October in Pictures

We've had a busy month so far! It started out with Luke's Dedication/Open House weekend, which was a lot of fun. Here's Luke meeting his Great Grandma Dirks...

and Great Grandpa Dirks!

Here's the Ethiopian flag cake I made for the open house.

Hanging out with Grandpa.

We had our first snow of the season and Isaac was very excited to play in it!

My first snow!

Luke got his "Welcome to the United States" book in the mail. Look how happy he is to be here!

Isaac started AWANA and is loving being a cubby!
Hanging out in the dryer while Mommy folds clothes :)Superman pajamas!!

Ethiopia Highlight #2: Meeting our Compassion Kids

One of our favorite ministries to support is Compassion International. We love what they are doing around the world for so many kids. Eric started sponsoring Derar when he was in college. At that time Derar was about 7...

now he's 18!

When we were planning our trip to Ethiopia in March, we had contacted Compassion to arrange a visit with him, but then we had to cancel it when we lost our referral. So since we knew we wouldn't be going for a few months, we decided that we should start another Ethiopian sponsorship so we could meet her too! We asked Compassion if they had a young girl who lived close to Addis Ababa, and they gave us sweet Adanu! She is nine years old.
We had our visit scheduled for Tuesday, and they arrived at our guest house around noon. Both kids were really timid and quiet. It was a little hard to get them to open up. They came with Yoseph (a sponsor visit director), who translated, and each of their regional workers. While we talked, Derar was very honest with us and told us that he was considering Christianity, but had not decided whether he believes it yet. His family are not Christians, so it is a bigger deal for him to go down that road. We are grateful that he was willing to share this with us so we know how to pray for him. Adanu was really sweet and loved holding Luke. She clammed up part way through the visit and didn't want to do anymore talking, but it was nice to just be with her :) We went out to a restaurant for lunch, and then back to our guest house where we gave them their gifts and then it was time to say good-bye. I wish we would have given them their gifts at the beginning of the visit because I think they would have been less leary of us. :) Oh, well. I think Adanu might have had a previous sponsor, so she may have been seeing us as short-term sponsors. Sorry, Adanu, you're stuck with us for awhile! We gave them hugs and I gave Adanu a kiss on her forehead; then they got into the van and we waved at each other for about five minutes while the van driver tried to maneuver the van around in the small parking area. It was over too soon, but we are so glad we were able to meet them!

Eric and Derar (go Twins!)

Adanu, sleeping Luke, and me

In the van on the way to the restaurant.

Ethiopia Highlight #1: Meeting Luke!

I really want to blog a little about our trip, but I'm not much of a writer, so rather than taking you through the week day by day, I'm going to talk about a few of the highlights of the week. The first and best highlight (of course!) was meeting and holding our sweet boy! I know I will not even come close to capturing the emotion of this, but I will do my best.

We arrived in Ethiopia on Sunday, and we were told to be at the orphanage on Monday afternoon to pick him up and go through our paperwork. We knew this would likely be naptime for the babies, so we weren't surprised to find Luke sleeping. Here's our first glimpse of him.

This was a pretty amazing moment for me. Because of what happened with our first referral, I couldn't shake the idea that Luke just might not be there, or that he wasn't really ours. So seeing him sleeping in his little crib was beyond wonderful. I could have stood over his crib and wept, but I didn't want to get too emotional when I couldn't even pick him up yet! We stared at him for a few minutes and then tried to distract ourselves so he could sleep a little longer. We had a couple of care packages to deliver to some other babies and lots of pictures to take for the other families with our agency who were waiting to pass court, so we did that and played with the awake babies for maybe 45 minutes. Then one of the nannies decided we shouldn't have to wait anymore and woke Luke up for us! :) Luke wasn't very happy about this though. The nanny pulled out his going home outfit and went to work getting him all spiffed up for us. Poor Luke just cried the whole time. I rubbed his head and tried to soothe him. Finally he was dressed and I got to hold him in my arms. He settled down but then my tears came! It's a moment I'll always remember.

Eric was doing all the picture taking, so we didn't get a good one of him with Luke at the orphanage, but I did let Eric hold him...a little bit. :)

Naming Luke

I wanted to go into a little more detail on the name we chose. Many of you know that this is the same name that we had chosen for our first referral (Alazar). After losing that referral, we had a really hard time knowing what to do about a name. We've been asked many times over the last five months if we had chosen a name for the baby, and we would always say, "No, we're going to wait until we meet him to decide." Which was the truth - we really didn't know!

We struggled with feeling like we needed a new name for this new baby, but we couldn't come up with any that seemed to be right. In the end we decided that Luke Steven was the name we wanted to give our son, and even though we thought for a time that our son was supposed to be Alazar, God knew all along that it was to be this precious boy now sitting in my lap. This is Luke.

The name Luke means "bringer of light." As we considered the name, we did some reading about Luke in the Bible and realized his heart was much the same as ours. He demonstrates a great concern for the orphans, the widows, and the poor of the world, and he magnifies Jesus' call on us to care for them. Our prayer for Luke is that he will bring the light of Christ to those around him and that his heart will be burdened for the needs of the world.

His middle name, Steven, is in honor of my dad. I think my dad was quite a bringer of light himself to a lot of people. Though they won't meet until heaven, I hope that we can teach Luke the traits of loyalty, kindness, endurance, and integrity that my father modeled for me.

Lark Toys

Both boys are sleeping at the same time for more than 20 minutes! So I have time to post again! :)

Yesterday my mom and I took Isaac and Luke on a little road trip to Lark Toys, a nearby toy store/museum that was super fun! Since it was a week day, it was not crowded at all, so that made it even more fun! We also had a great time talking with one of the owners, who just turned in her paperwork to adopt from Ethiopia! Yay for that!

Grandma was taking all the pictures so unfortunately she didn't make it in any!

They have a great carousel that Isaac and I rode three times! So fun!

Isaac with a giant panda

Isaac in the teepee

And they have ice cream! He was one happy kid!

Me with my handsome boys (and the llamas). I had to put both of these pictures up because Luke looks so cute laughing.

Brothers

Luke

We're home!! Here are a few shots of our new bundle of joy - Luke Steven. He is delightful - we love him so much!

We Got Him!

Here's a picture!  It's pretty surreal to finally hold him in our arms.  While we are enjoying it here, we are probably more excited to just get him home to big brother Isaac.

We're in Rome

Just a quick update.  We're enjoying our two day "layover" in Rome and we get back on a plane tonight for Addis Ababa. 

 

We had to run to catch our plane in Atlanta and by God's grace we made it.  But now we're waiting for our luggage which did not make it on the plane.  Please pray for that to come today before we leave.  Thank you!

Testing

I'm just testing the "post from your e-mail" function for our trip!

TRAVEL DATES!!!!

We just got the call from our agency telling us we will be travelling in THREE WEEKS!!! I am way beyond excited! When we were told that we had passed court, we were told at the same time to expect to travel in late September. This was a huge disappointment to me because I had expected to be going at the end of August and it meant one more month away from my baby. But God showed himself merciful to us! When Lisa from our agency called, she said "Have you been praying?" Um, yes.

We passed!!

I don't have much else to say - we're excited! Thanks for all the prayers!

Tonight!

Tonight is the night! Please pray for all the paperwork to be in order, for the people who need to be there to show up, and for God to allow us approval tomorrow. We were encouraged to hear of a lot of abandonment cases that passed today - it was the first main day of re-scheduled abandonment hearings for people who had been affected by the hold. Thank you for praying with us!

Finally Some Good News!!

We have been pretty discouraged the last couple of weeks around here, not hearing any significant news from Ethiopia. But today we got the e-mail we've been waiting for telling us we have a new court date!! It is two weeks away on July 28th! If we pass, we have a good chance of travelling before Eric has to start school again, which would be a huge answer to prayer.

New Bike

Isaac and I found this big kid bike at a garage sale last week and it fits him perfectly! So he's movin' up from the trike! He loves it and he's doing a great job getting around on it.

Still Waiting

I have been putting off updating the blog because I unfortunately have no good news to announce. We are still waiting. Our case was not heard last Friday because the hold on abandonment cases is still in place. We really have no more news than that. We can't even guess about when our case will be heard because there is just no news.

Please pray for/with us. We are trying to keep a positive attitude and trust in a mighty God, but some days are definitely harder than others. We received some updated pictures of him yesterday, which was wonderful, but at the same time we feel like he is growing up without us.

Waiting (for the Lord)

Well, June 5th is fast approaching, but now we don’t know if we’ll get to go to court or not. Since we last posted, Ethiopia has recognized some possible inconsistencies/injustices with the way some of the agencies are working with abandoned kids. So, they’ve put a hold on all abandonment cases from Addis Ababa until further notice. This has already been going on for a few weeks, although our agency doesn’t expect it to be too much longer. Even if this is all resolved before June 5th, we don’t know if they will just automatically reassign us a court date, or go ahead with the one we have. Needless to say, we really have no idea where this is all headed, and when.

All that to say, I (Eric) am reading chronologically through my Bible and this weekend I read the Isaiah 40 passage that is so familiar to many:

“but they who wait for the Lord shall renew their strength;
they shall mount up with wings like eagles;
they shall run and not be weary;
they shall walk and not faint.” (v. 31)

But it was fitting to read this verse in context. The section begins with these words:

“Why do you say, O Jacob, and speak, O Israel, ‘My way is hidden from the Lord, and my right is disregarded by my God’?” (v. 27)

As much as we don’t want to say or feel such doubts, it is often a struggle to keep the fight of faith in all of this. God’s response to such questioning immediately follows:

“Have you not known? Have you not heard?
The Lord is the everlasting God,the Creator of the ends of the earth.
He does not faint or grow weary;his understanding is unsearchable.
He gives power to the faint,and to him who has no might he increases strength.
Even youths shall faint and be weary,and young men shall fall exhausted;
but they who wait for the Lord shall renew their strength…” (vv. 27-31)

By God’s grace, we pray that we’ll be able to wait for Him, to know Him as the everlasting Creator, and to know His power and strength in this craziness. We hope to see Him and His deliverance soon.

JUNE 5TH!!

We have a court date!! June 5th! We are so excited that this is only 5 weeks away! The Ethiopian courts have sped things up significantly because for our first referral we had to wait about three months for our court date, and this time it will be just under 2 months! God is good! Please pray with us that we will pass the first time so we can bring Baby Dirks home in early July.

Hope and Healing

We have received some much-needed good news at the Dirks' home! Friday afternoon we were sent the referral for a very little baby boy who is only ONE MONTH OLD! We are very excited to welcome this little one into our family. He has big brown eyes, cute little lips, and CRAZY hair :) We can't wait to bring him home.

So the process now is to:

• wait to find out our assigned court date
• wait for the day of court to come (we're guessing this will be in about two months)
• if we pass, travel about 4 weeks after that.

As we have experienced, there are no guarantees that things will go this way, but we will hope and pray for the best.

Thank you all so much for your kind words and prayers on our behalf over the past two weeks. It has been one of the harder things we've been through, but we are thankful that God has put such loving and supportive people in our lives. And the news of this new precious baby has brought much hope and healing to our hearts.

Sad News

Yesterday we received some very sad news. Our adoption agency called to tell us that they just found out that Luke is no longer in their care. They simply don't have him anymore. After some calling, we found out that probably a month ago someone from Luke's extended family came to claim him, but it sounds like there was only one worker in the orphanage that actually knew about it, and in what is apparently a cultural way of dealing with bad news, she didn't want to tell anyone about it, so she didn't. And it wasn't just Luke, but he and three other kids have been placed back with families, while we and others have legally adopted them, except that they weren't really there to be adopted. So, needless to say, we are not going to Ethiopia on Friday. The only way the timing and circumstances seem that they could have been worse would have been if we had found out when we were over there. It all seems so calculatedly cruel (which I'm sure satan is) and of course, we have no way of seeing what good God is ordaining in this at this point (that's not to say that He isn't, but that we can't see it). So, please pray for us, that our faith would not waver and that we would be able to adjust to this part of God's plan for us.

Flights are Booked!

We are going to Ethiopia in less than three weeks!! We received our travel dates this week and booked our flights for March 27th - April 4th. It "happened" to fall right during Eric's spring break, so that allows him to use his 5 allotted days off the next week when we're trying to adjust back to being home! This is definitely an answer to prayer! We have a lot to do in the next three weeks but it's great to have a reason to scramble. We're coming Luke!!

WE PASSED COURT!!!!

We're so excited to introduce our new son, Luke Steven Dirks!

Please Pray!!

We are so excited that the week of our court date has finally arrived! Our case is scheduled to go to court this coming Friday. Ethiopia is about 9 hours ahead of us so when we wake up on Friday morning, it will be over and we should find out fairly soon whether we passed. Please pray with us for this!! I can't even let my heart dwell on the possibility of not passing court, and yet I know it is a real possibility. Ethiopia's court system is very different from ours and there are a number of unexpected things that could happen that would cause us to get rescheduled for a later date. So please pray that we will PASS on Friday and get to hold him in our arms in March!!

I'll leave you with a few recent pictures from V-day and Eric's birthday...

Ice Skating

Isaac got to try out ice-skating for the first time last week, and he had a great time! We thought he did pretty good for a first-timer! Here are a few pictures and a short movie. Enjoy!

Isaac with his friend, Naomi, who was nice enough to let him borrow her sticks!

The boys.