Christmas come and gone...

Hi everyone,

Well, another Christmas has come and gone. Like so many others, this one was filled with the sounds of children squealing with happiness as presents were opened and the excitement of anticipating the arival of Santa. It really is a joy to watch our niece and nephew open their gifts.

However, this Christmas was just a little bitter sweet. We had hoped that we could have our sweet little Henok home with us to celebrate his first christmas, however, that just didn't happen. The sadness of not having him here will fade quickly, as we realize that in just over a week we will be Parents for the first time.

We continue to pray (and ask for your prayers also) that Henok's court date, 01/04/08, will come and go without any problems and that we will finally receive the gift we have waited so long for.

We are making our final preparations for travel and gathering up all of the humanitarian aid that we will be bringing with us. It seems like so much has to be done, but it really is small compared to what we have already accomplished. God has been so good to us throughout this whole process and we just thank Him so much for His faithfulness and mercy.

From our Family to Yours, we wish Peace, Love, and Joy in the year to come.
Happy New Year!

In His Service,

Matthew

Waiting Patiently....

Hi everyone,

Well, we've booked our flight tickets and made our reservations. Apparently Addis Ababa has become quite a major tourist destination as many of the hotels and guest houses are all filled up... ;(

We were finally able to make reservations to stay at the Addiskidan Baptist Guesthouse. It's a nice guest house and as a plus we will get to share it with another family from our area that are going with us to get their 2 children! We picked up some of the calling cards to make it easier to get in touch with the right people. Internet email seems to be touch and go. Of the 19 places Renee emailed, I think 17 came back as undeliverable, and the other two were nice places but a bit more expensive than we had hoped for.

We are so grateful to God for taking care of us in getting us the flight tickets and reservations we needed. All in all, it will come out much less expensive than we were planning for (Praise God!).

WOW this wait is excruciating. I thought the last 5 months were bad, but this last month seems to be crawling by.. ;) God has tought me during this process that His timing is never to early and never too late... Just always at the right time.

I'll update soon. Till then, take care and have a Merry Christmas!

In His Service,

Matthew

We have our Court Date

We are very happy to share with everyone that we have our Court Date!

The Court Date is set for 01/04/2008, and we will be expecting to be in-country the week of 01/14/2008!! Praise God!

Please continue to pray that everything goes well and there are no problems!

In His Service,

Matthew & Renee