Tears

It's amazing how quickly each day gets easier and better since our huge disappointment on Thursday. But still, I can spontaneously burst into tears.

On Saturday at breakfast, it was when Emily prayed for mommy not to be sad that she has to wait longer to get Alli. So many tears that I had to leave our family breakfast that Tony had made and just go to Alli's room to cry and pray.

And today, was my best day yet, until I tried to tell Tony that one of the families in our group who got to keep their September 30th date had posted on their blog. I was ok reading it, and I am happy for them, but so sad for us. But when the words were coming out of my mouth, the tears beat me to it. Sobs of disappointment and ache.

So I wipe away the tears, and just keep breathing. One moment at a time, until it is our time to bring Allison home.

Silver Lining

First of all, nothing would be better than having Allison in my arms next week rather than next month, but since things have been changed out of our control, I'm going to sit and make a list of some of the good things that are going to come out of waiting.

• We get to meet up with our friends, Ryan and Melanie, in Ethiopia. They will be there for their court date and we hope to do a day trip with them.
• We weren't faced with the financial decision and burden of changing our tickets back to our original dates.
• Tony has some responsibilities at work that make it hard for him to take off at the beginning of the month. This moves us to return home at the middle of the month.
• My grandma (my dad's mom) went into the hospital yesterday, and might have had a stroke, so my parents are currently up in Sedona/Cottonwood with her trying to figure everything out.
• I get to spend the first 4 days of Megan and Emily's October break at home with them. (Let us know if you want to have a play date.)
• The girls will be out of school while we are in Ethiopia, allowing Amma and Papa to take them places, do things, and spoil them more.
• Megan and Emily will then be home with us for two days once we are home, but then will be back in school, allowing Tony and me to fully focus on Allison and her needs during the day.
• We will get to take Megan and Emily to a Diamondbacks game on Friday night with free tickets they earned through our library's summer reading program.
• Tony and I will be able to attend Megan and Emily's 1st quarter conferences at school.
• I get to fit in a few more kid free breakfasts, coffee dates, and lunches with girlfriends.
• Maybe Tony and I can fit in one more date night because it will be awhile before we can leave Alli with anyone.

I want so badly to be leaving on Friday, but since we aren't, I need to get back up and move forward. I know there will still be tears and longing, but thank you for your love, prayers, and encouragement.

Loving Ethiopia: Day 20

Today brought heartache with the disappointment of our setback in bringing Allison home. But, I as was preparing for today's picture, I read in Revelation 7:

14b And he said, "These are they who have come out of the great
tribulation; they have washed their robes and made them white in the blood of
the Lamb.
15Therefore,
"they are before the throne of God
and serve him day and night in his temple;
and he who sits on the throne will spread his tent over them.
16Never again will they hunger;
never again will they thirst.
The sun will not beat upon them,
nor any scorching heat.
17For the Lamb at the center of the throne will be their shepherd;
he will lead them to springs of living water.
And God will wipe away every tear from their eyes."

This is a description on Heaven and what a beautiful thing we have to look forward to. The waterfall in Ethiopia reminded me of how many times God refers to Himself as water and living water and that He refreshes us. And I'm so glad for that.

But, we are not there yet and we are told by Jesus that "in this world there will be troubles of many kinds, but take heart, for I have overcome the world." John 16:33 And these past few days I've felt trials.

So while I've had tears this weekend, tears today, and more than likely, more tears in the next 18 days of waiting, I am holding onto the knowledge that I have a God who is my living water and will wipe away every tear from my eyes.

We Have an Answer

First of all, thank you to all of you who prayed, donated, encouraged, and loved us this crazy weekend. I think I've aged 10 years since Thursday morning.

But, this morning we received our answer from our adoption agency that our date is not moving, and our US Embassy appointment will be on October 14th. Two weeks later than we were originally told.

So now, I am not 4 days away from leave to get Allison, but 18. And that feels like forever.

Loving Ethiopia: Day 19

I don't know much about this woman, but I think about her almost daily. Up on Entoto mountain there are eucalyptus trees. People make the climb up the mountain to collect sticks and leaves to sell as firewood down in the city. Sometimes they load the eucalyptus on their donkeys or other animals. Other times they bundle up the sticks and carry them down themselves. Like this woman. And once she's done her trek and her selling for the day, she might make the equivalent of $2-3US.

Monday

It is currently 12:30am Monday morning in Ethiopia. That means that in a matter of hours, our attorney will be at the US Embassy and they will determine if they will accept our paper work and our appointment will be on September 30th, or if they don't accept our paperwork from our attorney, our date stays at the later date of October 14th. Two more weeks.

We expect to hear from our adoption agency early tomorrow morning (AZ time), and we'll post anything as soon as we know.

Keep praying for September 30th, for the flight changes with Delta, and for the finances.

Update...



I remember riding Space Mountain at Disneyland when I was four (I'm sure I had to stand on my tip toes to reach the height minimum) and then was scared to death of roller coasters until junior high (and that was only because we went with our church group, and I'm sure I only rode to impress some boy).

And just like Space Mountain, we are continuing our roller coaster ride, in the dark.

It feels like we are on an upswing. We feel, because of various comments and conversations, that our Embassy date will be moved back to September 30th. The cost of changing our flights might be within what we are able to do (though I hate the feeling that all the changes were "wasted money" as we are changing our flights to what they were on Thursday morning). And, we have had some donations come in to help us cover those costs.

But we are not done yet. And I am afraid to get too excited in case it only sets me up for more disappointment come Monday morning. But today, we will start packing. In faith, we are moving forward as if we leave for Allison in 5 days!

We are seeing God moving and believe it is because of your prayers for our family! Thank you, and keep praying. This isn't over yet!

A letter to our friends and family

Dear friends and family,


After such a long journey to bring Allison home, we have hit a bump during the final week that has left us spinning.

A short recap:

• August 2009: We started our adoption process
• May 6, 2010: We were matched with our beautiful daughter. We saw her picture and knew her name for the first time.
• July 30th-August 8th: We traveled to Ethiopia to meet Allison and to appear in Ethiopia court to finalize our adoption. On August 5th, Allison legally became our daughter! (When we first started the Ethiopian adoption process, we were not required to physically attend court, but the laws changed during our process. Although our trip was amazing, it added extra costs that we had not prepared for.)
• August: Found out that our US Embassy date was September 30th. We booked tickets with Delta for September 24th – October 3rd.
• September 16th: Got a call from our agency that something was wrong and the US Embassy changed our date from September 30th to October 14th. We were in shock as everything was set for travel: Tony’s time off, childcare for our older daughters, travel plans. But, we quickly did what we had to do and changed our flights for the new dates, including paying hundreds of dollars in change fees.
• September 17th: Found out that the mistake that was made in changing our appointment might be able to be fixed, moving our Embassy date back to September 30th. We are traveling with 6 other families. Only we and one other family had changed their tickets. The other five are now waiting to see what happens.

What happens now:

• On Monday, our lawyer in Ethiopia will return to the Embassy to see if they will accept our paperwork for an Embassy appointment on September 30th. If that happens, we will have the option to change our flights back to what they were on Thursday morning before we got a call from our agency. But there will be another charge of change fees, plus we will have to pay the difference between what we originally paid when we booked our tickets weeks ago, to the new price of buying two tickets to Ethiopia only four days before we travel.

Please pray:

• That the US Embassy will accept our documents on Monday for our appointment on September 30th.
• Assuming that the Embassy date changes back, pray that we can find someone who works for Delta who can help us change our tickets back without any additional cost.
• Or, that we can find a generous donor(s) who can help us cover these additional costs. Even before these changes happened, we had run out of money in our adoption fund. Now we are running on faith. We have a secure donation link on our blog that uses PayPal.

 

Lastly, please pray, and please forward this to your church, prayer groups, Bible study, and friends and family. When the church works together, things can happen.

Thank you,

Tony, Sara, and the Weber girls

Loving Ethiopia: Day 18

I was just about to climb into bed when I realized I hadn't blogged a picture today yet. It's been quite an eventful and prayerful last 48 hours.

Tony asked me how long I thought I would be, and I told him I wasn't sure because I never know where a blog is going to go when I start it, and I didn't yet have a picture in mind to blog about. But it took less than a second after my picture folder opened up to know this was the picture for today.

The fence.

That's how I feel. Ethiopia, and Allison, are on the other side of a fence. I can see it, but I can't cross. I know I will find a way, but I don't know when or how. And at times today my focus has been on the fence (as it is in the picture) and the landscape on the other side it a bit blurry.

So I continue to wait and pray until I am on the other side of this fence.

Dear Delta Airlines,

Dear Delta Airlines,

My wife and I are adopting a little girl from Ethiopia and have already traveled once, about a month and a half ago, and are traveling again soon for our second trip to bring our baby home. When we found out our dates, we purchased our tickets to leave on 9/24. Thursday, 9/16, we were contacted by our agency that the US Embassy rescheduled our appointment and informed us that we needed to change our flight plans to 10/8, which we did. Today we found out that the Embassy may reinstate our previous appointment, but we will not know until Monday 9/20. That will leave us 4 days to be able to rebook our tickets back to our original date of travel on 9/24. I understand that the prices for international travel 4 days before a flight will be very expensive.

Assuming that the US Embassy reinstates our original appointment, we will be left a choice; Pay $1000-$2000 extra in change fees and current rate prices to go, or leave our babies across the world for 2 extra weeks.

Is there anything you can do to help us if that happens? We are not looking for free tickets or free upgrades. I am just hoping that we could have the opportunity to rebook our original flights at the rates we had already paid.

Thank you for your time and consideration of this gesture to help us to complete our family.

Tony & Sara Weber
602-859-2808

The Ride Continues

I love roller coasters, but I'm ready to get off this one. I got out of bed early on this Saturday morning because my mind was racing with all the what ifs and what this Monday may hold.

It is looking more and more promising that our Embassy date will be able to be moved back to September 30th. We will know for sure when our lawyer goes to the Embassy on Monday to see if they will accept our paperwork. That is the first miracle that we've been praying for since we first heard about the possibility. Please keep praying for this possibility.

But, then if that happens, we will need to change our flights back, which could be expensive. So please pray with us that finances will not be what keeps us from our daughter. We know that He can work it out, so join us in prayer.

Lastly, this is taking an emotional toll on me. We will go through this weekend not knowing if we will be leaving on September 24th or October 8th. I miss my baby so much that my heart is breaking. Our God is a God of peace, and I need His strength and peace through this process.

Another Loop On the Roller Coaster

The Embassy has told us they might be able to get us in our our original date, September 30th, after all. But we won't know until Monday since they are closed for the weekend.

If that happens, we can go get Allison as planned, but will have to switch our airline tickets again at the listed prices, four days before we travel. Adding hundreds, if not thousands of dollars to our drained finances.

Or, we leave her in the orphanage in Ethiopia for two more weeks knowing that we could have had her home if money wasn't an obstacle.

Please pray with us, both for the paperwork to move, and for the finances to be raised. We are in the home stretch, but we are still so far.

If you are able to donate, you can use the link through PayPal on the left side of our blog. I know if we all work together, we can get Allison home!

Lastly, please share our blog on your blog and/or your Facebook. I believe that God can move when we join together in prayer.

Love,
Sara

Loving Ethiopia: Day 17

I've had to change the title of my daily photo posts. It is no longer a countdown of 23 days. On September 24th, when I thought I'd be done blogging, and on a flight to Addis, I will still be here. Waiting.

So I'm now titling my posts, "Loving Ethiopia", because that's what I'm doing. I'm loving Ethiopia through pictures for all the world to see, and especially for Allison when she grows up and wants to know more about her first home. To know that we didn't decide on international adoption to be able to gift a child with US Citizenship and save them from a life in a dismal country. But we chose to adopt because of the very sad truth that there are mommies and daddies who can't raise their babies, and that leaves an innocent baby without a family. But we have a family longed for another baby, and had room in our hearts for her, however she came to us. And she came to us from a beautiful, wonderful, first home.

So Allison, this is from the top of Entoto Mountain, overlooking your home city of Addis Ababa.

Two More Weeks

I know that many of you have heard about our new 2 week delay in our adoption, but I want to quickly explain what happened, and why we got bumped.

In short, the US embassy in Ethiopia is moving. Yes...really. They have been building a new embassy for a couple of years and it is ready. During the time they are moving, there will be no appointments, so we got pushed back 2 weeks.

Our group of 7 families from our agency have become "The Guinea Pig Group". We got to be one of the first groups required to make the additional trip for court, and now we get "the privilege" of christening the new embassy. Don't get me wrong, I like new adventures, but with Sara and I both being planners, we could use a little less new and a little more status quo for the rest of this process.

My Heart

Thank you so much to everybody for your encouraging words through the blog, facebook, texts, and phone calls. It really means a lot to me. Thank you.

But, you know that through out this journey this blog has been real and honest and raw. It is my chance to share with our friends, other adoptive parents (many who I now also count as friends), and also to record this journey for myself, and someday for Allison to know just how loved she was before she even came home.

So this is a sample conversation from yesterday, and it's translation:

You: Oh, I'm so sorry to hear about the delay. How are you doing?
Me: Oh, I'm fine.

but what I mean is....

Me: I had my heart ripped from me 6 weeks ago. I met my daughter and then had to leave her. All that I had to hold on to was a date of when we would get to hold her again and bring her home. But now they have even taken that date away from me. I know that in the big picture two additional weeks of waiting isn't that long, but I was just told to wait 22 days to have my heart put back in place when I was counting down already and had gotten all the way down to 8!
Today is one month until we will be a family of 5. But what really stinks is that I already passed and celebrated the one month mark 2 weeks ago.

So I try to be strong. Partly because that's how I want to feel, partly because I don't want to blow you away when you ask a simple question, and partly because to put these feelings into words brings on the tears, and I have better things to do than redo my make-up 50 times a day. (Though I don't know if anything will completely stop the tears from coming in the coming days -- and fair waring, they've been coming randomly, without warning. Just ask Tony.)

I know in my head that this is a minor setback. I know that it is still relatively soon that she will be home. But that's 14 more days that her crib is empty and her room is silent. 14 more days that our home will not be filled with a baby's laughter and even cries. 14 more days that her high chair sits unused at our dining room table.

I am a planner, so everything was planned right up until the minute we were to take off on September 24th. Now, there isn't much left to do, but wait.

I know that life is not a smooth journey, and that adoption has bumps along the road, but for the past 23 hours, I feel like I've been derailed.
Each morning she is the first thing I think of when I wake up, and I mentally check off how many days are left. Well, even this morning I did that, but I thought, "Today is Friday, one week until we leave! Oh, three weeks until we leave."

So I wait, and I pray, and I am still so very glad that you ask how we're doing, and still say that you're so sorry and that two weeks will go by quickly, but here is how I'm really doing because it's much safer to share this on the blog. Thanks for reading.