June 8, 2009 Update

Pray and think good thoughts that we pass court tomorrow in Ethiopia! That will make it OFFICIAL!! We will legally be Girma’s parents! Sometimes parents don’t pass court the first time due to minor paperwork details. In that case, hopefully it would only postpone things for a couple days. Once we pass court, we should know in a week if we are to be in Ethiopia on July 15th or the 29th. Let’s hope it is the 15th, we want to see our little boy as soon as possible! In the meantime, we’ve been concentrating on our home addition! Steve has been busy helping Alan out. Construction is going well, framing is going up as we speak! Check it out!

New information on Girma! We have gotten in touch with a family that just returned from Ethiopia with their infant son a month ago. Their son was from Sele Enat, the same orphanage Girma is at! We were hopeful that they got to meet Girma, and YES!! Not only did they meet him, here is an excerpt from their email: “He is so sweet. My husband and I took 18 soccer balls to the orphanage and bubbles also just for the kids to play with. First off each day we got there he (Girma) met my husband at the gate with a soccer ball, he never said anything other than handed him the soccer ball to kick back to him. Once all the bigger kids noticed we were there of course they tried to take over and Girma would just stay right in there. When we gave him a can of bubbles he used all of his quickly. He was so smart he would take it back to the water and refill it, however no bubbles would fly out. He would keep the bottle of bubbles in his pant pocket. I have to say I actually ended up giving him two bottles, (don’t tell anyone). He seemed quite shy, but he is darling. On Thursday while we were there my husband walked down the road and bought a bottle of Fanta soda for everyone of the kids big or little! He so enjoyed his! Hana the orphanage coordinator said it was most of these little childrens first soda pop!!”

My heart melted as this is the first real account of our son and his personality! All the other info we have gotten was about his health, his measurements, background info, etc. But this new info, coming from parents who understand how important every little bit of info of our son is something that you just can’t get enough of! You want to know what they like to eat, what they like to play with, what their little quirks are, are they happy or grumpy when they wake up? All these unanswered questions that will eventually get answered when we bring him back home. But every little piece added to Girma’s puzzle is so important. The other bit of information we received on Girma is huge! On his health report, it said that he was using only 3 words to form sentences, which seems delayed to us. But we figured we can handle that. Well, it turns out that Girma does not speak Amharic (main language of Ethiopia), he speaks Sidamo!! No wonder he is only stringing only 3 Amharic words together! It partly explains why he looks a bit lost in his earlier pictures. On top of not knowing the language being spoken at the orphanage, he is dealing with not being with his birth family any more. So much for a little one to experience. We can’t take away what our son has been through, but we can certainly surround him with love and tools to help him adjust to a new life. So, please think good thoughts to help us pass court this Tuesday! Thanks to everyone for your love and support!