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.

Court Date

Well, we found out our court date today. February 27. While it was nice to find out, it is just seeming way too far away right now. I expected this part of the wait would be the hardest, and it definitely is, especially now that we really know how long it will be. They say we can expect to travel 4-6 weeks after passing court. It seems like that will be the easiest part of the wait since we'll be busy getting ready for the trip...we'll see.
Thanks for your continued prayers. We're grateful to know that our loving Father is watching over our little guy and trusting Him to carry us through the weeks ahead.