Day 1 and 2-April 3rd and 4th

Our plans to travel to Ethiopia to get our beautiful children was anything but predictable! We passed court to make them legally ours on February 25th. However, we were told that due to some new investigations being conducted by the US Embassy in Ethiopia in regard to adoptions, that we would have to wait to travel until mid-May. This was extremely disappointing, but we tried to focus on the "good"...it gave us time to get our home remodeling project done and time to do more fundraising to cover the costs of our adoption. After, only a couple of weeks though, we received a call that the Embassy was already looking at our case and we could be traveling by mid-April...a whole month early! Wow! This was not the end of the surprises as we received a call on Monday, March 29th saying the Embassy was finished with their investigation of our case and we had an appointment with the US Embassy in Ethiopia on April 7th! We needed to be on a plane by Saturday, April 3rd! In 5 days!!!


The days from March 29th to April 3rd are a bit of a blur. We scrambled to get packed, collect donations, find plane tickets, pay fees, try to get as much of our home remodel done as possible, etc.. Not to mention that April 4th was Easter, and Kenny and I would not be at church...a little tricky when he is the Associate Pastor and Youth Pastor and I am the Director of the Children's Ministry. We both had emergency meetings with our teams to get everything covered...we were both so thankful that we serve with incredible people who can take-over in our absence! 


By God's grace we were able to get plane tickets (3 round trip, 2 one-way). We only took three sets of clothing for each of us due to the large amount of donations we received that we wanted to take with us. After we finished packing, we ended up with 4 large suitcases (each weighing the 50 pound max), 2 huge duffel bags (each weighing the 50 pound max), and 6 pieces of carry-on luggage (each weighing the 15 pound max). The bulk of our donations for the Transition House and orphanages included: baby formula, baby wipes, children's motrin, cough medicine, and clothing.


Our flight left Los Angeles at 6:15am Saturday morning, April 3rd, and we traveled over the entire Easter holiday, arriving in Addis Ababa, Ethiopia at 8:00pm on April 4th. We had stops in Chicago, Washington DC, and Rome. We flew on Ethiopian Air...not the greatest airline ever, but we were so thrilled to be on our journey to get T*n***e and M**l*****m! One amazing thing is that "T*n***e" means "resurrection". She was born in Easter and we were traveling on Easter to get her and her brother...it is so cool the way God orchestrates things!

Our luggage and carry-ons

Could not resist this picture in Washington, DC

The plane taking us to Addis Ababa, Ethiopia!

In Ethiopia...our donations for our agency's Transition House

and orphanages...seperated and ready to be delivered.