Sunday, February 21, 2010

Saturday, February 6, 2010

Moving on down the road toward our daughter

With Valentines spread all over our basement we discussed our sweet baby and our our new number.
Seemed quite appropriate to use sweet tarts to make our new number. The boys could not believe that I was leaving out the blue sweet tarts. Come on now I am all about the blue but just not tonight.
Tonight was decorating for the holiday of LOVE! 
I love my family more than I ever could have imagined and I can hardly wait to watch each of our hearts become open to one more precious little sweetie. The three little gentlemen above will be the most amazing big brothers.
We have been going through this process for so long that I dare say they have no idea what to expect but they will rise to the occasion. Someday soon this will all be very real and we will be walking the roads of Addis to hold our daughter for the very first time.
I pray every day for HER to bond with her brothers and for HER to arrive safely into our open arms and our open hearts.
We are coming for you sweet little baby girl!!!

Thursday, February 4, 2010

I can only imagine...


My mornings have become sacred. The boys are off to school and I am left with the aftermath of breakfast dishes, half made beds and endless streams of laundry to fold. As I wander the house completing my morning tasks I am acutely aware of someone missing. She is missing. Now after 18 months of the adoption process it would seem that this waiting business would get easier. Not even close. She is far across an ocean living in very different circumstances. I am now in the stage of waiting that tells me that she needs us. She needs a family who will come for her, embrace her, teach her, love her and remain hers forever. She is loved by God and I have such a strong feeling that she is well cared for even now. Someone is doing all they can to meet her human needs but still I feel this tug at my heart telling me that she is waiting for us. She needs to know her Daddy, the amazing man who is rock steady and loving us all unconditionally each day. She needs to know her brothers. Her big brothers who will have embrace her with all that they are, funny, loving and so silly. She needs to know her extended family, all the characters. Her Aunts and Uncles, her cousins, her amazing Grandparents. Oh there is so much I am simply dying to show her over time. The truth is I can only imagine having her in my daily world. I can only imagine kissing her little cheeks and showing her the world as I strive to live for others. I can only imagine the day I see her and hold her on Ethiopian ground. Everyday I wonder how we will handle all the details of adding her to our family but then God's quiet voice reminds me that He is the voice of truth and we are ready to do this. We are ready to jump out of the boat of imagining who she will be and into the boat of holding her tight and walking off the plane into the arms of family. 

Into Our Arms Forever!

Remember to scroll down to mute the music.

welcome home ava! from melanie Strobel on Vimeo.

Meeting Ava during our first trip to Ethiopia

Don't foget to turn off the music below before watching video.

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

P61 grab button

Love this...

You will need to turn off the music below in order to enjoy this video. Go down to playlist and turn it off.

Hannah's Hope Orphanage- Ethiopia

Remember to turn off music below before watching.