When in Rome . . .

When in Rome Turkey do as the Romans Turks do.

My kids are very keen on what is going on around them; how people speak, behave and also how they dress. Although a hijab (head covering) is not required on women in public, many women here do wear them.

A few weeks ago, my friend gave me a head covering and a lesson on how to wear it. Since then Vienna and, yes, even Colson too, have had fun playing dress up with it and of course I had to capture their cuteness on camera!

Hope Renewed

Thank you all so much for your sweet comments. I am so thankful to be a part of this online adoption community, it truly is wonderful "knowing" so many people who just get us. Adoption is so hard and I'm so glad we're not walking through it all alone.

Finding out the news about K was really, really hard. The day we found out, Joel stayed home from the office and I spent the morning crying.

But in the midst of our grief, we totally felt God's comfort and peace and in came in the form of our new friends. Joel went out to the little store around the corner in the morning to buy a few things and on the way back he ran into our friends. He told them the news and the husband gave him a big hug.

About an hour later our friends showed up at our house.They didn't call, they just came right over. I was so blessed. Although adoption is still kind of a foreign concept to them, they dropped everything and came to be with us because they knew we were sad. Turks just know it's not good to be alone when you're sad. Even though my face was all red and puffy from crying and I would have preferred not to have guests, it was good that they came, it really did help us take our minds off of things.

They stayed for a few hours and it was nice not having to worry about serving coffee, tea or snacks since it's Ramadan and our friends are fasting. The wife even invited her sister-in-law  (whom I barely know) to come over too, which I thought was kind of funny, but Turks just love to be together, so hey, what's one more!

Of course, Adam and Mel took care of us too - they brought us lunch and supper and hung out with us in the evening. Have I mentioned before that we are TOTALLY blessed to have family here?! They are the best! But it was just so cool for me to see our Turkish friends be there for us in our time of need. It encourages me to know that we really are making real friendships here!

Now, with all that being said I do have some good news to share!

That same evening, after we put the kids to bed, we called AAI to ask a few more questions and that's when we found out about Y (I can't write his full name yet). AAI said they were still trying to find families for some boys in the 4-6 age range and asked if we were ready to see another little boy's file. To be honest, I wasn't quite sure that my heart was ready, but Joel said we needed to look at his file. So we saw his pictures, read his file and knew that we needed to let this little boy into our hearts. Of course, we are still so sad about K and he will always have a very special place in our hearts (his picture is still all throughout our house and our kids continue to talk about him and want to pray for him), but we found out about another little boy needing a family and we are so excited that Y is going to be our son! He's about 5 years old and he's got the cutest smile you will ever see!

I'll admit, I'm still scared and feel like I have my heart a little guarded because of what happened with K. Adoption is just so hard, it really is such an emotional roller coaster ride! Boy, did I ever learn that this week!

But the other good news is that AAI told us we might even be able to keep the same court date that we had scheduled for K (October 8). We had already bought tickets and everything, so we're praying that we'll still be able to travel as scheduled! 

Heartbroken.

This week we found out that K will not be joining our family. To say that we are hurting would be an understatement. Our hearts feel like they have been broken in two.

K's birthmother came forward and now wants to parent him. Although we have to hope this is what is best for K, that doesn't stop the pain that we are feeling. I don't know quite how to put all of it into words or to sort through all these emotions.

Even though we had never met K, he was still a part of our family. We talked about him everyday, prayed for him everyday, looked at his picture 100 times a day, dreamed about our life together. He was already ours in our hearts. And now to find out that he will not be our son, well, I just don't know how else to put it other than that we are truly broken-hearted.

I can't seem to stop the tears, my arms ache for my K that I will never hold. I have never experienced a pain this real, a hurt so deep. 

I feel like it's hard for others who have not adopted to understand the depth of the grief that we are experiencing. If any of you adoptive parents are reading this and have been through the loss of a referral or know anyone that has, could you please comment and leave me some contact info? It would be so helpful to have others that have walked through this to talk to.

Please understand, we are very happy that K's mother has decided to parent him. He will be re-united with his family; it really is good news! But that just doesn't stop the hurt we feel. We would really appreciate your prayers as we struggle through this hard time. Pray for God to heal our hearts.

Thank you so much.

Down By the Bay

Life has been non-stop the past few weeks, so it was nice to have a relaxing Sunday at home today. But by the time evening rolled around we felt the need to go outside even though the minute you step outside you start sweating profusely. It may have still been 106 degrees at 6pm today, but we headed out into the heat anyway for a fun family adventure. 

We decided to take the kids to the sea since there's always a nice breeze there which makes the heat a little more bearable. We hopped on the train and rode to the center of the city and bought some ice cream to cool off. The kids had fun feeding (and chasing) the pigeons and watching the water fountains. Then we walked down by the water for a little and then took the ferry across the bay to the other side of the city. 

We have these handy dandy little cards called Kent Cards which are like travel passes that you can buy to travel on public transportation at a lower cost. We put money on our cards and when we ride on the bus, train or ferry we just swipe our cards and a little screen will show us how much money is left on our cards. The great thing about them is that after you swipe it once, any public transportation you ride on in the next 90 minutes is free. I love free! 

So we had fun with that tonight. We went to the city center by train, took the ferry (for free) to another part of the city, then hopped on a bus (only Joel's card was free this time, I must have JUST missed the 90 minute cut off) to get back home. All three modes of public transportation in one night and all for 4.65 lira - about 3 dollars! It was so much fun for the kids - well, until the bus. Poor little Vienna threw up her chocolate ice cream all over me on the bus on the way home. And we also didn't get on the right bus to go home, so we ended up having to walk a little farther and were hot, sweaty and tired till we reached home.

But it was fun while it lasted :)

Colson and Vienna waiting for the train - Colson is either hugging Vienna or trying to choke her. Not quite sure, but judging by the look on his face I'm going to go with choke.

the famous clock tower in the center of our city

a small mosque near the clock tower

Vienna enjoying the fountains

Colson having fun feeding the pigeons

Vienna joining in too

best friends

I love capturing these sweet brother/sister moments

the ferry we rode on

Joel and Colson riding on the ferry

Me and Vienna, not the greatest picture of Vienna, but I'm usually the one taking pictures so I rarely am in any. I was actually there :)

The Aegean Sea

Court Dates!

We found out some good news yesterday - we have been assigned court dates!

Our first is on September 28th (I think that is the first day the courts re-open) and the second one (which we have to be there for) is on October 8th!

We will have to be in Ethiopia by October 6th and we plan on staying till the 10th.

It finally sunk in - in less than two months K will legally be our son! WOW!

I am so excited, but at the same time I can't imagine how hard it will be meeting my son for the first time and then having to leave him again for 6-8 weeks until our embassy appointment! And I have no idea what this will do to K! We will get to know each other over those few days and then we will have to leave for awhile. I just hope he will understand that we love him and are coming back for him!

When we told Colson the news, he ran around in circles singing and dancing (bless his little heart). Vienna even joined in on the singing and running although she had no idea what was going on! They are both oh so excited and love to show all our friends K's picture. Anytime we're talking about K, Colson will run to the fridge, pull down K's picture and proudly show it off to everyone. Too cute!

I've been working online like a crazy woman the past two evenings, checking out airline tickets, accommodations, etc. I know we still have two months, but I need to get my butt in gear.

We're also waiting for our amended homestudy to be sent off to USCIS Athens. It should be getting sent off this week. We're praying it doesn't take long for us to get our 1-171H approval!

We also received 6 new pictures of K from families that were traveling to pick up their children. It has been such a HUGE blessing to get these pictures, especially ones of K with a big smile on his face! Before we only had 2 and he looked a little nervous and scared. It was good to see him with a big old smile on his face. I can't wait to show them to you all, he is adorable!

Only 57 more days until we meet our son! We are coming K!

Is This Wrong?

Is this wrong . . .

. . . while this still exists??

The Hebrew Scriptures have a very simple and direct message:

God always hears the cry of the oppressed:

God cares about human suffering and the conditions that cause it.

God is searching for a body, a community of people to care for the things God cares about.

God gives power and blessing so that justice and righteousness will be upheld for those who are denied them.

This is what God is like. This is what God is about. This is who God is.

To forget this, to fail to hear the cry, to preserve prosperity at the expense of the powerless, is to miss what God has in mind.

- Rob Bell, Jesus Wants to Save Christians

A Hard Week

The past week has been emotionally, physically and spiritually draining. I don’t quite know how to write down my feelings adequately. My heart is just so heavy.

Do you remember the family with the 2-year-old son with MPS and were pregnant with twins that we asked prayer for? If you don’t, you can read more here and here and here.

Last week the test results for the twins finally came back and they tested positive for MPS. Devastating!

We thought that she would be too far along to abort them so we were surprised to find out that the consensus of the family, friends and the doctors was to abort the babies, even though she was already 6 months pregnant.

We just kept praying our guts out for this family. And we felt like God showed us we needed to be willing to take these babies into our family, to not just do nothing when we heard of the decision to abort the twins, but to give them another option. But to be honest, we were crazy scared!

My sister worded it well in a prayer email she sent out last week:

We also pray, God, help us to be brave enough to know how you want us to love our neighbor as ourselves in this situation! What does that look like?!

What would we do, how would we feel, if that was US, if those were OUR babies, if we already had one very, very sick child, if we were so poor, had no work, lived far from a hospital, and had a family who told us this was God's punishment on us because we got married without our parents' permission? How would we feel if our family and our doctors and friends all encouraged us that it will just be too hard to let these babies live and they need to die?

So Joel and Adam went to the father and asked him not to abort them, that we could take them. He said we couldn’t, that it would be too hard. “You have kids already; do you know what you would be getting yourselves into? You would be at the hospital all the time. It would just be too hard.”

I’m having a hard time knowing what to share and what not to share. This is the hardest thing I’ve ever experienced– and I’m not even the one going through it!

Our friends’ babies were aborted last Thursday. I can’t even begin to imagine the pain they are going through.

Please pray that God will show this family his love, compassion, mercy and forgiveness during this time. They understand as well as we do that abortion is wrong; however, they feel they were left with no other choice. The dad said to Joel the other day, "Hopefully God will forgive us."

Last Thursday Joel and I went to the hospital to visit the father and his son (the son has been in and out of the hospital a lot the past few weeks). Joel and Adam have been to visit many times, but this was my first time and it was H.A.R.D! We didn't know it when we first got there, but the mother was already in another part of the hospital getting ready to deliver her dead baby girls. And she didn't even have her husband by her side (in Turkey men are not allowed to attend the birth).

We visited with the father and his son for about a half hour and got to pray for his son. The son had a tracheotomy done so he can breathe. But he coughs a lot and his lungs are filling up with fluid. I tried to hold back the tears as I watched the father gently take a catheter and put it down his son’s throat to suction the fluid out, obviously causing his son uncomfort. This had just become so normal to the father.

I asked him how many times he does that in a day. At least 50, he replied. He doesn’t sleep at night. No one is there helping him. No doctors or nurses came in the whole time we were there. He is caring for his son all by himself. And his son isn't even on the treatment he needs because they are still waiting on a doctor's report so he can get started! It all made me so angry!

I held it together the whole time we were in the room, but broke down crying outside the hospital.

It was just so hard!

Did God expect more from us? Should we have pleaded with them on our hands and knees for the lives of their babies? Did we really do everything we could have? And are we doing everything we can now to help this family?

I’m struggling to make sense of it all right now.

Please, please keep praying with us for this family.

Pray for strength for the dad as he spends many long days (and nights) in the hospital caring for his son.

Pray for healing for this little boy!

Pray for healing for the mother.

Pray for the parents as I know they are feeling lots of guilt over the decision they made.

Pray for continued God-inspired creativity for us to show God's love to them.