Wonderful visit with Grandma

We love you Grandma and look forward to a Christmas together!

Pajama girls and more snow

This picture has the same tree in the background as the first picture I posted below with the yellow leaves. Only a few weeks later and now it is covered in snow. Notice the kids picnic table buried as well.

More Fall fun outside

A beautiful fall day

Changing seasons

I have been looking forward to experiencing the seasons this year since this is my first year away from California. Gary and I have been so excited about the concept of fall and the changing colors and the children have been talking about leaping in giant leaf piles for weeks. These are pictures taken last week of our backyard encased in snow. What a surprise to see snow the first week of October. Sadly, the leaves are now quickly falling from the trees. We will need to get some big leaf piles together quickly so the kids can have some fall fun before another snow. I hear that Colorado weather is different every year and not easy to predict.

Kayla and Mommy

Our sweet little Kayla has begun to have a huge mommy addiction that the normal amount of mommy time just cannot seem to satisfy. I was feeling really stumped in trying to come up with a way to squeeze in more time holding Kayla and still get stuff done around house, or with the other children, when I remembered the snuggly. I am now putting Kayla in the snuggly while I clean the kitchen or play outside with the kids. She loves to be attached to me and sings and kicks her legs with joy during these times together.

Kayla's birthday party

We always try to make birthdays a time of fun for the kids, unfortunately Kayla had a round of shots the day before her party and was feeling very emotional. When Lana started crying during cake time the birthday girl lost it as well. Even during presents Kayla had several rounds of tears. Hopefully on Kayla's next birthday she will be able to enjoy the celebration a little more, I will need to keep shots far away from birthdays in the future!

Dress up

Little buddies at the zoo

Bryant and Lana are so cute walking together! When we go to the zoo there is a lot of walking and they love to hold hands. Bryant leads Lana to whatever he wants to see and she is very happy to be right beside him. I watched Bryant take Lana into a dark cave (I was behind them) and I was so amazed to see Lana completely trusting her big brother to take care of her. There was no fear in her face even though there were strangers all around and it was very dark.

Special times with Nana and Grandad

We had a wonderful weekend with Nana and Grandad! Lana can now say both their names and she talks about her Nana every day. This was Kayla's first time meeting her grandparents and she loved all the attention. Bryant has been a long time fan and as always missed them very much when they had to go home. They are such a blessing to our family and we cannot wait to see them again soon!

Kayla walking with walker

My helper

I was marveling yesterday while we were at a doctor's appointment at just how eager and able Bryant is to help me now. When Kayla needed a bottle I could ask Bryant to find it for me, when Lana was crying I would ask Bryant to get a pacifier. As I was getting Lana dressed after her check up Bryant gathered up her shoes and put them in the diaper bag since Lana was going to ride in the stroller and did not need them. He is learning to help Mommy without even being asked and he does it cheerfully. Bryant also loves to help in the kitchen and is always wanting to cook with me, as you can see in the pictures above. What a blessing it is to have a little guy who wants to be a helper.

Fun week with Uncle Mark

We miss you Uncle Mark!

Tired girls just up from nap

Sleepy Kayla, again

Cleaners

Here are some pictures of my merry maids at work.

Both Bryant and Lana love to help mommy do housework. They especially love the cool tools.

Bathing beauties

My little sweeties playing in the sprinklers and pool on a hot day. They are so fun to watch and just too cute.

Sleepy girl

When it is naptime and life is pretty dull Kayla will fall asleep in just about any position.

Kayla progress update

Our delightful baby girl is learning so many new things and adjusting so well to her new life. Kayla can now crawl everywhere and keeps Mommy on her toes. She is very strong and can pull herself up to a standing position. She is a great eater and even loves her green veggies. Last week while we were running around in the basement Kayla crawled up to some music I had playing. She started bobbing back and forth to the music singing baby babble. I love to see her personality and interests starting to develop. Kayla is also becoming much more feisty. When I take away a broken toy or pull her away from a 'no no' she now throws herself backward and has a little tantrum. Although this adds to the challenges in my already busy days I am glad to see her show some spunk. The first few days we had with Kayla she was pretty lethargic so we are rejoicing that she is responding more naturally to situations. We are so pleased with her progress and her good health, God is truly blessing our little Kayla.

4th of July popsicle

Bryant and Lana love to share a popsicle on a hot day and the 4th of July was no exception.

Funny faces and cute faces

I hope you enjoyed our faces today!

Little sleeper

During one of our first nights in Ethiopia with Kayla, I pulled her into bed with me because she was fussy and I decided to give her a bottle. As we snuggled down in bed we both dozed off to sleep. A couple hours later Gary and I were fully awake and surprised to find our baby girl had completely made herself at home in our bed. These pictures were taken only minutes later as we were discussing how we should get our bed back. Do we risk waking the baby or do we try to sleep scrunched up at the foot of the bed? I think Gary gave up on further sleep and called it a night and I scrunched up with Kayla for another hour. I am happy to say that since we arrived home from Ethiopia Kayla has slept quite peacefully in her own bed!

A warm summer day

This is our happy girl.

Lana never gets tired of giving Kayla hugs!

Lana and Bryant collecting rocks and sand. This is obviously a very important project.



Kayla and Mommy hanging out on the blanket. Kayla is trying to lick my nose, I think that means she loves me.



Kayla and Mommy enjoying a laugh.



These are a bunch of pictures I took outside yesterday. With the weather turning warm we have been spending more time outside with the nice breezes.

Bloodwork completed

Good news! Kayla's hematology specialist has finished looking at her bloodwork, and he has no concerns for Kayla's health. Apparently there are not enough spherical red blood cells to cause problems, now or in the future. This is the best possible news! He also checked for some other disorders that are more common among Africans, and she is negative for all of them. He saw no reason for concern at all, and no need for any further testing. God has blessed us again in this process. We are now only waiting for a little more stoolwork to be completed before Kayla is done with all of her medical evaluations.

Two little cuties

The girls were so cute in the 'earthquake' pictures I took the other day that I wanted to post a few more!

God's blessings

This is a picture of the girls in our 'earthquake' chair. This fun old chair has been a source of many wild rides and laughter by our kids. Gary started a game with Bryant a couple years ago where he would shake the chair (with Bryant sitting in it) and call it an earthquake. The game has evolved and now includes hurricanes.


For those of you who are interested, I am going to share some of my thoughts on our little Kayla and how she is adjusting to her new life. Kayla has such a sweet, mellow personality. She sleeps through the night (some of you may remember the horrors of sleep deprivation we went through with our first 2), she plays well by herself or with her siblings, she eats well, she rarely cries but smiles quickly and has the cutest deep belly laugh! She is a delight to us all and is already deeply loved by her brother and sister. I am continually amazed as I look at her that God would give us such a sweet gift! We went into this process with hearts ready to love the unlovely, yet God has blessed us tenfold instead! We are truly rejoicing at God's good gifts to us!

Hematology update

Kayla had her appointment with the pediatric hematologist this morning. The doctor didn't seem too worried about any of the results so far, which was a little reassuring. He is supposed to call us by Friday this week to let us know the final analysis. He seemed familiar with African blood issues - apparently Africans are genetically a little more likely to have certain problems than other races. The fact that Kayla is not anemic is a very good thing. I will update when we know more.

One side-note though, if you have to have blood drawn any time soon - try to avoid the nurses with the "too much caffeine" shakes (I suppose that goes for barbers and surgeons as well). We had a guy from LabCorp last week who was great and only had to find one vein on Kayla, and was done in 2 minutes. The guy today worked for nearly 15 minutes, tried 3 different places, and left blood all over everything. Kayla handled it better than I did...

Acacia Village

Christian World Adoption has a sister organization called Christian World Foundation. They have a rather ambitious project underway in Ethiopia called Acacia Village. Their website is at http://www.acaciavillage.org/index.htm. The Acacia Village video is worth a look. This project will provide housing for orphans, healthcare, classrooms, housing for traveling families, and crisis pregnancy counseling. We love the concept of this ministry effort, and I was fortunate enough to be able to visit the site one day on our trip. The pictures below are from the site. They have a long way to go, but it is a worthy effort in our opinion.


This is the first of the major buildings that is planned. The foundation is largely complete and they were working on the vertical columns when I was there. Men and women worked together on the construction crew.

One of the CWA dads giving a ride to one of the two kids they adopted on this trip.

This shows the scenery around the Acacia Village property. I thought it was a beautiful place with the trees and rolling hills.

Some silliness, Bryant style

We took this video shortly after we got back from Ethiopia. Bryant is being rather silly in the background. We finally figured out that he was doing his version of "stepping on a tiger". We have no idea where he came up with it. He was certainly glad to have Mommy and Daddy and Kayla home.

These are a few pictures I took in the house today.

Mommy and Kayla playing on the floor.

Kayla is not able to get food into her mouth yet, so Lana is helping her eat some Puffs.


Lana loves to give her baby sister hugs!

A little yuk and the wonder of grace...

Kayla has officially been diagnosed with giardia. We expected this, and will be picking up some prescription medicine for her this morning. She has some more stoolwork yet to be completed at the lab, and hopefully nothing else will turn up. As we are working through little Kayla's issues (and gladly!), I can't help but think about how much yuk God has to deal with in us as we are adopted into His family. Surely a little giardia and some nights of poor sleep are nothing in comparison. Indeed, it is "All of Grace", to borrow the title of one of my favorite Spurgeon books.

We will try to get some more pictures up later today or tomorrow. Jamie keeps reminding me that pictures are what people really want to see...

Bloodwork issue

Well, it seems that Kayla's bloodwork has indicated a problem. Apparently some of her red blood cells are not shaped correctly. They should be like little donuts, but she has some that are like little balls (spherical). Wikipedia calls this condition Spherocytosis. Our pediatrician thinks that Kayla's case is minor, which we hope is true. Nonetheless, he recommended that we see a hematologist (blood specialist). We have an appointment with one for Monday morning. Hopefully we will know more then. Internet research indicates that the big risk for her for now is anemia or possibly jaundice. Fortunately, she has no symptoms of either of these. We'll post more on this issue when we know more. Thanks for your prayers.

Adopted for Life

This post is simply a plug for a great book that I was able to read on our trip. Long plane flights are good for reading books. In fact, they provide about the only significant blocks of reading time I have anymore! Anyway, the book title is Adopted for Life, written by Russell D. Moore. I loved this book, and I highly recommend this book to anyone, whether they have any interest in adoption or not. Moore spends a fair amount of time showing just how integral the concept of adoption is to our Christian faith. He weaves in some of his own family experiences, as he and his wife adopted two boys from Russia. I got a good chuckle out of several of his stories, and I fought back tears on a few others. I'm enclosing a link to a review of this book, as well as the Amazon link for this title.

http://www.challies.com/archives/book-reviews/adopted-for-life.php

http://www.amazon.com/Adopted-Life-Priority-Adoption-Christian/dp/1581349114/ref=sr_1_1?ie=UTF8&s=books&qid=1244690104&sr=8-1
.

Some of the other CWA families

These are the other 3 CWA families that stayed in the guest home with us. We really enjoyed getting to know all of them!

Addis and Coffee

The blue booth in the middle of the picture is a phone booth. I think there were 4 public phones in it. The guys on the rail are waiting to use a phone. Waiting in lines over there was different than over here, maybe because lines don't really happen over there. You just bustle forward whenever there is an opening for most things. It was a similar feel to when I was in Russia in the mid-90's. This was a little surprising to me, because by and large, the Ethiopian people were very friendly and considerate. Very much so in fact. They just don't do lines.


Check out the scaffolding. Would you want to be working on the 4th or 5th floor of this? Construction was everywhere in Addis, which is a healthy thing I think. Most of the in-work buildings had this same kind of scaffolding. The individual poles were joined together with a combination of nails and lashings. Scaffold poles were for sale everywhere on the sides of the main roads.


This picture is taken at our guest home shortly before we left. As a going away gesture, two of the staff (all wonderful people by the way) performed the Coffee Ceremony for us. I don't like coffee. But, I enjoyed the ceremony. Ethiopia claims to be the origin of coffee (although there may be some in South America who would beg to differ), and the ceremony has some history to it. They were honoring us by performing it for us. I really don't like coffee. The ceremony started with them burning some incense (pointy black jar in picture). Then they roasted whole coffee beans over hot coals, followed by grinding the beans and pouring them in hot water. I hate coffee. This was then served to us as a token of goodwill and friendship. Hmmmm.... which would be worse.... turning down a special cup of coffee, or retching violently after drinking it? Did I mention that I had been up half the previous evening with a stomach bug, kneeling at the porcelain throne? I prayed and drank the coffee, in that order. And you know what? It stayed down. God blessed yet again. Coffee consumed. No mad dash from the room. No international incident. I wonder if there are any countries that have a cherry coke ceremony?

Doctor visit today

Kayla had her first US doctor's visit today. We like the pediatrician a lot - he's pretty laid back, seems knowledgeable, and has experience working with internationally adopted children. Kayla is a remarkably healthy kid, considering her recent history. She is 20.6 pounds (80th percentile), 28 inches long (65th percentile), and her head size was 97th percentile. She does still have a respiratory infection, but nothing that some antibiotics shouldn't be able to take care of. She has an umbilical hernia, but it is minor and of no concern for now. If it doesn't heal on its own, we may have to have it surgically repaired, but that's down the road a ways. The doctor wasn't concerned at all about her not having any teeth yet. Her fine motor skills are fine (duh), but, as suspected, her gross motor skills are somewhat behind (but certainly not gross). She still has a little trouble sitting up straight and tends to be a little floppy when she is being held. But, this should improve rapidly now that she is no longer living in a crib all the time. Her bloodwork and stoolwork are underway, and we should have those results in the next week or two. God has blessed once again as Kayla has no significant health concerns!

Some video of Kayla (and Mommy)

Here's a little video of Jamie and Kayla that we took at the guest home. Not much going on in it, but at least it verifies that Kayla isn't just a doll that we've been taking pictures of...

Around town pix

These 2 pictures are taken from our 3rd floor room at the guest home. The green structure on the leftmost hill in the top picture is an Ethiopian Orthodox church. You may also notice a lot of water tanks on raised structures. Due to the regular power outages, water pumps are not reliable, so most people had gravity fed water systems that didn't require pumps. A truck would come around and fill the tanks as needed. Apparently Addis generates much of it power hydroelectrically, and is therefore dependent on rainfall to keep water levels high. Most of their rainfall comes from late June through September, so the water levels were low when we were there, thus the power outages. Sorry lady readers, not much mush-n-gush in this paragraph, but there might be some guys who care about this sort of thing...


Pedestrians, animals, and cars all made use of the roads. One of our group reported having seen a man pull up in a little car, open the trunk, and proceed to remove a full grown live cow that had been "packed away" for the ride! What a hoot! I would love to have seen that.

Even more pix

Here are 4 of the CWA moms with their new babies at Bole Airport in Addis Ababa. Everyone was waiting for the same Ethiopian Airways flight, which left out about 10:15PM that evening. This flight went from Addis to Washington DC, with a brief stopover in Rome, Italy. We were on the plane for 17 hours. Oh my, was I ready to get off that plane! One of my prayer requests was that Kayla would sleep on the plane. God gave us a Yes on that for the most part, and we are grateful. Kayla did remarkably well. Better than me I think. We had about 21 hours on airplanes getting home to Colorado, and Kayla slept for all but a few hours of it.


Here's daddy and Kayla on the plane. Daddy is smiling, so this must have been before we took off... or maybe right after they served dinner...

One more picture for tonight...

This was one of my favorite pictures from the trip (you can click on it to get a bigger version). It's of one of the other CWA dad's and his four sons. They adopted two boys on this trip. I think this picture is a wonderful challenge to one's concept of family. Aren't we glad that God's family is not limited by our skin color, or our personal history, or even who gave birth to us?

Some more pix

This picture was taken just a few minutes after we were introduced to Kayla for the first time. They had her "dolled" up in a fancy dress for us. Kayla seemed to be a particular favorite of the Ethiopian staff. Everybody knew who she was and had to come say goodbye and give her kisses and tweak her pudgy cheeks. There is no doubt in our minds that Kayla was well cared for by the staff there, and we are grateful for it.


This is a somewhat fuzzy picture of one of the CWA foster care nannies. She asked to hold Kayla one more time and held her for probably 20 minutes before giving her back to Jamie. We don't know this woman's name, but we are so grateful to her for taking care of our child and loving her so much. What a gut-wrenching and yet needful ministry these women have - pouring love into orphaned babies and children, knowing all the time that they will have to part with them in a matter of weeks or months. Wow.


This was Kayla's first evening with us, back at the guest home. We think this may have been her first bath ever in a bathtub. She LOVED it! At least until we would try to wipe her nose. Then she HATED it...

INTRODUCING KAYLA ETENESH GILCHRIST

We're back, safe and sound! God has been so good. Sorry for not having posted while we were gone. We had every intention of posting once or twice a day while we were there, but things were not as expected. No internet. No phone. No power every other day.

Kayla's given name was Etenesh, which is not an uncommon girl's name in Ethiopia. It means something along the lines of sisterly love, or supportive one. She is a healthy 20+ pounds and is approximately 8 months old. Her birthday on her passport is listed as September 18, 2008, and we're guessing that's fairly accurate. She's actually rather chunky of all things. We really expected to be adopting a somewhat malnourished child that was underweight. Instead, well, she's hardly that! She doesn't have any teeth yet, which hopefully is not indicative of a problem. We will be taking her to a doctor on Monday for a thorough physical, and should know if there are any issues then. She smiles readily (which we didn't expect) and is already very attached to Momma, which we also didn't expect so soon. She is very strong, but seems to be a little behind in motor development. We think this is due to her not having had much opportunity to move around at the orphanage. Probably, she was always either being held or put in a crib. She has shown improvement in this area already though, in less than a week. She has beautiful soft hair, which is not as kinky as we expected. Jamie has been doing research on how to take care of it. I think that will be fun for them... well, for Jamie at least.

We know only a little of her history, but we're not sharing all of it with anyone at this time. We would like to share it with her when she is older, and we don't want her hearing it from someone else first. So, no offense to anyone by any means, but please understand that we won't be giving out very much detail on that end. What we can share is that she WAS an orphan, but now she is a Gilchrist, with all the full privileges that come with being a part of our family. Are not all believers adopted into the family of Christ, and have we not been given all good things through Him? Likewise, Kayla is no second class citizen in our family. She is not "our adopted child" - she is simply our child. She is not "Plan B for adding to the family", she is simply Bryant and Lana's sister. We are so grateful to God for having grown our family through her.

Let's see. A little more info on Kayla. She is from the city of Awassa, which is south of Addis Ababa by 150 miles or so. She spent several months in an orphanage there before she was referred to us. After we accepted her, she was moved to a foster care facility in Addis, which is run by our adoption agency (CWA). The Ethiopian courts awarded her to us on April 21, 2009, after doing their research on her case. We met her for the first time on Monday June 1. I will write more about that later. Can you imagine what it is like for 5 couples in a small room to all at once be "handed" their children for the first time? Children that they have prayed for and worked for and hoped for and loved for a long time? One family's process took 4 years. It was one of the most moving things I have ever witnessed or experienced...

We stayed in a guest home in Addis and unfortunately didn't get out a whole lot, but that's ok. There were 3 other families staying there - all were Christian and working with CWA. It was really enjoyable getting to know them. After a couple of days, some sort of stomach bug began working it's way through the group. Not fun. Especially with no power and unreliable water. You can imagine what some of the bathrooms became in a hurry. Yuk. I got it on Wednesday, and Jamie got it yesterday - she is recovering today at home. Oh how we love hot showers, and cold beverages! Sleep was a little tough at times. I can confidently tell you that the roosters start their racket at 3:00AM each morning. The locals burn their trash at night outside our guest home. The approximately 99 trillion dogs in Addis (slight exaggeration) bark out the day's gossip to each other all night long. Some nights I thought I was beginning to understand them.... "Did you hear that Lulu ate another mangy cat this afternoon, that must be 10 in the last 2 days...", and "Mutt found a flea the size of a locust today, he's keeping it under his water dish." At about 4:50AM, the call to morning prayers is played over speakers not far from our guest home. It is the Orthodox call to prayers rather than the Islamic one, but it sounded the same to me. Kind of a wobbly sounding chant with a somewhat melancholy feel to it - no doubt the feel was due to the time of day! I was right there with it.

Sickness aside, we enjoyed our stay in Addis. It is not really what I would call a beautiful city - it actually reminded us a lot of what we saw of Tecate and Tijuana, Mexico. Lots of buildings and houses, but nothing particularly nice. Lots of concrete and corrugated metal. Not a lot of, shall we say, precision. The newer roads were very nice though. There are a lot of cars in Addis, and not many bicycles, which surprised us. Taxis (painted blue and white) were everywhere. Toyota seems to be the brand of choice by far. Our primary driver carried us and a few other families around in a van, which he drove skillfully, like a New York taxi driver I think. Had I been driving, I would have killed several pedestrians (and their donkeys) and totalled the van on the first day, no doubt. Our driver used the horn as much as the wheel, and both to good effect. There were lanes designated, but they were often ignored. Every few miles was a big circle, with roads coming in/out like spokes of a wheel. These were particularly fun. No rules. Force your way in, force your way out. But I never saw a single accident. Lots of donkeys, cows and goats were being herded or just wandered along the side of the road. Many people would just let their cows go in the morning to forage for food, and then the cows would come home on their own in the evening.

Will post more pictures and write more soon.

Thanks for all your prayers!

Schedule and Stuff

Well, it's just about time! We fly out at about noon tomorrow and should be in Addis Ababa Sunday evening, Ethiopia time. Addis is 9 hours ahead of Denver time. We'll be flying for roughly 18 hours or so with stopovers in Washington DC and Rome, Italy. Unfortunately, the Rome stop is just for refueling, and we won't even get off the plane. Oh well. Maybe they'll serve us some good lasagna or something...

If all goes according to plan, we should be able to pick up little Kayla from the foster care home on Monday morning. From that point on, she's with us! We have an appointment with the US Embassy on Tuesday, for the purpose of getting a US visa for Kayla. If all goes well paperwork-wise, we will get on a plane to fly back on Thursday evening, arriving home Friday afternoon.

Getting Close

Only a few more days til we fly out for Ethiopia! Hard to believe it's finally time! It's been a long process with quite a few unexpected issues and delays, but God is good and has dealt well with us His children, as always. In fact, He's graciously allowed us to see the benefit of some of the frustrating delays. With our unexpected move to Colorado and some significant health issues in the family, we would not have been ready for little Kayla back in October/November of last year.

Packing is well underway. Gary's last day of work before the trip is today. Jamie's family arrives today. Paperwork is nearly complete. The many lists are showing lots of marked out items. Can't wait to go!

I was thinking about finances again today. Yeah, I like numbers - sorry. International adoption is a very expensive endeavor. It's been humbling to see how God has provided money in truly unexpected ways. Surely there is nothing on this earth that can limit Him in the slightest! We have received an economic stimulus, reimbursement from a doctor for overcharging, cash moving incentive from my job, big company bonus, significant rental deposit return from a stingy landlord, larger than expected federal and state income tax returns, approximately $500/month lower housing expenses due to our move. All totaling roughly $13,000. We will also get the $12,000 adoption tax credit on this year's taxes. Do the math. Amazing. Really amazing.

We do have a few prayer requests for any who would be willing to love us in this way...

- That our good God would continue to be honored in this process, and that we Gilchrists would have the wisdom and courage to make Him look good in the eyes of all who ask us about why we are doing what we are doing.
- For travel safety. There are many around the world who hate Americans and Christians. We really don't want to "make the news".
- Health, especially for Jamie.
- Grace for Bryant and Lana to do well while Mommy and Daddy are gone... and for Mommy and Daddy, who will probably be bawling as we drive off without them.
- Grace for little Kayla to adjust to us and learn to trust us.
- And last, but, well, probably least... Gary has been terrified from the beginning of the whole process of having a screaming kid for 20 hours of plane flights on the return trip... Please, Lord, make her sleep!!!

Is it good news???!!!

YES!!!!! Kayla's birth certificate came through so we are still traveling in 2 weeks! Thank you for your prayers! We were getting down to the wire and things were not looking good. God is so faithful! Thank you again for all your prayers!

Possible delay in travel!

Please be praying for us in the next few days, it looks like we could be running into another delay in our travel plans. Apparently because of being short staffed recently in Addis there have been delays in getting birth certificates issued. We cannot apply for a passport until we have Kayla's birth certificate so we may need to postpone our travel another 2 weeks. This would be incredibly difficult because we have already bought tickets and made arrangements for the children while we are away, not mention we are just longing to pick up our baby NOW! Please be praying that if this is God's will for our family that He would issue Kayla's birth certificate in time for us to travel on the 30th. We should know if we will not be able to travel by early next week, so we have the weekend to be praying!

Time to start packing!

We are only 26 days away from flying to pick up baby Kayla! We will be leaving on May 30th and hopefully be home by the following Friday. Grandma, Grandpa, and Uncle Mark will be coming to stay with the kids while we are away which is such a blessing!

These are pictures of the girls' room, I am finally done painting. I have such a hard time finishing projects and this was especially difficult to stop, I was having too much fun!

Is the waiting finally over???!!!!!!!

We are happy to announce that Kayla has passed her court date and she is now legally the NEW BABY GILCHRIST!!!!!! We are so overjoyed to finally be able to travel to Ethiopia and bring home little Kayla! We will probably be traveling at the end of May the beginning of June. There are so many little details we will need to work out over the next few weeks and we will be posting as we know more definitely what our plans will be. For now, we know that Kayla is now our daughter and that she is healthy and ready to come home!

We are counting the days!!

We are so excited to be counting down, only 11 days until Kayla's court date! If all goes well then on the 21st of April Kayla will officially be our daughter! Please be in prayer that God would work out the perfect time for us to bring our baby girl home. We are of course hoping for the soonest possible date, but know that God has the best time already planned for us to be united!

We received a medical update on Kayla with pictures. Kayla looks like a healthy, thriving little baby! She is absolutely adorable and I cannot wait to share pictures with you all, maybe very soon!

We appreciate your prayers!

We have been very busy lately settling into our new home and new life, but I have a quick minute and I want to give an update on how the adoption is coming along. We could REALLY use your continued prayers for the entire situation. We are running into delays and issues that may lead to more delays. We have a court date set for April 21st, and if all goes well, Kayla will legally be our daughter by the end of the day. Unfortunately, the courts have only been passing 50% of adoptions that are presented to them. Assuming that this hurdle is passed, we will be traveling 5 weeks later, unless they choose to do a TB test on Kayla before we can take her into the country. If this happens, it will take an extra 8 weeks just to get the results back from the test. All this to say, we are longing to bring our baby home as soon as we possibly can (the soonest date at this point would be end of May)! Our prayers are that God would bring about a speedy process from here on out! Also, as always, we are praying for Kayla's continued health and safety!

God is so good!!!!!!!

We received our referral!!!!!!! Gary and I were overwhelmed when we heard the news and saw the first picture of our absolutely beautiful baby girl! We were not expecting a referral for another 4-6 months so this came as a wonderful surprise! I am just dying to share all the little details about our sweet little baby, who we are naming Kayla, but for legal and safety reasons we are not allowed to give any personal information about our new child. Please keep us in prayer as we are in the process of buying our first house, moving out of state, redoing our homestudy, and flying to Africa all in the next few months. God is good and we are resting in Him as we face the busy season ahead of us!

Finally an update!

I am so sorry for taking this long to write an update! Things with the adoption have been slow for a while and we have had some big life changes affecting us! Because of Gary's work situation we are having to move with his job, which will take us out of state, probably sometime in January. This was not our first choice, and it will be incredibly difficult to leave our dear family, friends, and of course our church (there is only one Coast!)! In the midst of the hardships we see God's hand and know that He is working all of these changes for our good and His glory! We look forward to what God has in store for our family in the years ahead!

A quick update on where we are with the adoption process. In an email with our social worker this week we found out that we are now number 7 in line for an infant girl referral (possibly number 6 since there is a family on hold ahead of us)! This was really exciting news since it bumps us into maybe the spring of next year, rather than summer, for a referral! As soon as we move we will need to redo parts of our homestudy, like the house inspection, and get that up to date before we get our referral. We will try to do a better job of posting in the weeks and months ahead as we continue to get closer to bringing home Gilchrist kiddo number 3!

Please be in prayer for Ethiopia, they are still experiencing severe famine! I am including a link to a food drive being offered by a branch of our adoption agency, Christian World Foundation, that will help feed hungry Ethiopians through the holidays. CWF has bought a large plot of land where they intend to begin building an orphanage, hospital, crisis pregnancy center, and adoptive family housing. They will be using this land to set up a temporary food bank called Food4Kids.

http://www.christianworldfoundation.org/food4kids/food4kids.htm

If you can give a donation this holiday season, please prayerfully consider giving to this organization, the need is overwhelming!

The Famine in Ethiopia

Gary and I had a talk with our new case worker recently, who we both liked very much! She was able to get us more up to date with why so many of us 'soon to be parents' are experiencing a delay. Apparently with the terrible famine taking place in Ethiopia right now the orphanages are packed full, and so all the babies who were placed in orphanages have already been adopted and now the orphanages are mostly full of older children and sibling groups. The need is so overwhelming that my heart breaks when I think of all the suffering! The famine has been especially devastating for the children. Lack of food and water is fatal much sooner in growing little ones than in an adult. Also the long term effects of hunger can cause any number of diseases and stunt mind and growth development permanently in children. I read in the BBC news that this famine is predicted to be a far greater tragedy than the one that took place in Ethiopia in 1984, which caused the deaths of almost 1 million people. Approximately 6 million people are at immediate risk, and without significant aid soon it is estimated that 15 million will be facing starvation at the turn of the year. This is almost inconceivable in our country where we scrape leftover food into the trash every day. I cannot imagine real hunger or thirst. I cannot imagine having to helplessly watch my children starve! This horror really hits home for me when I think of my Ethiopian baby girl over there hungry, maybe sick, while I live in such abundance! If I could do anything to make her life better, easier, to soothe one night of crying, I would. I will be searching to find some ways to physically help in this crisis and will post what I find.

Update

At the present we do not have any real news on the adoption. We have been transferred, in our agency, to a new case manager who will walk us through the referral and travel aspect of the process. We will hopefully be meeting with her for a phone conference soon where can ask questions and maybe get some more specifics on time frames.

As our family is going through this waiting season we are continually filled with excitement and anticipation as we pray for our Ethiopian little sister and daughter. Although the timing has not been what we had in mind, our good God, who is in control of all things, is bringing about a beautiful story in His perfect time and we are thankful!

The Good, the Bad, and the Excellent

The Good...
Our dossier is on its way to Ethiopia. We've been officially added to the waiting list for referral of an infant girl!

The Bad...
We were notified this week that the Ethiopian government has not been referring many infant girls to our adoption agency lately, and consequently, the waiting list is quite a bit longer than normal. Instead of traveling in a few months to pick up a little girl, it will probably be well into next year before we can bring her home. This has been really disappointing for us.

The Excellent...
A good God is in control of all of this. His plans are always excellent, His timing always perfect. And He promises to work all things for His glory and our good. In a very real sense, we cannot lose...

Dossier Paperwork Completed!

Our dossier is finally complete! We got the call yesterday that the dossier has received it's final authentications in Washington DC and is on it's way to our adoption agency (CWA) in North Carolina. There it will be translated into Amharic and sent on to Ethiopia. We will then be officially put on the waiting list for the referral of a child! Things are happening! We don't know for sure how long it will take to get a referral, but CWA says 2-3 months is typical. We are looking forward to that phone call already...

Yesterday we had our first round of immunizations. Yes, folks, that means needles. Lots of them. We had 387 shots each. Well ok, maybe it was only 5, but it seemed like more than that. So, today, we've got sore shoulder syndrome, which I suppose is better than sore that-other-place-they-give-shots-sometimes syndrome.

God has been so good to us as we get ready for our next child. One of our biggest prayer items is that we wanted to see Lana progress in some areas before we add another family member. We have needed her to take a bottle and solid food better, so that Jamie can be gone to Africa and the poor girl doesn't starve! Just in the last week, she has begun taking a bottle well and eating several different kinds of yuk... I mean... mashed veggies.

Also of note - between our economic stimulus payment and a reimbursement from Jamie's doctor for over-charging, we have over $2000 of unexpected money to put toward the adoption. We are grateful for God's continued provision.

God is good, and we believe His hand is in our effort to honor Him with our family. We look forward to seeing Him do more in our lives.

All Quiet on the Adoption Front

We have completed all of our dossier paperwork requirements and are waiting for the final version of the homestudy report. Once this is received, we will send 2 copies of the entire dossier to CWA for review. After corrections are incorporated, we will send the dossier originals to the U.S State Dept for authentication, and then it will be ready to send to Ethiopia. We would like to have all that completed this month, but God's timing is best.

Moving Forward

It looks like our homestudy has been written up by our social worker and sent to our agency for review. This means we are moving forward! When the homestudy is approved by our agency we will then be ready to send off our complete dossier. After the dossier is sent and approved then we will wait for a referral. During this waiting period we are trying to prepare on the home front. I have been decorating the girls' room. This morning Bryant and I were hanging butterflies from their ceiling. I am very pleased with how the room is turning out! Above is a picture of the curtains I made. Along with decorating, we have gotten a totally cool double stroller (I use it with Bryant and Lana now) as well as a second crib. The big purchase we will have to make before the baby comes is a minivan. Goodbye compact parking, cute car, and zipping around corners, and hello to practical Mommy! We have been keeping busy, but we are very excited to once again be moving ahead in the adoption process!

Happy Mom's Day Jamie!

Thanks for all that you do for our family. Thanks for changing all those diapers, doing all that never-ending laundry, patiently working with Lana's poor sleeping, helping Bryant learn new words, taking care of meals, buying the groceries, cleaning bathrooms, washing dishes, always taking time to talk, never asking me to watch Anne of Green Gables with you, playing with the kids, offering encouraging words, coming up with creative ideas around the house, listening to me practice presentations, planning special occasions, steam cleaning the carpets, giving us all haircuts (well, not Lana yet), acting interested when I get technical, working to keep Christ central in all things, never wasting money, feeding Chi-Chi, getting up often in the night when kids are crying, loving your husband on his melancholy days, taking great photos of the family, stomping creepy-crawlies in the middle of the night, taking the kids to their doctor's appointments, loving my family and friends as your own, keeping your hair long at my request, and loving a child you haven't even met yet. Our children are blessed to have you for their mother. I am a better man because you are my wife. I love you very much.

The Process

Here is a top-level overview (Jamie is laughing at me for using these words - totally a Gary post) of the process we are going through in order to adopt internationally.

We have to complete a California homestudy. This involves filling out lots of forms, getting fingerprinted at the local police station, being interviewed by a social worker, and having a home safety inspection. The homestudy agency uses all this information about us to make a determination about our suitability to adopt. Assuming no problems arise out of all this, a final report is written up by the homestudy agency documenting their findings and conclusions. We are currently complete for all this except the final report is still being written.

The dossier is another big stack of paperwork. This one includes the final homestudy report as well as quite a few other forms and documents of various kinds. Everything must be notarized. In addition, there is a requirement to complete a minimum of ten hours of adoption/parenting training, per requirements of the Hague Convention. When all this is completed and reviewed by our adoption agency, it is sent to the U.S State Department for authentication. After this is done, it is ready to go to Ethiopia. The dossier basically contains everything the Ethiopian government will know about us, and it is what they will use to approve or reject us for adopting one of their children. We are nearly complete with our dossier paperwork now - we need the homestudy report, one notarized doctor's report, and we need to complete and notarize our letter to the Ethiopian government requesting adoption of an Ethiopian child. We hope to have all this complete and ready for review in another week or two.

A third leg to this process is the paperwork for the USCIS (U.S. Citizenship and Immigration Services). You can't just go and bring a foreign-born person into the U.S. without more stacks of paper. The USCIS requires more fingerprints, more moolah, and a review of the homestudy report to give a preliminary approval for our bringing in an orphan from outside the country. We are just waiting on the homestudy report at this time. There will be more forms later when we are closer to our travel time.

OK, so once all the front-end paperwork is complete and submitted to Ethiopia, we wait for a referral. The referral will consist of information (perhaps all that is known) about an orphaned or abandoned child. This will include pictures, sometimes video, medical history, family history if known, as well as personal tidbits if known. We will be requesting a reasonably healthy girl, age 0-18 months. We don't know how long it will take to get a referral once our paperwork is submitted, but other adopting families seem to have had times varying from a month or two to four or five months. Our agency quotes three months as typical, but nothing is guaranteed of course.

Orphaned/abandoned children in Ethiopia typically start out in the state-run orphanages. Once we agree to a referred child, that child will be removed from the orphanage (hooray!) and placed in foster care. From this point, it could be another month or more before we can arrange to travel to pick up the child!

We're anxious to meet that little one, whomever she may be!

Why Ethiopia?

So, how did we settle on Ethiopia for this adoption?

First, we considered what countries, or areas, we had an interest in. I had an interest in Eastern Europe, probably based on the horror stories I had heard years ago about Romanian orphanages. Jamie has long had a heart for Africa. Next, we started looking into what countries in these regions allow adoptions to the U.S. Not all do. We considered Malawi, since our church has an ongoing ministry focus there. However, Malawi, as of the writing of this post anyway, requires two years residency in country in order to adopt. Cross that one off. We looked at Romania, but it is currently closed to U.S. adoptions.

So, as we prayed about which country to choose, God began to move my heart toward Africa. Certainly, there is much need there. AIDS and war have orphaned many children. So has poverty. Perhaps my main reason for not wanting to adopt from Africa was that the child would not look like us. My heart began to change quite dramatically on this point over a period of weeks. If our lives are to glorify God, and the Gilchrists want their adoption to do so, what better way than to have a child that will bring questions? Africa it is.

Next, we started looking at Christian adoption agencies that work with African countries. It turns out there are only a few African countries that are currently working with the U.S. for general adoptions. Ethiopia was the primary one; Liberia was open as well. There were far more agencies that worked with Ethiopia than Liberia, so we started leaning that way.

Then we had to check out the requirements as set forth by the Ethiopian government for international adoptions. Fortunately, Ethiopia has less restrictive requirements for prospective adoptive parents than some other countries. Requirements vary by country, and may include such things as minimum age for both parents, no small children in the home, no more than one child in the home, maximum age difference for mom and dad, maximum age for either parent, stays of 6 weeks or more in country at time of adoption, minimum income, minimum education, can't adopt a child younger than age two, can't specify gender of child to adopt, must have blood ties to country, and the list goes on. For Ethiopia, we met all the requirements!

We sent out requests for information from quite a few Christian adoption agencies, and chose Christian World Adoption. They have placed a lot of children from Ethiopia, and simply put, they were great at answering all of our many questions, even before we signed with them! All of our correspondence with them has been excellent. We have seen God's blessing in this choice.

One step closer!

After weeks of dreading, as well as much organizing and cleaning, we finally had our home inspection and personal interviews, and we passed! The social worker and her understudy were both nice and the visit was quick! I think we really did not know what to expect from the interviews or home inspection, so we tried to cover all the bases, organizing closets and cupboards, even going so far as to clean behind furniture. I think we went above and beyond the call of duty, but we passed the homestudy and are all done with home visits until after we bring our sweet baby girl home!

Why are we pursuing international adoption?

First blog post ever.... drum roll please....

We've had a number of people ask us about how we decided to adopt internationally, so here are some thoughts along that line...

Both Jamie and I had an interest in orphanage ministry when we were young... um... well... when I was young anyway. I don't know that either of us ever thought that our interest would lead to anything in particular, but I suppose now it has in a way. God seems to have awakened that heart in each of us again, and we are working toward that end, albeit not exactly George Mueller style. Three things happened last year to move us to the place of pursuing international adoption.

One - I was studying through a great little book by John Piper, entitled "Don't Waste Your Life", and desire for something more than standard temporal pursuits began to gnaw at me again. The reminder that "Life is Short, Eternity is Long - Live Like It!" began to grow and bear fruit in my heart. If our lives are to count, we had better be about the things that God is about. As Jamie and I talked and prayed about this, we grew more and more confident that God is not so interested in "stuff", but in people.

Two - Jamie's pregnancy with Lana was a very difficult one, with 9 months of daily hugging the porcelain throne, a few trips to the hospital, loss of weight, lots of medicine, etc. By the end of that pregnancy, Jamie and I agreed that her body needed a break - not permanently necessarily, but for a few years at least. But, we were still interested in having more kids in the near term. This consideration sparked the adoption conversation anew. We had considered it before as a way to love a needy child, but we hadn't been thinking of doing anything along that line until later in our marriage.

Three - Some friends of ours were in the process of adopting two special needs kids from the Ukraine (see their blog at the Finding Zoe link in the sidebar). We followed their exploits with interest, and suddenly it dawned on us... you know, we could do that! We hadn't considered international adoption until that point. There is a HUGE need in some countries, and the desire to demonstrate the good heart of our good God by giving of our resources to one (or hopefully more later) truly needy child from overseas loomed ever larger in our hearts and minds.

At this point, the proverbial ball began to roll...

Anyway, lots more to be said, but it will have to wait for another post. We appreciate your prayers as you think about us.