A Whole New World

22 months ago, God placed a call on our hearts... Tomorrow, the final leg of that calling will bear so much fruit, as we finally get to go to Ethiopia to pick up our son and bring him HOME. The time has come. That time is now :)

The 22 months of paperwork, tears, abundant joys, numerous blessings, fervent prayers, God's razzle-dazzle, and the amazing help from so many have bolstered us to this moment! We leave tomorrow... ahhhhh, we are so excited. The hardships of this journey have faded into our past.

There are so, so many that have prayed for us, bought a t-shirt from us, ate a taco dinner with us, bought a piece of jewelry or 2 to help us, donated to our on-line charity, or made out a check on our behalf to our church! We are humbled to be helped by so many by a check in the mail with an encouraging note, young people collecting pop cans, a 6th-grade class choosing our family as a charity they wanted to support, children saving their allowance for months and donating it to us to help us get Asher home. How does one take in that kind of generosity? Praise the Lord, Hallelujah! So many have been the hands and feet of Jesus for us. This humbling support and encouragement and prayer and generosity exists, because we serve an amazingly giving and loving God. We are so grateful to sooooooo many!

We arrive in Ethiopia on Wednesday this week on Ethiopia's New Year's Day... Don't think that is by happenstance, people. That is God's perfect timing for our NEW family, new family in Christ! What we are in store for on the other end with Asher leaving his friends, his homeland, his people, his father and brother, his language, his only real home for the last 6 months, we have no idea, but we do know that God will be in every detail!!

I will get to drop our boys off at school tomorrow morning to say goodbye - tears will flow on that car ride home, I can assure you, but our kids are being tended to by a faithful and loving aunt, which makes leaving that much easier! Our bags are packed full to the brim with not only orphanage donations packed by a sweet college student using her church's kingdom money but also photo albums we are taking to other children at the orphanage who have not yet met their parents. What a blessing we get to be!!

I also packed Asher's first pair of shoes and his first pair of socks and his first blanket and his first set of toys all his own. His baseball cap says USA :) His plane backpack is packed for the way home with all sorts of goodies, and he has a ticket to America - seat 33H!!! He gets a window seat to a whole new world. Praise the Lord!

Please keep praying, prayer warriors, as we begin this new chapter in our lives as a family of 6, and our window seat to a whole new world :)

Blessings!