Adoption Update

Our homestudy for baby #3 is finished! YAY! In fact, ALL of our papers are done. We are just waiting for some of them to be notarized, and for the homestudy to be authorized, and then everything will be sent to our agency, Love Basket. They will check it, translate it into Amharic, and send it off to Addis Ababa. So, there are a few more little steps, but our prayer is that things will move quickly form here, and that everything will be in Africa by Christmas.
Our agency director told us last week that once in Addis, a referral could come in as little as a few days, or up to six months from that time. (It depends upon whether the orphans in the orphanage at that time are actually adoptable or not, or if their histories are unknown without papers that would get them legally into the United States.) Still, six months isn't a very long wait!
Honestly, this adoption process has been so much easier than it was for the other two adoptions. I don't know if it is because the Ethiopian process is easier (it is fairly straightforward and uncomplicated), or if because this is becoming old hat for us. Or maybe, we're just sooooooooo anxious to meet this new baby, and get to know this precious soul, that the paperwork, fingerprints, fees, notarizations, recomendations, and authentications don't seem like a hassle at all. I mean, what wouldn't YOU do, or pay, to get your child out of bondage? What ransom wouldn't you pay to set your child free from life in a third world orphanage without medical care, proper nutrition, clean water; to keep them safe, watch them grow, and give them a forever family? Christ paid a HUGE ransom for me-to give me life- abundantly-and a family, and I didn't deserve it at all. Children, on the other hand, deserve it. What's a few mounds of paperwork? ;)
If you have a few minutes, watch this video! It's famous in the adoption world, and beautiful. Steven Curtis Chapman wrote it after adopting his daughter from China. Blessings,

Time with Dad

Tim and J. have been spending a lot of bonding time together since he's been home. Last week, Tim took J. to get his citizenship cetificate at US Customs and Immigration. J. had a lot of fun manning the camera this day...J. has been a citizen of the US, technically, since his arrival into the US with US born parents-us. However, in order to prove such citizenship, one must apply for the N-600 through USCIS, pay a fee, supply mounds of documents, and go to the local immigration for an interview. After which, you are granted a certificate proving that you are actually a citizen. When must one prove he or she is a citizen of the US? I'm not sure....but Tim needed proof for his job, so we had to go through this arduous process. Tim did most of the talking for J.'s interview, obviously, and the little man passed with flying colors, and was warmly welcomed to the United States with a certificate lined with the same print as that that is on the US dollar.

Hmmm.... "It looks like money," I told Tim when he got home. "This paper IS money!" Tim replied. He's right, I guess, on all sorts of levels.

This morning, Tim woke J. up early, and they went fishing. They came home empty handed a couple of hours later. "The fish are all gone," J. explained. "J. need to go to Papa's house. Catch fish at Papa's house. Papa's house has LOTS of fish." So, Thanksgiving morning fishing wasn't a huge success, compared to fishing at Papa's house anyway, but they had fun and started a new tradition.

We wish you a very Happy Thanksgiving!

He's just too beautiful not to post

I'm shy...

I'm tough... I'm artistic (even when I shouldn't be...)

And I'm sooooooo handsome! (Notice his hair has almost completely grown in from the haircut incident. YAY! Now we just need to get everyones' stomachs recovered from the Cool Whip incident. I think I'm going to put bungee cords and alarms on our refridgerator! And the walls still need to be restored from the blue marker incident.... oh, toddlers...)

There is No Me Without You, by Melissa Faye Greene

I've pondered what I want to say in this post for a week, and I still can't figure it out. Hence, the shock approach. I'm not usually one to communicate a passion via the shock method, nor to evangelize via the hell-fire and brimstone tactic, but the orphan situation in Africa, Ethiopia specifically, is so horrific, so atrocious, and so...unfair... that it's the only approach that seems to communicate a tenth of what I feel about African adoption.

This is Yohannes. He is an orphan in Addis Ababa, Ethiopia (where we are adopting). The boy in the picture is also Yohannes-6 weeks ealier. Yes, 6 WEEKS. In the picture=without HIV antiretrovirals. In person=with HIV antiretrovirals. It's called the Lazarus effect, and a simple drug regimine can take these children from the brink of death by AIDS to a manageable sickness that is no longer terminal. Why don't all of the AIDS orphans in Africa have these drugs?

In short=money.

Granted, the situation has gotten better since the patents expired for most of the current HIV drugs and generic companies are now allowed to produce them at reasonable prices. But the virus is mutating, as viruses do, and new drugs are needed. The poor-all over the world-will have to wait until the patents expire on these new drugs (about 8 years after the rich get to use them), before they can even consider buying the generic version. And even now, over 4 million in Africa need AIDS antiretrovirals (ARV's), while only 500,000 have access to them. Yohannes received his ARV's from WWO (World Wide Orphans).

I know some people are still hung up on HIV/AIDS as a self-inflicted disease; the "you got what you deserve" mentality. Though I believe in compassion for all, I'm not only talking about the African man who danced with infidelity and is now dying of AIDS. But I am talking about his wife and children. Consider these facts:

*It is believed that the benign (in humans) monkey version of HIV mutated into the deadly HIV we know today when it mixed in human systems with unsterile vaccinations that well-meaning doctors injected into millions in Africa in the 1950's. Whose fault is that?

*The WHO estimates that in the year 2000, 40% of injections were STILL done with reused needles.

*The WHO also estimates that these unsterile injections lead to over 100,000 new HIV infections a year, sixteen million Hep-B cases, and thirty million Hep-C cases.

*There were NO AIDS drugs in Ethiopia until 2005, and they still cost $140.00 per patient per year. That's a lot of money when the GNP is $156 a YEAR (up 5 from the worst in the world.)

*An orphan doesn't have $140.00 a year to buy life saving drugs.

*Patented antiretrovirals cost $15,000 a year per patient. The actual cost of production? Closer to $200.00 a year.

*In 2003, in America, less than 2% of babies born to HIV+ mothers tested positive for the disease. In Africa, in 2003, about 60,000 babies were born HIV+ to HIV+ mothers.

*Also in 2003, the Dr. to patient ratio was 1:134,000 in Ethiopia (nearly the worst in the world). Hence the mass vaccinations with reused needles at makeshift clinics.

*In 2005, Ethiopia had the highest number of AIDS orphans in the world (children made orphan by the disease, not necessarily + themselves) at 1,563,000. There are over 4 million orphans in Ethiopia from all causes, the second highest in Africa.

If you ever wondered from us, or have asked us

1. Why are we adopting from Africa?

2. Why Ethiopia?

3. What about HIV in African orphans? Do all AIDS orphans have AIDS?

4. What are these children coming from?

5. What are the conditions like in Africa for them?

6. What is the adjustment like for them when they arrive in America?

OR, if you just want learn the history of HIV/AIDS-all the way to its roots in monkeys in Africa-and how this disease is currently affecting humankind, how compassion can be shown to the victims, and who are the heroes of this fight, PLEASE read this book! If you are close to our family, and will be a major part of baby #3's life, I'm begging you to read this book. True, it speaks right to my passion, but I'm confident that it will touch your heart as well. There are heroes in the world today; Haregewoin Teferra being one of them, and there are many who need a hero, like 4 million of Ethiopia's orphans.

THERE IS NO ME WITHOUT YOU website where you can read more, and order your own copy: http://www.thereisnomewithoutyou.com/

Hope

Here are some pics from the past week. There are more of C. because Tim and J. went to buy a new F-150 on Halloween. Tim let Judah pick out the truck, and calls it "J.'s truck", so now J. goes everywhere telling people that he got a new truck! He enjoyed that much more than trick-or-treating. However, they both were train engineers that day for their school party. Thanks, Emma, for the costumes!

On Saturday, Tim and the boys got up before the sun to go to a Gleaning for Hope Farm. They are nation wide, and our church participates with one locally. These farmers reserve several rows of crops for benevolence purposes, and Saturday was sweet potato day. Tim and the boys picked all the potatoes they could, loaded them up in the new truck, and delivered them to an elderly neighborhood where some of the widows from church on a very fixed income reside. The boys loved digging in the dirt, getting messy, finding potatoes, and loading them into buckets. Unfortunately, the camera battery died shortly into this trip, so there aren't many pictures to work with. If you want to see something remarkable though, pull up a pick-up truck full of free sweet potatoes to an elderly village in the south. J. calls them "happy potatoes." There were many happy people today! Our homestudy for baby #3 is underway. We should be done with visits with our social worker by the end of next week, and we hope to have the report to our agency by the end of the month. As we sat on the couch with our wonderful social worker last night, I realized, "Wow! We have another baby coming home! This is really happening!" All of our paperwork should be done by the end of the year... and then we wait. Though the wait for a Filipino child is nearly two years, things move MUCH more quickly in Africa. Average wait times are 1-6 months. Happy Autumn,