A Little Progress . . .

Today was nice .... it was refreshing to get OUT of my stamp room and into town (Fargo) to meet with our social worker. We cannot imagine going through this with anyone but our amazing social worker, Sharon. She saw us through much in our first adoption with Naomi. We would not have made it through nearly as well without her strong support. We've been working so hard on the Stamp a Child Home project and it was really nice to take a break from that today and "talk adoption" with her. She rejoiced with us in all that's been going on with the fund raising and also talked through some of the preparation we're doing as our family grows.

We chatted about age, gender, extended family, community support, our awesome boys, the little Miss in the house and many other things. Curious about any of that? ... just ask.

We also discussed the difficult realities of Ethiopia and a people that we have grown to love deeply. As Americans ... we get so "busy" living life, buying "things", running here - running there, none of us really have much comprehension of the depth of poverty around the world. Sure, we've all seen pictures on TV, read stories, etc. ..... but it's interesting when God leads you to go bring your child home and you realize that now it is one of your own experiencing these things .... it all becomes much more real. We talked about the things we will see when arriving at our new child's homeland ... we discussed our sadness in having to take them from their homeland, yet the joy in being able to give them a family, food and shelter. It is all very bittersweet. Not a day goes by that we aren't torn with many differing emotions. We are growing in many ways and know that we'll come to the other side of this journey changed people.

Another thing we discussed was some of the factors in our daughter's adoption here in the US. Some of you know we faced some very challenging things in her adoption. In stark contrast ... we have nothing but good to say about the agency we are using this time, also in TX.

We have most all of our paperwork ready to send off for our I600A, which is a big accomplishment. This part wears me down ... all the paperwork. But David takes it in stride and we both know that when we see our child for the first time .... all that will be a distant memory.

Lord willing, there will be 3 Roberts getting passports soon. It is our desire for Colton (our oldest son, age 14) to go with us to Ethiopia. He has long had a burden for missions and Africa. He wants to coordinate an effort to take supplies into orphanages while we are there. If you are interested in getting involved in this part of our trip, please contact him!! ... he would so much love to hear from you.

Well, break time is over ... must clean up this room and get a plan for a very busy few days. Our last homestudy meeting is next week! We hope to have it wrapped up by the end of June. Next is tackling our dossier for Ethiopia. What's that? ... just tons more paperwork ... theme of our lives, remember? :) But that's okay. We continue to keep our eyes on the big picture and somewhere half a world away we know there is a child counting on us to finish this race well ... and so we keep pressing on, not looking back.

Don't be shy ... leave us a note so we know you came by to visit. Your friendship and support means so very much to us.