.

This past weekend, all five of us took a road trip to meet my three step-cousins and aunt. And to visit with my uncle.

To be honest, I had to manufacture a reason to go meet them. It's a bit nerve wracking, after so many years to make yourself known, to open up your flaws and family to new people. Especially since my grandparents have treated the girls as granddaughters for many years. I was nervous I wouldn't be good enough for their social standards.

But that was just silliness.

Me and Allie, Tammy, and Jacquie

We spent the night at the oldest two sister's lovely home. They welcomed us, accommodated our food needs, provided mounds of beautiful handmade quilts to burrow under. We stayed up late into the night trading family histories and current concerns.

We shared meals at my aunt and uncle's house and at my other step-cousin and her family's farm. We worshipped together. We recognized that while we practice our faiths differently, we share similar beliefs.

And they are beautiful women. Faithful women. Women I am proud to call family.

My kids with Caroline, Jacquie's daughter

Oh and the reason that we went to visit? They run a business that does long-arm quilting. And as a gift to our adoption, they quilted an applique top that I had put together to honor, remember, and have a tangible reminder of the people that God has used to encourage us on our adoption journey. It is such a gift to be able to hold that quilt again. And they did wonderfully beautiful work on it.




I proud to say they are a part of my family, because family is bigger than the people who share blood ties. Family is as big as God's love is wide.

The beautiful part is that kids are kids everywhere you go!
And they can have fun anywhere, even when playing in a pig sty.

Question of the Hour

So, here it is, the question of the hour (or week).

Our family is flying to my parents house next weekend. The kids are totally looking forward to the trip.

I have but one worry: the body scanner. Not the invasiveness or even the radiation of it.

But the fact that I wear an underwire bra-and it will set the scanner off which will then make me subject to a "more thorough" pat-down. And I know that they have these scanners at the airport in Salt Lake (not yet here in our medium-sized town airport).

As I see it there are a few ways of handling this:
1) Bra-less (which as a woman who has nursed three children--well, I wouldn't recommend it).
2) Suck it up and spend some cash (which we don't really have right now and that I would wear but 1 time) on a new bra to make the whole security process (with three kids and tons of stuff) bearable.
3) Wear my normal bra and pray I don't get patted down (because that scanner should obviously show that the metal is a thin strip at mid-chest level--oh listening to it that way makes it sound rather suspicious.)

Of all the many parts of travelling with small children and connections and checked luggage, the part that makes me the most anxious is the security check. I guess it's time to get ready.