Christmas in Ethiopia!

We had prayed that we would have our son home by Christmas and we did, sorta. Cindy said for months, "I believe we will be together as a family by Christmas". I believed as well but Cindy's faith was much stronger than mine on this issue.

We thought for sure that we would be in Ethiopia the week of Christmas and we were, sorta. We were praying for an embassy date of December 23rd which meant we would be together as a family by Christmas in our eyes. After our first trip to Ethiopia we thought for sure we would be back in 4 short weeks. As the days turned to weeks with no word about a confirmed embassy date we were losing hope of being together by Christmas.

December 25th, we celebrated the birth of our Savior and praised the Lord for His love for us but our hearts were hurting as our family was not complete without our little guy being with us. We knew God was in control but we still missed our son. Our prayer to be together for Christmas wasn't answered........or so we thought!

We received our confirmed embassy date the week after Christmas, January 6th was the date. We were so excited to have a date, a date that meant we were going to get our son. God had something more in store for us as well. The flight dates put us leaving on January 1st and returning January 8th. That meant we would be united with our son on Jan. 3rd, it also meant we would be in Ethiopia at Christmas! Ethiopia celebrates Christmas on January 7th. Our prayer had been answered as we were together as a family by Christmas, just not the date we wanted. God's timing is perfect, His will is perfect, He knows what is best for us better than we do.

We had a wonderful time at a Christmas party at our agency's transition home. We ate together, the children sang Christmas carols in Amharic, we got to hear a Pastor preach in Amharic, had birthday cake for Jesus, had a coffee ceremony and had a great time of fellowship with the staff and other adoptive families there. Wow, what an Awesome God we serve!

We went to the airport on Christmas day there, the streets were so quiet, the airport parking lot was almost completely empty, a far cry from the hustle and bustle we experienced on the first trip.