Thursday, October 30, 2008

A scheduled visit

Good Morning:
One the way to school we played a quiz game and boy do my kids love facts that might just stump another. It was a great way to distract them from picking on one another or reminding me, the Mama, of something I may have forgotten to load into their backpacks. I wonder at what age they will begin to accept that things like gloves, library books and gym shoes are something they must be responsible for? Never mind that I am a busy bee, loading everything I can remember into their respective backpacks the night before.  I think they believe a magic fairy does the job. We realize that autonomy is a skill that must be taught over and over again just like learning to zip a coat or tie a shoe. 

When the stars align and our mornings are calm and easy I am reminded just how fortunate our little girl from Nepal will be. She will be fortunate not because we are richly blessed with family, friends and a wonderful community. Not because of our schools, our comfortable home or all the many activities we are a part of. She will be incredibly blessed to have three little boys in her world who will grow to admire and adore her. They will all three have so much to teach her. They will embrace her, shelter her, guide her and of course boss her around all to the tune of love and admiration. I have no doubts that the little girl that is meant to enter our family will do nothing but expand the hearts of our three little boys.  For that I am so excited and up to the challenge that adoption brings.

I finally met our social worker over the phone. She will conduct our home study. Now prepare to laugh... She will need to spend six hours of time with us, all five of us, observing our lives as a family. Six hours! We may flunk after she interacts with us for six hours but we plan to give it the old college try. She will interview both Bob and myself together, then separately, and then she talks with the kids. I can't wait to hear their thoughts. Hayden of course will tell her that he believes he MUST go to Nepal and Carter will tell her that he is slightly unsure and Owen will probably say something completely nutty since he really cannot possibly understand exactly what is going on. I explained to her, Deb, that we are eager to have her discuss the adoption with the boys. It will help to put a human face with the process. For so long we have done nothing but talk about the idea. Now they will see action and meet an actual person who will be helping to get the ball rolling. Deb will first visit for three hours next Friday. Say a little prayer that the five of us can keep it together. Three hours can be a long time in a house with three wild boys. It's another step in the right direction. Now if we can just get all the paperwork completed. Whew!

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Into Our Arms Forever!

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welcome home ava! from melanie Strobel on Vimeo.

Meeting Ava during our first trip to Ethiopia

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Meeting Ava Ethiopia Trip July 2010 from melanie Strobel on Vimeo.

Korah- Addis Ababa, Ethiopia

During our recent visit to Ethiopia I felt very called to the village of Korah in Addis Ababa Ethiopia. There have been numerous rumblings lately about the tremendous need to help the children of Korah who are growing up in and around the local trash dump. The village was established 75 years ago as a place to send people with leprosy who were said to be cursed. Now there is a 3rd generation of people living in Korah with nearly 100,000 suffering from such things as leprosy, HIV, misc disease and of course malnutrition. There are many children of Korah who have been forced to live and work at the trash dump in hopes of finding food and possible items to sell in Korah's center of town. With the start of the Great Hope Church in Korah and the building of a shelter, along with the ministry of local Sammy Liben and Sumer Yates, there is now a feeding program and a sponsorship program in place to rescue the forgotten children of Korah and send them to boarding school where they can escape the horror of the conditions of living and working in a large trash dump. For more information please visit: www.help4korah.blogspot.com or www.p61.org where you can learn more about how you or your organization can help the people and the children of Korah. Please send me a message or email Erin Allen at erin@p61.org to request sponsorship information. I will soon be posting the photos of my day recently spent in Korah. I must tell you it was life changing and beyond anything I have ever done to stretch, change and rearrange myself. God helped me to help the people who I met. Much of what I could offer was nothing more than the snap of my camera or a warm touch or an inviting smile. The needs in Korah are beyond our wildest imagination yet God is over Korah and there is already amazing work being done. I invite you to view the following videos to learn more about the beauty and the needs of Korah's people.

CLICK HERE TO LEARN HOW TO SPONSOR A CHILD

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Hannah's Hope Orphanage- Ethiopia

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