Would Love Your Prayers

10 days!!! We leave for Ethiopia in TEN days!!!

This will be the first of our two trips to Ethiopia. On this trip we will finally meet our son!!! We will spend several hours a day with him at our agency's Transitional Home, bonding with him and getting to know him. We can't wait to finally hold him in our arms! The rest of the time will be spent sight-seeing, touring, visiting orphanages and delivering donations.

Most importantly on this trip, we will go to court. On January 18, we will appear before an Ethiopian judge in the hopes of making Elias legally and officially our son!

We would love to ask for your prayers for our trip. Whenever our family comes to mind in the next two weeks, would you please lift us up in prayer? The following are some specific prayer requests we have...

1. Traveling mercies: Please pray that we will not have any unforeseen delays or missed flights and that we will be safe throughout our flights and the time spent traveling in Ethiopia.
2. Health: Please pray that we will all remain healthy and will adjust well to the time change. We are especially concerned for our seven-year-old, Emma, who will be going with us.
3. Bonding: Obviously Elias has not been falling in love with us like we have been with him over these last few months. As much as I'd like to picture our "Meetcha Day" in slow-motion like a movie with us running into each other's arms, I know this is pretty far from reality. The families who have met him have all described his as very reserved and subdued and several times he's even cried when he's been placed with these families to receive a care package. We know he has a happy, content, even silly side to him, but we also know it may take awhile before we're able to see it for ourselves. We have been told by the nannies that he is uncomfortable around new people, which is exactly who we are to him right now. Please join us in praying that his heart will be open to us and that we can begin bonding together. Please pray that he will warm up to us and that our time with him will plant the seeds for us to grow as a family.
4. Court: In order for our family to "pass" court, we will need several different factors to all be in place. This is excruciatingly difficult in a third-world country without the efficiency or urgency that we're used to here. Specifically, we need the Ministry of Women and Children's Affairs (MOWA), to write a favorable letter of recommendation for our family. This coveted letter is rarely written on time, and the majority of families do not pass court on their first try because of this reason. We would love for you to join us in praying that our MOWA is written on time and in our file before the judge! We are so longing to hear the judge say, "He is yours!" Once we pass court, we can then be submitted to the embassy which is the final step to bringing Elias HOME. The longer it takes us to pass court, the longer we will have to wait to bring him home. Please, please pray that we are able to pass on our first try, on January 18.

Thank you so much for continuing to support our family through your prayers! We are so incredibly grateful!!

~The Herwehe family

December Update

We received our December update this week! It is the last one we'll get before we travel to meet our little guy! We were so excited to learn more about him as we are preparing ourselves to spend a week with him in January. Here are some of the highlights...

• Elias weighs 24 pounds and is 31 inches tall! We love how much he's grown since being in the wonderful care of our adoption agency's transition home, even though its hard watching him grow up so much in pictures.
• He is still taking formula 5 times a day, but is learning to drink it from a cup by himself.
• He has been healthy all month! (Praising God for this as it is quite uncommon in a orphanage setting!)
• He is described as being content, although sometimes afraid of strangers. He likes to cuddle with his nannies.

The questions we asked this month...

• What are G's favorite things to play with? Does G* have a favorite toy? "He likes to play with people and plays with any toy he gets."
• What makes G* smile and laugh? "He laughs when tickled and when the nannies cuddle with him."
• Does G* have a special friend he enjoys playing with? "No, he plays with everyone."
• What is G's favorite food? Is there a food he does not like? "He eats all of the food at the Transitional Home. He likes pastini (baby pasta)."
• How does G* act around new or unfamiliar people? "He is sometimes afraid, quiet, and reserved to new people."

We also got some new pictures of our little sweetie! He had his first haircut this month, and it was such a shock to see him without his curls! Charlie really liked his new look (but then again, he's got a shaved head too!), but I sort of miss the 'fro he had. The haircut definitely makes him look more like a little boy and not so much of a baby anymore. In Ethiopian culture, its believed that if you shave a child's head for the first two years of life, the hair will grow back in fuller, thicker, and curlier. I hope that's true because I am so excited to play with his curly hair!!

We just cannot wait to meet this amazing little boy for ourselves! TWO more weeks!!!

Merry Christmas, my precious baby boy!

Oh, sweet boy. I miss you so much. I am just aching and longing to bring you home. Yesterday I heard the song, "I'll be Home for Christmas," and I just melted. I thought for sure that you would be home with us by now. Celebrating this Christmas without you here has been so difficult, because we are not a complete family without you.

We kept you close to our hearts and minds and included you in all of our Christmas traditions this year. But we're really looking forward to next year when you're here to see it all for yourself!

You got a new ornament on the tree.

We baked cookies for Santa in the shape of Africa because your sisters wanted to make sure Santa remembered to visit you, too!

We hung FOUR stockings up on the mantel this year! See that cute little penguin on the end? That one's yours!!

You even had presents under the tree... some from family, some from friends, and even some from Santa! None of them have been opened yet. We'll let you do that when you get home!

This morning when I woke up, my heart was so heavy because you weren't home with us to celebrate Christmas, and I was missing you terribly. I checked my e-mail and found that I had 17 new pictures and a video of you waiting in my inbox. They were all of you opening the Christmas care package we sent to you. It was my best Christmas present! It was not the same as having you here, but it sure was nice to see your beautiful face on Christmas morning!

Merry Christmas, Elias. I am so glad this is the last one we'll spend apart!

I love you!!

~Mommy

Christmas Care Package

This care package is being delivered to Elias during the week of Christmas by our friends the Chambers family. We are so excited that they will be visiting their daughter during Christmas, and are able to take a present to Elias too!

We sent Elias blue snowman jammies to match what his sisters will be wearing on Christmas morning. (Theirs are pink!) We also sent him a musical toy that has been a favorite of all three of our girls, so we knew we wanted to get one for him too. Finally, we chose this recordable book for him. Charlie and I took turns reading the pages so that he could hear our voices for the first time!

We are so excited that this is our last care package being delivered to Elias by someone other than us! We are in the next travel group to Ethiopia, so his next care package will be hand-delivered to him by his mommy and daddy!!

A Picture of Hope

In June, we were matched with our precious sponsor child, Webit. She is a seven year old little girl who is enrolled at the Trees of Glory care center in Ethiopia. Through our sponsorship, she is now receiving nutritious meals each day, an education, medical attention, and Christian discipleship.

This is the first picture we saw of her. We immediately fell in love with her, but were saddened by the longing in her eyes and the fact that she wasn't smiling. We have prayed for her every single day and are so grateful that we are able to play a role in her life.

Last month, the sponsor coordinator for Trees of Glory, Karen Wistrom, and her team of volunteers visited Trees of Glory and offered to take care packages to all of the children from their sponsor families. The girls and I had such a great time picking out items for Webit's care package... a new shirt, some chapstick and hair ties, a toothbrush and toothpaste, new sunglasses, and pictures and a letter from our family to her. We were so excited to send our love to her and to help her understand how much we care for her and pray for her.

We were thrilled to see these new pictures of our girl!! Look at that smile! Look at the hope in her eyes!! We are so honored to be a part of her life and feel blessed that God is using us to show her the love of Christ.

There are still children at the Trees of Glory care center waiting and hoping for sponsors. If you are interested in sponsoring one of these children and helping to forever change their lives, please contact Karen Wistrom by clicking here.

Care Package #3

Our third care package to Elias was a group effort! Charlie (obviously!!) picked out the outfit for our son. How cute to see our little Ethiopian cheering for the Colts! The girls picked out some Weeble Wobbles for him, and I picked out the little security blanket for him. Thank you so much to the Adkins family for spending some time with our son, loving on him, and delivering our care package!!

November Update

At the end of each month, our adoption agency sends out updates. These are a wonderful lifeline to our son, and include lots of great information on him, physically, emotionally, developmentally, etc. We were beyond excited to receive ours this month and to learn more about our little one and his daily life in the Transition Home.

Here were some of the highlights...

• He has gained 5 pounds since coming to the transition home!!
• He takes 6 ounces of formula, five times a day ( I really am so glad that he still takes bottles, because I think that will be a great way for us to bond with him.) He is also eating pasta, rice, cereal, porridge, fruits, and vegetables.
• He understands and obeys simple commands like come, go, bring this, etc.
• He is described as happy and playful. : )

We also get the opportunity to ask the nannies five questions each month. Here are a few of our questions and their answers...

• Is G* speaking any words yet? He says "ema" in Amharic, which means mommy. (Melt my heart!!)
• How would you describe G's personality? He is happy, content, easy going, sometimes quiet and reserved. (Have you met our other kids? What a perfect fit for our family!!)
• What is G's daily schedule? He wakes up at 6am, he eats solid food 4 times during the day and formula 5 times. He takes a nap during the afternoon. He plays with the nannies and other kids when he is awake. He gets bathed in the evening, takes his bottle, and sleeps through the night.
• If G* is sad or upset, what helps make him feel better? He feels better when he is cuddled or when he gets what he wants. (Ha!)

We also got three new pictures of our little sweetie!! He was running, laughing, and being silly in all three of them! He looked like a perfect, happy little boy!! We just continue to fall more and more in love with this precious child and are so anxious to finally meet him ourselves!!