Our Case Has Been Submitted To Court!

Our adoption paperwork has been submitted to the court! We are just waiting for a court date. I am starting to lose hope though that we will get in before the court closures (the courts close for two months during the extreme rain season). The weather has already turned cold and rainy. Even if we do get a court date, many cases do not make it through court on the first try. It is the most variable time to have your case get submitted. We may be traveling as soon as 8 weeks or as long as 6 months! I honestly do not know what to pray for because the people REALLY need the rain but my son REALLY needs to be home with his family getting medical attention. All I can pray for is God's will to be done or maybe for the courts to stay open later in the day so more cases can be processed in a shorter time :).

Kelly

Health and Food Crisis in Ethiopia

Things seem to be getting worse. WHO is reporting that there is a major health and food crisis going on right now in Ethiopia. Many countries have been hard hit by increasing food prices. Add the AIDS epidemic is killing off all the adults, and Ethiopia does not stand a chance. We complain so much in this country about our food prices or our fuel prices, but compared to the majority of the world, we live like royalty. We are so spoiled.

http://www.who.int/mediacentre/news/releases/2008/pr22/en/index.html

I am amazed at the number of people who ask us how we can afford to raise so many kids. My kids do not need new clothes, they do not need expensive toys, they do not need trips to Disney. They need a family, they need love, education, medical attention. All of which would not have been available to them without adoption. 3 of my children would have died had they not been adopted, so we are really talking a matter of life or death. All of my kids have medical needs that would not have been treated in their native countries. But more importantly, all children deserve to be loved and wanted. My kids may not have everything a family of our same income with 1 or 2 children would have. But I believe that they have everything that is important.

Please pray for the people of Ethiopia, Cambodia and Haiti (the countries my children are from). They are starving.

Kelly

Dossier in Africa!!!!!!

Our dossier (adoption paperwork) is scheduled to be in Africa today!!!!!! Our African process has officially started. And even better, the agency is confident that our case will be submitted to court before the court closure for August and Sept! I thought for sure we would not make it. God is good!

Kelly

My new "neice"

I have a very close friend in Seattle. Until our recent move, she and I coraised our children. Her family is what we miss most about Seattle. I was lucky enough though to go up and take care of her kids while she gave birth to her newest daughter, Jasmin. Here is a picture of her cuteness. Jasmin could really use prayers as she has had a difficult time with her health. So far they cannot find the cause of her illness. Please join us in prayer for Jasmin.

LAGOON!!

My wonderful mother gave our family season passes to Lagoon! Everyone in the family loves it! Here are some cute pictures of one of our latest trips there.

Grim Statistics for Children

This information comes from Unicef:

Ethiopia counts one of the largest populations of orphans in the world: 13 per cent of children throughout the country are missing parents. This represents an estimated 4.6 million children – 800,000 of whom were orphaned by HIV/AIDS. The country has seen a steady increase in the number of children becoming orphaned because of AIDS. In the past, famine, conflict and other diseases were the main factors that claimed the lives of parents

This is from The Body (awsome website with lots of information on HIV/AIDS):

By 2010, the percentage of AIDS orphans in Ethiopia will reach 43 percent -- or 2.2 million -- of all orphans in the country. "By 2010, 20 percent to 30 percent of all children under the age of 15 in 11 sub-Saharan African countries will have been orphaned even if new infections were to be prevented and some form of treatment could slow down the onset of AIDS in those living with HIV/AIDS," the study said. Ethiopia, Nigeria and the Democratic Republic of Congo are other countries where AIDS orphans are expected to increase significantly. During a three-day national conference, it was indicated that most governmental agencies in Ethiopia have not been able to develop a strategy to implement the existing HIV/AIDS policy. A major reason given for this failure, according to the study, is that the policy does not give due attention to the problem of AIDS orphans.