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| July 2013, the Children's Chapel lesson was about What God Calls Us To Do. The children were given some time to respond to this, and Johnny responded through picture. He shared that he is carrying Baby Opia (center) into our house, and I'm at the side saying, "Awwww!" |
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| April 2013, Johnathan made a star with our 5 family members. BE is "Baby Ethiopia". |
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| July 2013, Tenleigh drew a picture of our family with lots of letters and sounds! The small yellow one named "O" is for "Opia". |
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| Johnathan's Kindergarten journal on the last day of school. I can tell that he rushed through this one, but it says, "I'm holden Baby Etheopya." |
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| Our Family of Five - by Tenleigh |
Absolutely precious and beautiful! Through all of this, Johnny and Tenleigh have never given up hope that some day we will be a family of 5. It just "will be" and that's that.
And so, on that one random Monday night when dinner was on the stove, the kids were at their prime for behavior (read between the lines on that one --- wink!), the dogs were barking like crazy to get outside to our neighbor dog Merlin who again has his little "I'm so ugly I'm cute" face smashed up to our front door windows -- and my poor mom is trying to step in line to this dance that is just our typical chaos at this hour every night -- OF COURSE Ryan's cell phone rings and he feels he must answer it right away because he doesn't recognize the number and "it might be someone trying to reach me about work" (He's leaving for a business trip)...
You know how God sometimes throws us a surprise -- although not a surprise at all to Him!?
Truly the phone call we've been waiting for -- for a VERY LONG TIME ---- and yet, never really knew what in the world the moment would look like (and certainly didn't imagine it to be in the midst of such chaos!) But, as we would find out -- so PERFECT too. I could hear Ryan sound excited on the phone and I wondered if it was maybe a relative of mine or something. He was too "formal-like" for it to have been a friend :) Then I heard him say, "Let me get Katie on the phone!" And when I joined in on the speaker phone and said "Hello?" I didn't quite understand what was going on. And finally I said, "Who is this?" :)
Words completely escaped me as our caseworker started to tell us about this "beautiful 5 month old boy". I COULD NOT BELIEVE IT. She emailed us his file right away, and again, in His perfect timing, with my mom visiting us, she snapped some pictures of us as we saw his face for the first time:
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| The most BEAUTIFUL little brown face I've EVER seen! |
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| A little bit blurry -- but you get the emotions. :) |
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| I think Tenleigh was a little unsure about my tears. :) |
My heart was just BURSTING and even as I type this my eyes are full of tears. Sweet, sweet boy -- with beautiful brown eyes, healthy cheeks and chubby fingers that I ache to kiss!!
Tenleigh's first reaction was, "WHAT!? It's a BOY!? I thought it was a SISTER!!" (Not sure if the confusion came from the picture, as Baby Opia was wearing a baby girl's pink & purple sleeper :), or if she really had made up her mind that she'd be getting a sister! :) Johnathan was a bit bashful about it. He had a big smile and then kind of scooted away, as if all the excitement was just "too much". :)
Ryan and I read through the information that we received on this little one and the most amazing thing popped out to us... sweet Baby Opia's Ethiopian given name --- means "Our Hope". That is so meaningful to us. And I can't help but think that perhaps "Little A" (as we'll now call him, for that's the first letter of his name) is also the hope of his birth parents. It is very obvious to me that he had been loved and cared for. His cheeks prove it! :)
And so it is, this little thing called HOPE -- my mom pointed out to me that I had blogged about HOPE a few times earlier; even in my last blog entry! -- has also become so meaningful to us in other ways. A few weeks ago we were VERY surprised to be blessed with a very helpful adoption grant from SHOW HOPE Ministries. I think all of these "Godincedences" are amazing.
Romans 12:12 is so meaningful to us and feels just perfect to our story:
"Be joyful in hope, patient in affliction, faithful in prayer."
I love that.
My friends, thank you for sharing in our HOPE and JOY! This little one ignites our hearts! But this is kind of where things really get exciting. Now that we have a face that we already love, and a beautiful name with such special meaning, I find myself having a hard time breathing, if that makes sense. There is still a lot to the process that needs to happen before he is officially our son. We definitely appreciate your prayers as we make make our way to "Our Hope".
