Upon Arrival

12.3 &4.2011 Yesterday we traveled to the Care Center later in the afternoon. Our little guy was supposed to get into Addis about 2:00 by plane. Upon arrival at the care center around 3:30, we went looking through the children trying to spot him. He wasn't there. Seemingly another peculiar delay. Just then someone beeped outside the gate and in drove a silver car. Our company's in-country coordinator got out and opened the car's back door. Out stepped our sleepy little one. Of course, then he was immediately confronted by two bawling white ferangies (foreigners) all get'n up in his business. "Go away" was the look we got. It was precious. We played with all the children in the court yard for two hours. He knew a few of the other children from his time with them at the rural orphanage. We knows he gives affection by the way he reacted with Mr. Yilma, who travelled with him from his orphanage. Our little guy gave him a kiss on the cheek when Yilma left for the evening. The older girls immediately began taking care of our Wondi (Levi) and enjoyed saying his name. We thought it was cute when we wiped his nose with tp...the older girls said, "soft". Thinking it was a complement and how nice it was to be wiped with a soft tissue, we laughed. Well the joke was on us. Today we purchased a book that converts simple English and Amharic words and soft means toilet paper. They were making fun of us because we were wiping noses with toilet paper!!! Well no wonder he gave us no smiles...

This morning we went to the Care Center and out to the shopping markets in the afternoon. The older children were in school so our time was concentrated on the younger ones. Today's treats were rubber balls. What fun! Yesterday's festivities were paper airplanes and blowing bubbles. We got a smile and maybe even a laugh out of our little guy. He especially liked seeing himself on the video screen and photos of himself. "This little piggie" with his toes made him laugh and show his beautiful teeth. It is uncomprehensible the grief and heartbreak he suffers. This will be a long journey full of many small steps.

Court is tomorrow. Everything has gone so smoothly for this entire process and we pray for that to continue. There are possible roadblocks that could still come up, but hopefully that will not be the case. Pray for the other families here also, that all things will work out for them as well. One thing that stuck us on the flight into Addis is that so many people were either on an adoption journey or coming for missionary work. You'd kind of look at them or they'd look at you and say something like...are you adopting (while twirling your finger around in the air, like right)? Pretty awesome. This week we have been running around with two other families in the same stage as we are. It has been so awesome to share this experience with them. Very much a blessing and a praise.

Yesterday's troubles are in the past. Not intending to be that deep, really. We ate out away from our Addis View Sunday night and that was NOT recommended. Lewis paid for it yesterday morning, but everything passed and is now fully recovered. Didn't need to be searching out IV bags of fluid in Ethiopia for crying out loud.

That does it for now folks, check back after a while for future posts...