Caleb did amazing on the trip.  I can’t imagine a 5-year-old handling such an exhausting trip better than he did.  Our travel days, going and coming, ended up being incredibly exhausting and stressful.  Not once, but TWICE we raced through an airport only to miss our connection by seconds.  And Caleb was running along beside us.  I did fear for his life just briefly when he told the German flight attendant that she had “made a bad choice” for not letting us on the plane.

He did great during all the flights.  He slept a good deal and watched movies.  He never once complained about getting off the plane or out of his seat, even though we were on several flights that were over 8 hours long.

He crashed the first day we were in Ethiopia, as in fell asleep in the van, in the hotel lobby, and even fell asleep sitting up during supper time.  But after the first night, he seemed to adjust to the time zone.

We tried to warn Caleb about the things he would see in Ethiopia, but for the most part he seemed to be too young to fully absorb the culture shock of being in a third world country.  He only voiced concern about the poverty when we pointed it out to him.

The first day, when we met kids in Adami Tulu, he did amazingly well.  He didn’t seem to notice their poverty, or even that they didn’t speak English.  He shook hands with them, gave them hugs, and talked to them as if they understood what he was saying.

The thing that I wished I had been more prepared for was the interest and curiosity that followed Caleb everywhere.  Even the adults were fascinated with “the baby,” as they called him.  The kids wanted to touch his hair, hold his hands, pick him up, etc.  In many ways they are just as curious about white adults, but they’ve never seen one their own size.  And Caleb was much more intimidated by them since they were all his size or bigger.   Imagine how overwhelmed you would feel if you were surrounded by people bigger than you who were all trying to touch you and feel your hair, etc. Casey said he was beginning to feel like Caleb’s body guard.   After a day or two of that, Caleb was kind of done with the kids.  He still went with us to the Children’s Church, but we tried to keep him close to us and give him some space from the kids.  Our travel team was a great help with this.  They picked Caleb up when the kids started to swarm, and they helped him find things to do when he got bored.

Since he was the only kid traveling with the team, he got lots of attention.  He became the unofficial team mascot.  He quickly learned who had iPads or Phones with games.  He really loved the people we traveled with, and still talks about all of them, especially “Aaron Klein.”

He also made great friends with the Ethiopian adults that we spent time with.  Just yesterday he was telling me how much he missed Tsegaw, Berhani, and Solomon.

From the moment we decided to bring Caleb, I knew that food was going to be an issue.  I didn’t want to have fights with him over whether or not he would eat something.  I know that foreign food can get overwhelming.  The most important thing to me was that he was never ugly or offensive about the food.  We coached him on this several times, and I think he did really well.  He opted out of most meals, and instead ate snacks that I had brought, but he managed to sit at the table with everyone and keep the complaining to a minimum.  There were a couple things he did enjoy about African meals, namely Orange Fanta.  He rarely gets to drink “cokes” here at home, so having several Fantas a day was a real treat.

Overall, I’m glad that we chose to bring Caleb with us.  I think it was a great learning experience for him, plus a chance for him to have a memorable adventure with Momma and Daddy.  One of our parenting goals is to raise kids with compassionate, generous hearts, kids who understand how blessed they are and are eager to share those blessings.  This was the first step for Caleb.  Seeing the need and the poverty will give him a foundation for understanding his calling to reach out to the poor and vulnerable and to be one of God’s agents of justice in the world.

My prayer for him is that he will grow up loving people that are different from him, that he will not experience the intense culture shock that many Americans feel because he will never live under the illusion that the whole world is like America.

I’m so proud of my little guy.  He wants to go back to Africa, just like his mommy.  I look forward to many more African adventures with all of my kids in the future.

Oh Ethiopia . . . how I love you. I didn’t know that I could love a country, a people, a land so different from my home like I love you.

It’s hard to believe that there was a time when Ethiopia was nothing to me, just another unknown country in Africa, a place I really knew nothing about. Now, Ethiopia is so intertwined with who we are and with who we want to be that it’s impossible to separate our love for this country from the rest of our lives.

This second trip to Ethiopia allowed us to see and understand her in a way that we never did before. On the first trip, we were so overwhelmed by the smells, the traffic, the pollution, the different customs, the bathrooms, that in some ways it kept us from really experiencing Ethiopia. This time we weren’t distracted by these things; they were just something to giggle at . . . “Well, we’re back in Ethiopia now.”

Returning to Ethiopia was like visiting a dear friend again, and seeing that your friend is even more beautiful than you remembered, and even sicker than you had realized. With each breath, we were overwhelmed by the beauty and poverty of Ethiopia.

We weren’t as timid this time. We walked through the streets, made friends with the children, went shopping on our own, interacted with the shop keepers, and haggled over “Habesha” and “Ferenj” prices. We felt more comfortable with what was once quite uncomfortable. In short, we breathed Ethiopia in deep.

And perhaps because we were out on the streets more, the poverty hit us harder this time. The street children swarmed us in Durame, with their tattered clothes and bare feet, and we kept thinking, “Where do they sleep, where do they go home to?” And in their faces I saw my own little children, Josiah in particular, who could have easily been part of this group.

A nursing mother looked me in the eye, wanting . . . needing more than peanut butter crackers, but I didn’t know what to do. Her gaze told me, “You can do more,” and I left thinking, “I know.”

Last summer when we left Ethiopia we knew we would be back to adopt again, and soon. This time, while we definitely want to adopt again, we don’t know when that will be. But we know we will be back in Ethiopia; we know we have so much more to do there. We’re praying now, waiting for God to show us the what, when, and how.

Returning to Ethiopia was an overwhelmingly wonderful experience. If we hadn’t missed our sweet boys so much, it would have been very hard to leave. We can’t wait to go back; we can’t wait until our children are old enough to go with us. We want them to see it, to know it and love it the way we do.

Ethiopia is in our minds, in our hearts, and in our blood now.

Special thanks to Zach Cheatham for the airport pictures.

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!

Yesterday we went on a dolphin cruise and Josiah was jamming out to the Jimmy Buffett music that was playing on the boat. We got a great video of his dance moves…

After lunch, we took our kids back to the center for their naps while we went shopping. I had been looking forward to shopping for the whole week. We went to a small shop and to the Leprosy Hospital. It was so fun to pick out Ethiopian treasures for our home and for our friends. I bought Josiah a larger traditional outfit for when he gets a little bigger, scarves for me and my moms, table runners, wooden crosses for friends, a couple Gebet games (the Ethiopian version of mankala), an Amharic bible, and some toy animals for Caleb and Josiah. I also bought a wonderful Ethiopian coffee pot, probably my favorite thing, but it got crushed in our suitcase on the way home (even though I had wrapped it in bubble wrap). I wish we had spent more time shopping. I had a wonderful time.

On Thursday, we spent most of the day in our hotel room packing to leave that night. Casey took a little shopping trip by himself (with a taxi driver who didn’t speak English) to get a couple pipes for my brothers. I stood by the window for two hours praying he found his way back. He did.

At about six that evening, we loaded up all of our stuff (imagine our luggage times seven) into two vans to head to the airport. We were so excited to be on our way home, but it was also sad to be leaving the place we had fallen in love with. The Holt nannies were standing on the balcony of the Care Center next door to our hotel. They waved goodbye to us as we pulled away.

It took us over 32 hours from the time we left our hotel until we got home. Thirty-two long, hard hours. Our flight home was very, very crowded, and the seats were small and cramped. Despite countless tries, we did not get a bulkhead seat with the baby bassinet. We ended up in the middle row. If you told me right now that I had to get on that plane and do it again I would probably start crying. I would do it, for Josiah, or Caleb, or any other child we may have someday, but I would still cry.

Casey and I took turns holding Josiah the whole way home, feeding him every three hours, changing his diaper about once an hour (he was having some issues) (have you ever changed a diaper in an airplane bathroom?), and changing his clothes almost that often. Every time we needed something for him that we couldn’t hold in our hands, we had to get our suitcase out from the overhead bin. He was a perfect, sweet little baby, but it was still the hardest flight of my life. We flew from Addis to Rome, where we stopped for gas. We sat on the tarmac for an hour while they gassed up our plane and the flight crew changed, but we weren’t allowed to get off the plane. It was hot, and crowded, and I was holding a baby, and I hadn’t slept in 24 hours. This is when I started crying, not just a few little tears, but real crying. I didn’t think I could make it. Casey took over for a little while and I got maybe an hour of sleep, the only hour of sleep I had the whole trip home.

To show you how bad the flight was, I watched the Hannah Montana Movie not once, not twice, but three times on the way from Addis to D.C. It was the only movie available that was even half-way interesting, and, as silly as it is, it felt like home.

When we finally landed in DC, we had more fun times trying to make our way through immigration. The process was actually a lot quicker and easier than we expected, but I did end up changing Josiah’s diaper and clothes (again) on the floor while we waited in line.

Two more commuter flights, one slight delay, and we were home. This is what we saw:

Such a beautiful moment. I will forever be indebted to Zach for taking pictures for us. To see more pictures from our trip and arrival home, click here.

And now that we’re all caught up, I will leave you with this, my favorite two boys, now brothers and great friends.

This day was definitely a turning point for me; this was the day when Josiah Marefu became my son and not just a cute baby we were trying to love. After meeting his birth mother the day before and traveling through his beautiful country, I felt like I knew this sweet little boy in the same way I know Caleb.

The ride home was just as enjoyable as the day before. We took a different route back to Addis so that we could see a different part of the country. About halfway home, we made another pit stop. We all bought our usual Coca-colas, which I was pleased to find is available in even the remotest parts of Ethiopia, and then I noticed that they had candy bars too, and not just any candy bars – American candy bars! That Snickers will always be the best I have ever had.

When we got back to the Union Hotel in Addis, I was anxious to run next door and scoop up our little boy, but, unfortunately, it was nap time, so we had to wait a few more hours. Casey took the opportunity to walk up the street to a grocery store. While he was out, he made friends with a little boy, named Danny, who lives across the street from the hotel.

Later that afternoon we walked next door to the Holt Care Center to take custody of our son. I expected a little more formality, a form to sign or something, but we simply walked out the door with him with no fanfare and hardly any notice.

It was so surreal to take him away from the center and back to our hotel room. It reminded me of bringing Caleb home from the hospital. I kept waiting for someone to chase us down saying, “Stop, you can’t just take that baby home with you!”

First thing on the agenda when we got back to our room was a bath for little Josiah Marefu. I scrubbed him down good and rubbed lotion all over him. He smelled so good, and it was so fun to see him in Caleb’s old footy pajamas. We spent the rest of the evening relaxing and enjoying our time with our new son.

When we went down to the hotel lobby for supper, it was wonderful to see all of the families with their new kids. I loved seeing the sweet little children, fresh and clean in their new clothes, watching their new mommies and daddies with big, round eyes. They weren’t orphans anymore. It was such a blessing to have a front row seat to watch these sweet little ones become sons and daughters. It reminded me of true redemption. Suddenly we are washed and clean; no longer lonely orphans, we have a family and a future.

On Tuesday we had our visa appointment at the US Embassy. Someone compared it to a glorified appointment at the DMV, which I felt was pretty accurate. This is only the second time I have been to a US Embassy; the US Embassy in Romania was in a beautiful, old building. The one in Ethiopia felt more like a military compound, but it was nice to see a few American faces and hear American English.

The rest of the day was spent at the hotel. We weren’t allowed to take our children out in public, so most of us opted to spend the day in the hotel with them, rather than out touring the city. No tourist sites or experiences could compete with holding and playing with our sweet babies.

At that time, I was operating under my usual scarcity philosophy. It’s a habit I often fall into without realizing it. I believed that if I acknowledged the role of a birth mother/birth family in the life of our son then I would be lessening my own role and importance in his life. I didn’t want to share motherhood with someone else; I wanted it all to myself.

But as we continued our adoption journey, as I read more, prayed more, and planned more, I couldn’t set aside the nagging whisper in my heart. Orphaned babies do not appear out of thin air, there is always a background, always a person or a family, always an undesirable circumstance, and always, always pain.

I kept imagining what I would do if I couldn’t feed or provide for Caleb. What would that feel like? What would it mean for me to purposefully choose to let another family be his family, to ask another woman to be his mom? The thought kept me up at night. Soon I was praying not only for our future son, but for his birth family, specifically his birth mother. And, without me realizing it, over the next several months God completely changed my heart.

Last spring, several weeks after we received our referral for our sweet little boy, we got word from our agency that birth family visits were now available. If we chose, we could travel the five hours south of Addis with our agency staff and visit Josiah’s birth place and his birth mother. We immediately said yes, absolutely, unequivocally yes, yes, yes. But there was still the chance that she would choose not to meet us.

The whole way out of Addis, I kept thinking about her. She had made that same trip two months earlier to appear before a judge for our adoption court date. It’s a long way there, and a long way back. What was she thinking as she traveled this road?

As we neared the village, I grew more anxious. What if she didn’t like us? What if we didn’t like her? And worse yet, what if she didn’t come?

When we arrived at the agency offices, we were assured that all of the birth families had come. We unloaded with the rest of our group, quiet and nervous. As we entered the dimly lit room, still no electricity, there was a group of Ethiopian women, and one man, huddled in a corner. They whispered quietly to each other, as they looked each of us over.

One of the social workers stood in the center of the group and explained to us in English that, as there were only three translators, we would have to take turns visiting with our birth families. He would call us out one family at a time, and we would meet in adjoining rooms for our visit. To our surprise, he called us first, “Marefu, Marefu’s family come with me.” We stood up and followed him out into a small office. As we took our seats, we heard him gently coaxing someone in the hallway. Seconds later, a young woman slowly stepped into the room.

She was so beautiful, so shy, so quiet. I’m sure she felt extremely anxious about meeting us. We were overwhelmed. We smiled, stood, mumbled some uninteligible English, and welcomed her to her seat. The translator came in and sat next to her. He was ready to get things started; I was at a complete loss. How does one begin a conversation like this? So I started with pictures. We had brought a small photo album for her with pictures of our family and our home; at the last minute I had included the most recent picture we had been sent of Josiah. When she opened the album, his picture was first. She smiled and kissed it, and my heart cracked a little.

I couldn’t help but think of how much I missed Caleb, though we had only left him a week before and would be home with him again in another week, and we had talked almost every day we had been gone. How much pain was she holding in her young heart?

And so we talked. We asked questions; she asked questions. It was difficult to really communicate through a translator, but we did the best we could. After we were finished talking, she gave us a bundle of tall grass. The translator told us that in their region the grass passed from one person to another was a symbol of a covenant. We had made a covenant to care for this child; we were so honored.

We walked back into the main room to allow other families their turn with the translator. The staff had provided the traditional Ethiopian coffee ceremony: strong coffee and popcorn. We sat close together, unable to talk. Casey got out our digital camera to show her the pictures we had taken of Marefu. She looked at them so carefully, so thoughtfully.

I felt so connected to her; I wanted to tell her so much more, to really talk with her. I knew that our time with her was slipping away. I felt so helpless, so I offered her my hand. We sat, holding hands while we waited for the other visits to conclude. After everyone was finished we went outside to take some pictures.

As we gathered in a large group, adoptive families and birth families, the social worker announced that one of the birth mothers was going to pray for us, the adoptive families. So we moved closer together and bowed our heads. I reached for her hand again as another birth mother prayed. As I listened to that prayer, in her native language, of which I understood not one syllable, I was completely overwhelmed. My heart broke in awe of my merciful God, our merciful God. The One who understands every word, in every language. The One who knows us both, Marefu’s birth mother and me, inside and out, who knew about our little boy and planned every detail of his life before the foundations of the earth. The One who has seen every tear we have shed on his behalf; the One who turns sorrow into joy, who, I pray, will turn her sorrow into joy. I sobbed, nearly uncontrollably.

After the birth mother’s prayer, Casey prayed, lifting up these precious birth families to our Father who has adopted each and everyone of us into His family.

And then it was time to say goodbye. We hugged and cried more, and finally we loaded back up in our vans with the other adoptive families. She walked to the door and held Casey’s hand through the window until we pulled away.

A day, I would almost say an hour, has not gone by since then that I have not thought of her, this woman who has given me her only son. I think of her constantly and pray that God will heal her pain and sorrow and bless her with joy and happiness in abundance. I pray that I will see her and hold her hand and hug her again. But she is always with me; I see her everyday in my son’s eyes.

I cannot wait until we are reunited forever in heaven, and I can tell her, with no translator, how grateful I am. And we will laugh and cry and talk, as only mothers can. And we will share every detail of Josiah’s life together, and “ooh” and “aah” over his first step, his first word, his first love . . .

I am so humbled right now by my amazing God. I have to praise Him for not letting my selfish, stubborn heart get in the way of having this wonderful meeting. As we went to bed that night, Casey and I kept saying to each other, “What if we had missed this?”

And what will we tell Josiah? What will we tell our precious little “God has saved; God has healed”? In his journal that night, I began with, “You were born in the most beautiful place on earth . . .” I cannot wait to see his life unfold, to see all that God has planned for our little one.