We are buying tickets!

Adoption Advocates (our agency) contacted us and told us that we can go ahead and secure our plane tickets! Yeah! Our court day was today in Addis Ababa and our U.S. Embassy appointment is on January 31st. That means Daryn and I are leaving on January 27th and will be back on February 3rd with Anteneh! We can hardly believe that it is happening so quickly...what a blessing. Today I bought Anteneh a toothbrush and a small backpack for the plane ride. It's crazy to wonder if he will even know how to wear a backpack or how to brush his teeth. I read about another parent who adopted from Ethiopia who had the hardest time getting her daughter to sit in the bathtub because it was such a foreign experience. I'd say we are in for an adventure...another HUGE PRAISE is that we received the donation from the incredibly generous lady mentioned in our previous post about the day we found out-December 11th...What a blessing her donation is...and we still hope to find out about our Steven Curtis Chapman adoption grant soon! Praise God!

Moving Fairly Quickly

On December 23rd we got an email from our adoption agency that said we have been added to the end of a group of adoptive parents waiting to travel...this is good news to us because if we wouldn't have made the cut to join this group in time, we think we would've had to wait for the next group of parents to fill up...this would mean waiting for 4-6 other parent sets to get referrals...see, we will be traveling with 4-6 other parent sets to Ethiopia to get our kids together. We will meet them when we arrive in Addis Ababa, we think. We have never done this before so we are not certain about everything but it seems this is what is going on! Haha...

Now, we should know by the end of the week when the appointment is for our case to come before the Ethiopian court. This should be some time in January and we don't have to be present for this. Then we should travel shortly after that. I believe we will also find out this week when our appointment is at the embassy in Addis. This we DO have to be at in person. That means we might know our travel plans soon!

Here is another picture of Anteneh...we converted his height and weight to inches and pounds and we're a little amazed at how thin he is...he's 39 inches tall (which is 5 inches taller than Luke) yet he weighs only 24 lbs (2 pounds LESS than Luke). It's hard to tell from these pictures. I have been trying to guess what his clothing size will be as I'm VERY eager to buy him some clothes for the trip to the US!

Our Little Boy

Everyone, meet Anteneh!

For the last year, Daryn and I have been in the process of adopting from Ethiopia (for those of you that don't know this already)...December 11th was a big day for us...
We got a call from our agency that afternoon that they have a little boy for us! His name is Anteneh and he is 3 years old...he lost his parents as a baby and ...well, I will copy and paste the child report...
Child report.
Name: Anteneh Mesgebu
Date of birth: 3 years old
Ethiopian Baby Boy
Date of Admission:
Background information and History.
Baby Anteneh came to our children house from the SeleEnat orphanage. The orphanage asked for the assistance of our office to find long term support for the child and thus he joined our children house.
Baby Anteneh is a three year old boy. He weights 11 kg and is 99 cm tall. He has taken a laboratory examination to check if he is free from HIV, Hepatitis B and C. His results have confirmed that he is free from all and can lead a normal life. He is a healthy looking boy with good appetite and sleeping habit. He is a bright and active boy who tries to get along with children of his age and adults quickly. He can communicate well and express himself. He is well mannered and polite. Anteneh likes listening to stories and playing soccer. He also enjoys playing with his toy cars; he carries them every where and tries to sound like a car with vooo…. Sound always. He shows certain inclination towards schooling and other related activities. He is a charming boy who is peaceful and doesn’t involve in conflict situations much. Anteneh is toilet trained so he needs no diaper both during the day and night. He has proper body shape size and function with good physical appearance. His general physical condition is good with promising developmental progresses and this implies that he can have a bright future. It is certain that he will grow better if he is placed in a normal family setting where he can feel loved and supported.
Recommendation:
Baby Anteneh is a bright and charming little boy who has lost his parents at a very early age. It would be best for his general development if he finds a warm and loving family that can nurture him with parental love, care and all the necessary provisions.
December 7th 2006
Miriam Tesfaye.

If any of you know Luke...well-he carries cars around, too...they will be good friends once he learns to share his daddy!
Anteneh mean, "you are only one" -not sure exactly what that means...
but here is another cool part to the story...
5 minutes after we got the call from the agency about Anteneh, Daryn got a call from a woman we've never met before who was given our number from our church...she doesn't go to our church but has in the past...she said she had just heard a radio show about african adoption a few weeks ago and since felt the Lord telling her specifically to donate her cashed in vacation time to a couple who was adopting...well, she chose our church to call and they gave her daryn's number b/c he works with orphans through his job...so, she told daryn all this and said, "do you know any couples at your church who are adopting?" and daryn said, "actually, ME!" and he told her about how 5 minutes before, we got THE call about a little 3 year old boy...the lady burst into tears and praised God for telling her to give the money! Isn't that CRAZY!!!??? we don't know the lady, we've never asked anyone for money for our adoption...we've been praying about it for a year, though-and God obviously is working the details out!
So, we are very excited...it now should be 2-6 months until we travel to Ethiopia to get him...
Now, what we really need to pray for is 1) That God will provide for the rest of the expenses...(we also find out this month if we will receive any grant money from an organization that we applied with) and 2) for Ahteneh! and 3) that the timing would work out -because we don't have much choice in when we travel to Ethiopia but Daryn's foreign travel schedule is filling up for work..hopefully the dates don't conflict...4) that we will be able to find people to help us with Grace or Luke while we travel to Africa...how they do while we are gone is a big concern of mine...
Thanks for the support and prayers and sharing our excitement!!!...
Love you all!!!
Daryn and Brooke