It’s hard to believe it’s been a whole year, and it’s hard to believe it’s been only a year. It feels like forever and an instant all wrapped into one.

But he’s completely ours now. Head to toe, a Picker Boy, and we’re absolutely in love with him.

It’s hard to imagine what we would be like today if God hadn’t hand-picked him for our family. But here’s what I know: our house would be too clean, I would be getting too much sleep, I wouldn’t be laughing enough, I wouldn’t be getting enough slimy kisses or “love hits,” Caleb would be lonely, Casey and I would be bored, and we would still be completely ignorant about the beautiful miracle that is adoption. We would understand less about God, His love for us, His calling on our lives, and what we owe Him.

And we would still be completely blind to the continent of Africa that God has placed in our hearts. When I look at the world that I lived in before we began the process to adopt Josiah, it is small, pitiful, and ridiculously self-centered. We still have a long way to go, but because of Josiah, and God’s placing him so lovingly in our family, we understand better who we are supposed to be.

Baby boy, we are so in love with you. You are the salve to a wound we didn’t know we had. Your smile could melt an iceberg, and your joy is contagious. We are honored that God has entrusted your life to us. We know He has a great work planned for you, and we can’t wait to see what that is.

I do not understand exactly why this happened, or why our agency was uninformed of this change until so late in the game.  Holt was not the only agency to be surprised by this announcement, so there was obviously some kind of terrible miscommunication between the embassy and adoption agencies.

We, of course, had already bought our plane tickets as we were planning on being in Ethiopia for our July 27th appointment with the embassy.  When we talked with our travel agent, she told us it would be close to $4,000 to change our tickets to early August.  Obviously, this was not part of our adoption budget.

We then began, with the support of our agency, to petition the embassy to give us an individual appointment so that we could travel during our original travel dates.  We have a friend that was successful in getting an individual appointment.  The embassy basically ignored us for three days, and then sent us an uninformative form e-mail 10 minutes before closing time on Friday.  They are not my favorite people now, to say the least.

After it became clear that we would be fighting with them into the next week, we decided to call our airline directly and see what they could do for us.  Imagine our shock when Casey asked them how much it would cost to change our tickets to our new travel dates and they said, “$200 each.”  Our response was, “Book it!”

We are definitely disappointed that we are delayed in traveling to bring Evelyn home.  We will now be leaving for Ethiopia on August 4.  But we know that God is in control of this.  There must be some reason that this is His plan.  We know that He was answering our prayers by allowing us to get our tickets changed for such a low price.

This week has been hard, as we are looking at 3 more weeks of waiting before we can leave, but we are trying to put our trust in Him.

In other, better news, we found out last Friday that we have been granted an adoption grant through Show Hope!  This is an incredible blessing that we were not expecting.  The grant is large enough to cover all of our post-placement and re-adoption expenses when we get Evelyn home.  Praise God!

Thank you for your continued prayers for our little girl and for our big trip coming up.

The cool part is that we will be meeting Evelyn almost a year to the day that we met Josiah.  We held Josiah for the first time on July 24, 2009, and we’ll be holding Evelyn close on July 23, 2010.  I guess we’re just destined to spend the last part of July in Ethiopia.  Wonder what we’ll be doing next July . . .

These are just a couple of the great shots he got.  You can see more on Zach’s website.  

While in Florida, we took the opportunity to meet up with our friends Jill and Russell.  They were part of our Ethiopia travel group last summer, so Nell and Josiah are adoption buddies, and they are both from the same village.

Aren’t they adorable?  It was so fun to spend time with Jill and Russell again and to meet their sons, Raleigh and Jack.  Altogether we had 5 kids under 5, so you can imagine how crazy it was.  We did manage to get some conversation in.

It’s amazing how quickly you make friends when you share your adoption experience together.  We only spent a week with Jill and Russell last summer, but it feels like we know them so much better than that.  I hope that we’re always able to keep in touch.

While we were in Florida, Josiah decided that it was finally time to become a walking man.  He had taken steps before, but on our last day at the beach he started walking consistently, and now he is definitely a walking dude, and I am one happy momma.  The more he walks, the less I have to carry him.

We had  a wonderful vacation, followed by a quick trip to Grammie and Pops’s house.  But by the end even Caleb was asking to come home.  I think we wore him out.

We’re still waiting to hear travel dates to bring Evelyn home.  Yes, we’ve been waiting FOREVER.  I really feel like we’ll hear something next week, but who knows.  Right now, I’m guessing that we’ll be traveling in late July.  We are so ready to bring our baby girl home!

If you would like to order one, please do so NOW, as we are placing our last order with the printer on Wednesday.

The winners of our giveaway are Cimbrey and Sheri!  We’ll be contacting you soon.

We are hoping to travel to Ethiopia sometime in July or early August to bring Evelyn home.

So . . . in an effort to ramp up our t-shirt fundraiser, we are having our first, and perhaps only, GIVEAWAY! On May 25, we will draw two names to receive a free t-shirt (you pick the size).

To enter the contest, do the following:

1) Blog, tweet, or facebook about our t-shirt fundraiser.  Include this link in your post: http://www.caseypicker.com/shirts
2) Leave a comment on this post telling us what you did.

That’s it! We will enter you one time for each posting (so if you blog, tweet, and facebook you will get three entries).  Please make sure to leave a comment as that will be our only way to track who is entered in the contest.

Spread the word about our t-shirts and help us raise money to cover our travel expenses!

It is very common for adoption cases in Ethiopia to be delayed or postponed, but we believe that our little girl needs to come home very soon, so we are asking God to hear our prayers and allow us to pass.  Please join us in praying specifically for the following:

• that there will be time for every case to be heard, as we are sharing our court date with many other families
• that there will be electricity
• that the judge will not be sick or unable to come
• that all of our paperwork will be complete and in order, including the paperwork from Ethiopia’s Ministry of Women’s Affairs (MOWA)
• that Evelyn’s birth mother will be present (our case cannot be approved unless she is there) and bring whatever documentation is needed, that God will bless her on her long journey to Addis, and that He will give her peace and comfort during this difficult time.
• that our case and our paperwork will find favor with the judge and that he will give us approval

We may not hear an outcome from our hearing for several days, possibly even a week, but we will let you know as soon as we hear.

“O Lord, let your ear be attentive to the prayer of your servant, and to the prayer of your servants who delight to fear your name, and give success to your servant today, and grant him mercy in the sight of this man.”                      Nehemiah 1:11

“I call upon you, for you will answer me, O God; incline your ear to me; hear my words.  Wondrously show your steadfast love, O Savior . . .”  Psalm 17:6-7

This song touches my heart as I find myself, once again, waiting for my baby to come home.  Adoption is such a raw, emotional, and challenging journey.  And this part, this period of waiting, is one of the hardest parts.  Right now my baby girl is a world away from me.  Someone else is tucking her in each night, someone else is bathing her, feeding her, and holding her when she cries.  I would do anything, anything, to bring her home. This waiting, longing, and hoping is painful, but I highly recommend it.  We all need to be reminded that we are longing for something, that we are reaching for something that seems just out of reach. We are not home yet.

This song stirs my heart and brings tears to my eyes when I think about my baby girl, but when I’m reminded that my God feels the same way about me, I am in awe.  My love and longing for our little girl is only a fraction of God’s love and longing for me.  He has my picture on His piano.  That’s one of the wonderful things about adoption and parenthood.  Every time I think I have plunged the depths of sacrifice and love for our children, I’m reminded that I haven’t even scratched the surface of God’s love and sacrifice for me.

Let it go down in the history books that Grammie bought the first dress.  And isn’t it cute?  I’ve left it hanging where I can see it everyday, as a reminder that this IS happening, that there is a little girl out there that this dress is waiting on, that she WILL wear it one day, in the next few months, and that I have lots to do to get ready for that day.

Our house has been a blur of activity over the last week as we have celebrated Easter and had family in town.  But, in the back of my mind there is a little face that never leaves.

I know that I will spend the rest of my life unpacking this adoption process, examining every detail, and marveling at God’s great provision, His wonderful plan, and His excellent care.  But here is what I’ve learned thus far.  First, I think that God is making clear to us (especially me) that we are still not the ones in control.  We had to trust Him so much with our first adoption process because it was all new, overwhelming territory, but I think that this time around I felt a little too comfortable, a little too “in control.”  This last week, I’ve felt God gently remind me, “This is out of YOUR hands.  You will have to trust ME.”  And, man, has that been challenging.  There have been so many unexpecteds with this referral, and it is so easy to be anxious about the things I don’t understand, but I know that He is in control.  I have to keep going back to what I learned as a little child:  ”When I am afraid, I will trust in YOU.”

And His provision has been so sweet, so timely.  He has held us in the palm of His hand and reminded us that when He is in control, He supplies all our needs.  We’re overwhelmed with His goodness.

And we’re greatly anticipating all that is to come.  Even though this is so different from our first adoption, we already know that nothing compares to this journey, and we are preparing ourselves to be blown away by all that He has planned.