Ethiopia Trip #1: Perception of Ethiopia

So what do you know about Ethiopia? 

You probably know it's in Africa.  But where?  East?  West?  South?  North?  Could you put your finger immediately on it if you were given a map?  Is it on the coast? 

What about the weather?  It's Africa right?....so it must be pretty hot.  Right?  Every movie you've seen of Africa is either deserts or jungle....so it has to be either hot and dry or hot and wet.  Right? 

How about animals?  Africa means Elephants, giraffes, crocodiles, and monkeys. 


OK let's be done with the guessing game.  Let me tell you about the country of Ethiopia that we continue to fall deeper in love with.

Ethiopia is located in Eastern Africa in an area referred to as the Horn of Africa.....because it looks like a horn.  See that was easy.   Ethiopia is a land locked country.  This creates some problems for the country....which you can probably imagine.  Importing things isn't easy or cheap. 

We talked to several people about cars particularly.  Most vehicles are old Toyota's.  Taxi cabs are early 90's Lavda's from Russia.  HOWEVER....a nice shape 92 Toyota Corolla would still cost 15k US!!!  There are a couple Chinese car manufacturers in country, but everyone says they're garbage and parts are hard to come by.  If you can figure out how to cheaply import Toyota's to Ethiopia you're golden!

Ethiopia is not a desert.  Though there are tiny parts of the country that are the edge of deserts.  It is not a jungle either.  I think of Ethiopia as lush.  It's green.  When I was a kid in the 80's we saw the massive drought in Ethiopia where thousands died of malnutrition......that's not Ethiopia today. Check out this picture we took just outside the city.   Be honest, if I hadn't told you where I that was...would you have guessed?  Doubtful.

 

Here are pictures from outside our house and from the top of a mountain looking down on Addis. 

Average temperature most of the year is in the mid-70's.  In rainy season (when we were there....Aug, Sept some of Oct) it's in the low to mid 60's and damp.  Since it doesn't get super cold few people have heaters.....so damp is everywhere.  Not exactly what you think of when you think Africa huh?

While we're at it, let's talk elevation.  Addis Ababa is HIGH.  You know when it's football season and everyone talks about playing in Denver and how the teams need oxygen and so forth.  Addis looks down on Denver.  Elevation in Denver is 5,690 ft.  Addis elevation is 7,726 feet.  I would get winded jogging up stairs.

 OK animals.  Yes there are giraffe's and elephants and hippos and so forth....but not in the quantities that you think.  When most people think of African animals, you're really thinking of Kenya.  Kenya is known for it's Safari tours.  So yes they're here, but much like the jungle that's not really here....neither are the animals like you think of in Tarzan movies.

But speaking of animals.....there are goats, and sheep, and cows all over the place....including walking across the city.  Actually the night we left there was a traffic jam because a cow was killed crossing a road by being hit with a car.  Boys about Corban's age take care of these flocks that roam around.  We actually called this trip.....the whip trip.  It seemed like all these boys discovered whips.  They cracked them for fun from dawn till dusk. 

Ethiopia Trip #1: Our little man!

I call it "the moment".  It's that instance when we get to meet our child for the first time.  The moment that someone puts our child in Marjorie's arms.  Each has been different.

We woke at 7.  Showered and got ready.  Our awesome cook at our guesthouse made us breakfast.  It's one of those days that is going to change the rest of your life.  I was way more nervous than Marjorie was.

We got our ride to the St. Thomas Center where he's staying.  We met the sister who took us up to his room.  The toddler room has 10 or so cribs lining the walls.  As soon as we walked in we saw him across the room.  There's our son.  The sister asked if we remember which one he is.  We point to him and she smiles...we know our boy.  She walks over and picks him up and carry's him over to Marjorie.

He just sits.  No tears.  No noise.  Just sitting, looking, watching.  We gave him some cars which he held on to.

 And then slowly he was OK with us.

That first day was just OK.  He kind of flirted around the room playing with toys.  He'd stop in with some of the workers to get hugs and kisses and tickles.  He'd hide in corners waiting for us to "find" him.  He was hesitant with us....which was OK.  We didn't want to push things that first day.

What we loved from that first day was feeding him lunch.  This boy can EAT!  We were given a big bowl full of squished up pasta and tomatoes.  We're talking a portion size that I would eat.  This dude ate the whole thing!!!  I don't know how he can open his mouth this much!  (sorry for the dark picture)

Day 2 was way better.  He was much more engaged with us on day 2.  As soon as we walked in the door he recognized us and smiled.  He came to us willingly.  We gave him a picture book of our family and the boys and he played with those pictures all morning.  It was awesome.  Daddy and E played with a ball for awhile.  He's a quiet little guy, but he giggled and smiled when we played.

 

 Toward the end of the morning we tried hard to get a picture of the three of us (the one we used in our announcement post)....he didn't really wanna look at the camera.  So we had a lot of bad ones.  HA

 

We want this guy to come home soon.  It was great to get to know him a bit.....but he needs to be in our house now. 

Ethiopia Trip #1: The Basics

My goal is to have a blog a day this week....or close to it.  We've been running crazy since the moment our plane landed in the states and we're honestly still struggling to just do real life....but we know we need to update you all on what went down.  So let's start with the basics.

-First off, I've been telling everyone.....the trip was FABULOUS!  Such an awesome time.

-We got to meet our son for the first time.  We spent a few hours on Monday and Tuesday of our trip with him (more on all of that in another post).  Suffice it to say that HE IS AWESOME!

-We cleared Ethiopian court (which we shared with you from Ethiopia).  This basically means the country of Ethiopia recognizes Elias as our son now.

-So why didn't he come home with you?  Well the United States government now has to have their say.  All our paperwork (and some more that we're adding to it this week) goes to the US Embassy in Ethiopia.  They go through it and make sure everything looks good.  They've already approved us to bring A child in the US.....now they have to say that THIS child is the one.

-Any idea how long that will take?  They tell us 6-8 weeks.  Could be sooner.  Could be longer.  We've done this enough to not put time tables and hopes on things. 

-This will sound silly.....but bear with me......if you could take out the fact that we got to meet our son for the first time, and take out the fact that we cleared court......this would've still been an awesome trip.  We got to see things we've never seen in Ethiopia before.  We got to go places we haven't gone before.  We met new friends, we caught up with old friends.  We tried new places to eat and new foods.  We'll try to share some of this side of our trip in the coming days as well.

FOR YOU:
-Prayer.  We aren't done yet.  We need you to pray us the whole way through this thing.  There are still lots of details that need to be worked on...which we'll be sharing in the coming days.  Today literally we're finishing more paperwork....cause you know we haven't done enough yet.

-Also pray for little E.  We want him home now.  We want him to be safe and loved up on.

Stay Tuned......

I know many of you want updates since we're back.  It's coming!  I promise. 

We're just trying to catch up to "real life".  We're swamped and tired.  We have a couple posts that are in the works.....we just need a spare minute to breath and then we'll be getting at it.  Bear with us.

Introducing......( for real this time!!!!)

I'm wearing a tie.  You know something is going on if I'm wearing a tie.  Today was a good day.

About two hours ago we appeared before an Ethiopian judge.  The judge asked us questions that we've answered a million times before while doing paperwork..."will you do all the follow up paperwork?"  Etc.

Then she said some very magical words. She said,"this boy is now officially yours."

So we are now legally (Kathy our social worker just told me so) allowed to post pictures of our son.

So I would like I officially introduce you to Elias Dereje Reinard. 

Just to be clear....this DOES NOT mean that he gets to come home with us.  But as far as the government of Ethiopia is concerned he is our son.  The United States now gets to process our paperwork one more time.  Then we get to fly back over here to come to the US embassy and finish it off and come home. 

Sooooo please continue to pray this cute little man through.  We really want the US  to get things moving.

Who's in the details?

Not much longer and we're off to Ethiopia.  The last 5 days have been frantic, stressful, joyful, hopeful and wild (probably a bunch of other words that end in ful). 

They say that the devil is in the details.  I get the expression and all.  I'm not a detail person.  That's why I married Marjorie.  Details frustrate me to no end.  That said, I've seen nothing but God's hand working in the last 5 days.

We shared with you in our last post that we were struggling to find a flight.  It was easy to fly into Addis Ababa, but extremely hard to get out.  I literally spent most of two days looking for flights.  We needed to get there, but we also wanted to be good stewards of the money that has been donated.  This was extremely hard because of the season that we have to go, and the quickness that we had to go. 

We found a flight.  Round trip out of Washington DC.  Good connection.  Not too long of a layover in either direction.  AND it stays out of the Middle East, which if you read the news, you know is a "no go" zone for American's right now.

Not only did we find a flight.....but later that day we got a call from a travel agency that we've worked with to fly internationally before.  They asked what I found and I told them.  I also told them the price.  She was very impressed.  She said I got a very good rate and that they were struggling to find anything that good.  MAN does that make me feel good.

We have a place to stay.  We have drivers.  Just a few minutes ago, I found out we have a cell phone while we're in Addis.  We have connected with other families who will be going to court with us.  We're hoping to have a celebration dinner with them after court next Wednesday.  We have free wifi so we should be updating you from Addis.....but then again....it's Ethiopia....so who knows.

Where I was overwhelmed last Friday and Saturday, I've seen detail after detail fall into place.  We're not done yet.  We're not on the plane yet.  There are still lots of things that we have to do in the VERY near future.....but man it's been amazing.  God is good!



FOR YOU:
-Prayers are still needed and appreciated. 
That all the details work smoothly. 
That all our travels will go smoothly.
That our court appearance goes super smoothly and we can report back to you.

We're Going!!!!!!

I was at home cleaning the basement of all things. The phone rang. I charged upstairs to get it.

Hello?

Aaron this is K from Children's House. Are you ready to go to Ethiopia? Because you need to go now.

What?


THIS IS FOR REAL!!!!!

You've been praying and we've been praying and now we're going.  We have a court date in Ethiopia in a week and a half.  We have to fly there in a week.  Our brains are overloaded with information and details that need done, and freaking out.

We get to meet our son face to face in a very short time.

We'll obviously let you know what's going on.....when we know more.
God is GOOD!

FOR YOU:

-As we're looking into tickets, and it is crazy!!! They significantly more expensive because they're last minute and because of the time of year.  Also....there seems to be few flights coming home.  One airline gave us the option to come home in early September because that was the first flight they had openings on......and were kind of shocked we weren't OK spending 3+ weeks in Ethiopia.....which would be nice....but not very practical.  HA

-We are stressed.  We have lots to do in a very short amount of time.  We also don't want to lose our focus.

ANSWERS TO PRAYER:
-We found out yesterday that we have to do an extra piece of paperwork because of some changes that are beyond our control.  That single piece of paperwork is going to cost a couple hundred dollars.  HOWEVER....yesterday morning someone donated some new appliances to us to sell.  Bill taken care of.

-C and T were already going to my parents house to go camping the week that we need to be in Ethiopia.  Childcare taken care of.