Video

We received new measurements today. The twins are 23 pounds and 28.5 inches tall.

I'm including a video that CWA sent to us today from a worker's recent trip to the care center in Addis Ababa. Enjoy watching the boys laughing and smiling. It's such a blessing to see them happy and carefree. Their caretakers seem to be really sweet and it blesses us to see them interracting with the twins.

Enjoy the video and PLEASE excuse the dreaded pink pants. Oh the pink!!

Much love,Heather

July 1st!!!!

Great news!! Yesterday afternoon, we received an email from Sue letting us know that we have a confirmed embassy date of Tuesday, July 1st at 2pm. YAY!!!!

We leave Austin at 6:30am on Friday, June 27th and arrive in Addis on Saturday, June 28th at 9:05pm. Our trip will look like this: Austin to Newark, Newark to Amsterdam, Amsterdam to Addis Ababa. We have a 6 hour layover in Newark, which won't be any fun. However, we're going to be on our way and I doubt that a long layover in New Jersey will distract us from our joy. The great thing is that our flight leaves Newark at 5:15, which will allow us the opportunity to sleep during the nighttime flight. We're hoping that will help tremendously with the jet-lag:)

We have received plenty of balls to take with us to Addis. One of Jessica's friends is involved in Vacation Bible School this summer and their outreach this summer is...get this: "Gospel" soccer balls! So, they will be giving us a large number of soccer balls painted with the colors of salvation on it. We have another friend that owns a sporting goods store and he's donating an assortment of balls for us to take. We're so excited to deliver these to the children in Ethiopia.

That's all for now-we just wanted to share our good news with everyone!

DONATIONS NEEDED for the orphanages!!

I'm currently in the process of shopping like a mad woman! I'm trying to get together everything that we'll need in the way of OTC medicines, like Children's Advil, Tylenol and Motrin, Benadryl and various cough and cold medicines that the boys might need.

As we are getting closer to going, we've asked friends from our LINK class (Sunday School) to help us get together clothing donations (gently used) to take to the orphanages in Ethiopia. We're trying to fill up 4 large suitcases so we can bless them in a big way :) We're also trying to get donations together for soccer balls, kickballs, etc., but deflated in the packaging (which is how they come to the sporting goods stores anyway) so that we can fit as many as possible into the suitcases. We'd also like to take some frisbees.

If you feel like helping us in this effort, please contact your local sporting goods stores and ask them if they will donate deflated, brand new balls and frisbees for us to donate to the children in Ethiopia. If you are able to secure some balls and frisbees, please email me as soon as possible so that we don't get too many and have to leave some behind.

Another idea-pages and pages of small stickers for the little girls. Many Christian bookstores and scrapbooking stores have large "books" filled with tear out pages of stickers that will allow us to hand out a page of stickers to children that we see in the streets. I'd love to bless them in some small way! If you think about it, it would be wonderful if we can get Lifeway or Family Christian Bookstore to donate pages of stickers for us to take . My heart's desire is that we can take stickers with scripture on them!!

One story to share...a good friend of mine had the same court date as us, the first time around-April 23rd. It was imperative that they pass court as soon as possible, as one of her children she's adopting from Ethiopia has tuberculosis and needed to get to the US as soon as she possibly could. Well, they passed on the first try, Praise the Lord! However, they traveled on May 22nd for a May 27th court date. When they went to get her daughter's Birth Certificate and Visa, the Embassy refused to give it because of the daughter's TB infection. They have been in limbo for over a week, searching the heart of the Lord, asking for direction on what actions they should take. They are currently waiting to hear whether or not all of them will be able to come home to the US together or if their newly adopted daughter will be forced to stay behind in Ethiopia with one of the parents. Can you imagine the devastation that little girl and family must be feeling right now? To have experienced so much tragedy in her little lifetime and then see a light at the end of the tunnel, only to have something like this happen, must be very scary for her.

Feel free to send me a private email with any thoughts you might have: hflippen@austin.rr.com

Much love to all :)

Heather

Embassy Date!

I sent an email to Sue this morning asking if she had any news regarding an Embassy date being scheduled for us yet. To my surprise, I got an immediate phone call (for which I couldn't find the phone-ugh!!) and then another on my cell phone.

She was calling to let us know that we have a tentative Embassy date scheduled for July 1st, but is waiting for confirmation from the Ethiopia office before she gives us the all-clear for travel arrangements. I explained to her that we'd already made our plane reservations and Guest House accomodations and that we were planning to be in Ethiopia for an entire month. She was thrilled to hear that we're going to be there for so long and encouraged us to make sure that we have snugli's or wraps for the twins. I assured her that I'd already gotten them and they're in the suitcase ready to go!

For now, it looks as if we have a court date of July 1st - Praise the Lord!

Heather

The wait is hard...

Someone told me a few months back, that this particular point in the adoption might be the most difficult one to wait on. I didn't believe it, well...because I couldn't imagine. After the roller coaster ride of emotions over the last 15 months, I didn't think it could possibly be more difficult than what we've already experienced. However, I was definitely mistaken!

To have been through this process and to know that the babies are officially, legally ours, yet not be able to just run over and pick them up is sometimes almost more than I, as a mother, can bear. Of course, it would be extremely difficult (but not impossible!) to just drop everything and go pick them up. But, OH HOW I WANT TO!

Anyone who has been extremely close to me over the last month of court dates has seen me ecstatic, then somewhat reserved when we were postponed the first time. The second time, Matthew was out of town for a few days and I was left to wait for news by myself. This time, I really believed that we'd get through-that it was simply a formality. However, I was blindsided by the depression and uncertainty that immediately hit me, upon hearing the words "We've been postponed AGAIN". Then, as we Christ-followers sometimes do, I began to feel guilty over the things I was questioning. "Was I being doubtful?" "Did I have so little faith?" I felt weak and pathetic and really wondered why, on Earth, God would want me to be a mother again when I couldn't "snap out of it". It was a very lonely place to be and one that I really struggled with.

However, I quickly realized that I was exactly where God wanted me to be and that was for me to be at a place where I trusted WHOLLY in Him to see this happen. It's no coincidence that for all of the 1st 3 court dates, Matthew was traveling and we were forced to be apart and, instead forced to go to the Lord. Had we been at home together, I'm certain that we would have reached for each other for comfort instead of running into the arms of our Heavenly Father.

At this point, although there is a light at the end of the tunnel, it's hard to know our children are halfway across the world, longing for a family and we simply can't get to them just yet ...

Sometimes standing and waiting is hard work, when we desperately want to run and do something. Make a paperwork move quicker, get the birth certificates printed, etc. However, I know that God orcestrates things sometimes for us to see our complete lack of control. Because I simply can't do anything else, I try to stand in faith and 'be strong in the Lord and in his mighty power"(Eph. 6:20)

Love you all!
Heather