Court Day,

    I want to start off to explain what this court date was for.  Normally there is a preliminary hearing where the birth mother or the relative that relinquished the child attends.  Since our birth mother has missed two hearings, the judge ordered for a police search for her.  We went ahead and came to Ethiopia to do our part for the court which is pretty much giving your consent that this is the child you want to adopt.  Some of the questions the judge asked were "Are we prepared to answer his questions when he grows up about the adoption?"  "Do we love the child" "Do we have friends that have adopted from Ethiopia for him to play with" "She asked us if we have any biological children of our own and if they were excited"  She asked if we had spent the time in country learning about Ehiopian country"  It was pretty much that quick.  It was a very surreal experience.  We have been waiting 18 months to get in front of a judge to tell her how much we love this child and it was really happening.  She did say that she is waiting on the police report to declare him officially ours!  We walked out of the room and I looked at John and he was crying.  I love that man!!!  
    We rushed back to the transition house to hurry and get changed because we were going to feed the monkeys, visit an orphanage, and then go see Woudneh (West Sands School).  At the orphanage there were about 7 children playing outside when we got there.  They hurried over to us an immediately took our hands.  We started playing soccer, which they killed us!!  I then took a couple with me just to hug on them and tell them they are loved.  We sang "jesus loves me several times" and "this little light on mine"  It was so hard to leave them not knowing if they will get a family.
    Later, Woudneh took us to the school that he built for West Sands.  It is in amazing school that holds around 200 children.  The children were so happy!!  Woudneh has to be one of the most interesting person I have ever met.  It is also really cool to see if him work so hard for these children.  Woudneh is definitely one of kind.  He love Jesus and wants the best for these children and for the Ehiopian country.

Hello from Ethiopia!!

    The first thing I’d like to do is set the scene for where I am writing this post.  Jenn and I are perched high atop the transition house on a sundeck we did not know existed until Early this morning.  5 stories up is a really good vantage point in a town where there are not many 5 story buildings.  We are sitting on Route 4 which connects the northern border, and the only access to a port, to the southern part of the country.  This is entertainment at its finest.  To say that Ethiopia’s traffic laws are fluid is an understatement.  Just in the last hour this road, which has no markings, lights, or stop signs has been among other things:

·        - Three laned expressway headed South

·         -Three laned Expressway headed North

·        - Four laned Expressway heading in both directions

·       -  Complete standstill traffic

·       -  Deserted

·        - Oh and I forgot to mention the cow that stopped traffic for about a minute

I have no idea how a country with ZERO traffic laws has no accidents…..Lots of close calls….. but no accidents.  And we, with our bazillion traffic laws, rules, and regulations are overrun with fender binders. But I digress….

    Micah is precious.   We met him about 8:00 Saturday morning and spent about 45 minutes with him.  After we got settled in, our Ethiopian coordinator for our agency, Lesley, who lives in Ky, has been here at the transition house for a week and Jennifer got to meet her for the first time.  Later we got to eat lunch with Woudneh, the director here at the transition home, and then go eat the traditional dinner complete with tribal dances from all across the country.  Both Jenn and I got up on stage and showed them that we could hang with them in some of the dances but only Jenn got called back up for a 8-10 minute encore.  They loved it…… and so did she.

    The past two days, we have been in the transition home the entire day and can I just say, what a difference a couple of days makes in the life of an orphan.  His personality has come alive and he is cooing, laughing, crying, burping, passing gas, and all the other wonderful things babies do with their parents.    He is pushing up on his belly and trying to roll over, which is a huge improvement from Saturday and we were able to show him the picture book we made him and he was studying the pics of JT and Rhett very intently.  He now recognizes Jenn when she walks into the room and lights up when he sees her.  He is big and healthy with a head full of hair.  It has truly been a fantastic couple of days.

   Can’t wait to see what’s in store for the rest of the week.  Please continue to pray for the nannies and caregivers here at West Sands and Woudneh who is truly a remarkable man.  Pray for his wife Betty who is off to Washington DC with 3 of their kids for 5 weeks while Woudneh holds down the fort.  Pray for Jenn and I as we go sight-seeing tomorrow and for our court date to go well Friday.  Lots more to do.  We’ll keep you posted.

P.S.  we have absolutely loved getting to spend time with the kids here at the transition home. The older ones take such good care of them and nannies are always on top of everything.  Love you guys continue to join us in prayer and we will see you soon.

Can we just go??

We are not the first and certainly won't be the last couple to say that to each other after the roller coaster ride we have been on the last month. And as it turns out, the answer to that question was yes!
Picking up where Jenn left off last week, the police/orphanage did find the birth mom last week and allowed her to take our court date (today) to do the preliminary hearing. However, the birth mom went MIA again on Tuesday and after talking to West Sands we requested that they allow us to go ahead and come to court to do our part and give consent now that the preliminary hearing was going to be delayed significantly.  To our surprise they agreed given the circumstances, and early this morning Woudneh went to court to request that very thing. Unfortunately, the judge gave our hearing time to someone else because they knew we didn't have the birth mom and therefore he was unable to ask the judge to ok our hearing. He has a hearing on Friday to make that request.
Now, back to our dilemma.  This next week sets up really well for us to travel with our jobs, and everyone at West Sands not only believe the judge will grant our hearing, but also do it quickly given the impending rainy season. So do we go ahead and go and spend next week with Micah and wait for a hearing or wait for the court date and then head over there. I had my opinion, but when I called Jenn at work and told her that Woodneh was unable to get clearance, her response was the same as mine "Can we just go?"
So tomorrow we are leaving Birmingham for D.C. and Friday morning we will be headed to Addis. I can't tell you what it feels like to know that Saturday morning I will finally get to hold Micah.  
As I see it one of four things will happen:
1.) the judge oks everything and we get a court date next week and we come home next Friday as planned.
2.) the judge oks everything but gives us a court date for the following week and we have to stay longer than expected.
3.) the judge oks everything but is unable to give us a court date before the rainy season and we come home
4.) the unknown option known as TIA (This is Africa)
The common denominator in all of these is that we get to see Micah and visit the orphanages and see first hand what eyesthatsee.org, (un)Adopted, West Sands, and other great organizations are doing, and have the life altering experience we have been preparing for for over a year.
So for those of you praying for our family, please pray for us as we travel tomorrow and Friday.  For Woudneh and the court next week.  For my sweet wife.  For JT and Rhett, who are staying behind with family. And that through whatever lies in store for us that God will be glorified.
To be continued.........

Roller Coaster Ride

  First, I want to start off with a big THANK YOU to everyone that donated to help us fund our airplane tickets to Ethiopia.  We are completely overwhelmed with the generosity of others.  Even the prayers were much appreciated.  I believe our last total was around $900!!  My friends knew that I would never directly ask for donations to help us, so they did it for me!  We are surrounded by the most amazing friends and family!!

  As most of you know we were supposed to be flying to Ethiopia tomorrow.  On Monday we got word that Micah's birth mother did not show up for court.  In Ethiopia they have a preliminary court hearing where the birth parent or whoever took the child to the orphanage attends court.  Pretty much the only news we got was that they were looking for her.  His birth mother has done everything she needed to do up until this point so we were very shocked when she did not show up.  The past few days have been really hard.  We know that God already has everything planned out and He knows what is best for everyone involved, but it still hurt....  It is very hard to explain the love that John and I already have for Micah.  We will fight for him just like we would if it was JT or Rhett over there.  At one point John even called his friend that runs Eyes That See to ask if it would be possible for him to go over there and find her himself.  Matt explained to us that things work a lot different in Africa and it wouldn't be any help to our situation.  I had a very wise friend, Deidre, tell me that God is just not done writing Micah's story.  John and I both know this and we could not imagine going through this without having such a strong faith in our Lord.


  Today I got a call from Lesley (Ethiopian coordinator) and she tells me they found her!!!  She will be attending court sometime next week and we will then find out our new court date.  I can't even begin to describe the relief I felt at that moment!  We ask that you please pray that everything goes smoothly with her court date and we can travel to see our little man very soon.  Thank you again for all of the prayers so far!!  They have truly helped make a difficult roller coaster ride a little easier.  I will update again as soon as I know more details.

BLOG TAKE-OVER: Get the Junkins to Ethiopia!!!

As friends of the Junkins, we have taken over their blog for the next 48 hours.  John and Jennifer will be leaving THIS Thursday to make their way to Ethiopia to meet their sweet baby boy Micah!  Now, it is not very cheap to fly to Ethiopia...so, the purpose of this blog take-over is to raise the money they need to get there.  It is time for us, as family and friends, to bless them financially.  We need to raise $4400 for their plane tickets.  Let's do it!!  The paypal link is on this site.  Also, please be in prayer for them as they travel, meet Micah, go through their court appointment to adopt, and serve the people that they meet there.  We can also leave them some encouragement in the comments section of this post. 

Now, go for it!  Bless the Junkins like crazy!!!

What the Lord can do in just TWO weeks!

I know it has been a while since I have updated, but there really has not been much to update on.  Well, in the last two weeks we got a referral for a 5 month old baby boy and we received a court date for July 18th!!!!  There have been moments where I just have to sit down and remind myself to breathe!!

First, I want to tell you about our beautiful little boy that will soon be in our arms.  I told my husband that I would like for him to get the referral phone call.  I was able to tell him that he was going to be a daddy with our other two boys, so I wanted him to be the first to know that we are going to be parents again.  On June 20th around 6:45pm we were at the pool letting our four year old swim with daddy.  JT and I were sitting outside the pool playing battleship on the Ipad. (He has broken arm so no swimming for him).  John's phone started ringing and I looked at the caller id.  It was Lesley!!!  I walked over to the pool and calmly said "John, you may want to take this call".  He answered and after a few seconds started grinning ear to ear!  He got off the phone and I said "is this it?"  He grinned and said "it's a baby boy!".  Well, I then started screaming at the boys to hurry and get in the car!  I remember running to the car and I could hear John's voice behind me saying "no running".  We got in the car and he looked at me and said we are going to go into the house and get the boys dressed and we are going to calmly sit down in front of the computer and call Lesley back.  (Yeah right!)  When we called Lesley she said open up your email and you will see his picture.  Oh, what a beautiful sight when you see your child for the first time.  There are no words to describe it.  Our little man has a head full of black hair, beautiful black eyes, and the sweetest lips!!  I wish I could show you a picture of him, but until we pass court we are not allowed to post any pictures. He is absolutely precious!!!

Yesterday was another day that took our breath away!!  Lesley called me while I was at work at the hospital and told me we had a court date for July 18th.  She said need to be in the country by the 16th!
So, we will probably be leaving next Friday morning to Ethiopia.  I am completely overwhelmed with how fast God is working!  We are trying to hold on tight and just take it all in!!  I will update again as soon as I get a minute from packing.