We are going to try and recap a couple of days at a time. Power is not always a guarantee. Please excuse the typos we are exhausted.
Sunday-we arrived in ethiopia at 7am and our tour guide/family coordinator, Abel, was there to greet us at the airport. He took us to our Morning Coffee guest house where we saw our room, (nothing like an american hotel). We are the only family with a private bathroom. The other six families have to share. Praise God because there has been a lot of sickness going on here. The other six families are also the ones who are getting to take their children home this trip. it has been heartbreaking to see them with their children while ours has to stay at the orphanage, but also such a blessing to watch how the system goes.
We went to an international church sunday morning which was surprisingly all in english and very baptist. who would have thought?! We went to a fairly new restaurant after church where we all ordered the "southern fried chicken" because it was the only thing that looked familiar. it was NOT like our chicken at all. i will just say it had not been fully plucked. gross. we are laughing our heads off as i write this. that afternoon we returned to our guest house where the majority of the families were arriving. We then found out that a few of the families had been vomiting for 2 days. and we all know how if a stomach virus is around, i will get it. that night we slept pretty well until yet another man on our trip caught the virus. our room is next to the shared bathroom, we listened to him being sick all night. i shook most of the night with fever and chills and stomach pains, thinking i was dying. i just kept praying and singing hoping the full blown virus would not come. thankfully it didn't.
monday-this was probably the most emotional day of jeffrey's life. i have been so nervous and anxious, but jeff has carried almost all of the tears. :) he still hasn't really stopped crying.
we started the day with french toast. i however was still reeling from the night, but thankfully there is a doctor adopting here at our guest house and she has provided medicines for almost everyone. she has given me a patch i wear behind my ear for 3 days to stop the nausea which is miraculous. i wish i had more.
we then departed for the orphanage. i can't even explain what it felt like to pull up, get out of the bus and walk the 50 feet towards Shalom Orphanage. it felt like an eternity with our hearts racing and tears looming. They opened the big steel doors for us and the kids just went ballistic. on this day there were 27 children there, some of them outside waiting for us and they could not get enough of us. we walked through the courtyard towards the house and inside, there he was. we were not supposed to make it obvious that he is our chosen child, so we had to play with all of the kids while trying to fight through them to Journey. I pulled out cars and bubbles to play with and they went nuts over the bubbles. i was soaking wet by the time we finished. then came the soccer ball. boy does that kid have skills. that is really the only thing journey wants to play with. now we know the way to his heart. :) we were only allowed an hour with him, so it went by so very quickly.
then we went to lunch at a "golf club". ha! didn't expect that, although it really isn't much like our golf courses. we ate lunch there, spaghetti with meat sauce. found out the meat is actually sheep. we just close our eyes and scoop it in. we didn't think of this earlier, but we are basically on the equator here, so just 15 mins in the sun and we are burned. kind of nice we will come home with a tan in february though.
that night, we were allowed to go to the farewell ceremonies at two orphanages to witness each of 12 families receive their children to take home for good. can i just say wow? we helped video and photograph for each of the families. so incredibly special. the children are given to the families in traditional african outfits, they are so cute! (that also meant we got to spend another hour with journey-yay!) From then on, the children are theirs and they take them back to the guest homes. we were very prepared to be up all night listening to screaming, scared and confused children, but not a peep was heard. these children are so well trained and scheduled. they all slept like rocks.
tuesday-We started our day with pancake breakfast at 8:30am, they even put peanut butter on them like jeff and i do! We seem to wake up at 4am though every morning. Each day the time change is getting a little easier. After breakfast we went to the national museum and learned a LOT about ethiopia. it was pretty fascinating. we now have a lot of culture and info to share with journey as he gets older. We went to a beautiful outdoor restaurant to drink coffee machiattos. delicious. best coffee in the world. After lunch (more sheep meat) we got to go the orphanage again. today was during his nap, but they woke him for us. that was awesome because he was one of only a handful of kids awake, so we had so much more one on one time with him. i gave him a balloon and stickers. i think i have him hooked now. :) he honestly looks at jeffrey like he knows. he likes me, but he REALLY likes jeff. so awesome to see them bond. we just finished our dinner of more sheep meat and now we are sitting in the dark as the power just went out. we have our flashlights-thank you laurie :) guess i won't be sending this email til we get some power back..
Sunday-we arrived in ethiopia at 7am and our tour guide/family coordinator, Abel, was there to greet us at the airport. He took us to our Morning Coffee guest house where we saw our room, (nothing like an american hotel). We are the only family with a private bathroom. The other six families have to share. Praise God because there has been a lot of sickness going on here. The other six families are also the ones who are getting to take their children home this trip. it has been heartbreaking to see them with their children while ours has to stay at the orphanage, but also such a blessing to watch how the system goes.
We went to an international church sunday morning which was surprisingly all in english and very baptist. who would have thought?! We went to a fairly new restaurant after church where we all ordered the "southern fried chicken" because it was the only thing that looked familiar. it was NOT like our chicken at all. i will just say it had not been fully plucked. gross. we are laughing our heads off as i write this. that afternoon we returned to our guest house where the majority of the families were arriving. We then found out that a few of the families had been vomiting for 2 days. and we all know how if a stomach virus is around, i will get it. that night we slept pretty well until yet another man on our trip caught the virus. our room is next to the shared bathroom, we listened to him being sick all night. i shook most of the night with fever and chills and stomach pains, thinking i was dying. i just kept praying and singing hoping the full blown virus would not come. thankfully it didn't.
monday-this was probably the most emotional day of jeffrey's life. i have been so nervous and anxious, but jeff has carried almost all of the tears. :) he still hasn't really stopped crying.
we started the day with french toast. i however was still reeling from the night, but thankfully there is a doctor adopting here at our guest house and she has provided medicines for almost everyone. she has given me a patch i wear behind my ear for 3 days to stop the nausea which is miraculous. i wish i had more.
we then departed for the orphanage. i can't even explain what it felt like to pull up, get out of the bus and walk the 50 feet towards Shalom Orphanage. it felt like an eternity with our hearts racing and tears looming. They opened the big steel doors for us and the kids just went ballistic. on this day there were 27 children there, some of them outside waiting for us and they could not get enough of us. we walked through the courtyard towards the house and inside, there he was. we were not supposed to make it obvious that he is our chosen child, so we had to play with all of the kids while trying to fight through them to Journey. I pulled out cars and bubbles to play with and they went nuts over the bubbles. i was soaking wet by the time we finished. then came the soccer ball. boy does that kid have skills. that is really the only thing journey wants to play with. now we know the way to his heart. :) we were only allowed an hour with him, so it went by so very quickly.
then we went to lunch at a "golf club". ha! didn't expect that, although it really isn't much like our golf courses. we ate lunch there, spaghetti with meat sauce. found out the meat is actually sheep. we just close our eyes and scoop it in. we didn't think of this earlier, but we are basically on the equator here, so just 15 mins in the sun and we are burned. kind of nice we will come home with a tan in february though.
that night, we were allowed to go to the farewell ceremonies at two orphanages to witness each of 12 families receive their children to take home for good. can i just say wow? we helped video and photograph for each of the families. so incredibly special. the children are given to the families in traditional african outfits, they are so cute! (that also meant we got to spend another hour with journey-yay!) From then on, the children are theirs and they take them back to the guest homes. we were very prepared to be up all night listening to screaming, scared and confused children, but not a peep was heard. these children are so well trained and scheduled. they all slept like rocks.
tuesday-We started our day with pancake breakfast at 8:30am, they even put peanut butter on them like jeff and i do! We seem to wake up at 4am though every morning. Each day the time change is getting a little easier. After breakfast we went to the national museum and learned a LOT about ethiopia. it was pretty fascinating. we now have a lot of culture and info to share with journey as he gets older. We went to a beautiful outdoor restaurant to drink coffee machiattos. delicious. best coffee in the world. After lunch (more sheep meat) we got to go the orphanage again. today was during his nap, but they woke him for us. that was awesome because he was one of only a handful of kids awake, so we had so much more one on one time with him. i gave him a balloon and stickers. i think i have him hooked now. :) he honestly looks at jeffrey like he knows. he likes me, but he REALLY likes jeff. so awesome to see them bond. we just finished our dinner of more sheep meat and now we are sitting in the dark as the power just went out. we have our flashlights-thank you laurie :) guess i won't be sending this email til we get some power back..
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