Saturday, September 1, 2012

Our Journey Home

We Made It!  We are Home.  It was tough only because Makeda was stuck on me.  From when she woke up on Thursday morning until we arrived home and went to bed last night (Friday night) I could not go ANYWHERE without her.  She would not even sit on the empty plane seat next to me, she HAD to be ON me. The plane ride was tough with my sweet little sweat ball trying to get comfy on me or using me as a human playground.  I am THRILLED she is attatched, just made it challenging, that's all.  She wouldn't go to Tim.  One time she was asleep and i really had to go to the bathroom so we tried the transfer and as soon as she slipped into his arms, she started the wailing and I had to take her back.  My sleep was limited, to say the least and by the time we made it to the DC airport I was starting to get woozy carrying her and all that goes along with us getting through an airport.  God saw me through and sleep last night was deep and so very welcomed.  Enough about me though, lets get to the good stuff.
On Thursday, our last full day in Ethiopia, we went shopping.  While we were checking out the wares, Makeda whispered "kaka" which meant she had to find a potty.  Our translater took us to this little cafe and we tried, but there was no way she was using a potty in the ground, so she held it :)  Above is a picture of an 11 year old boy Tim had pulled aside from a group of boys that were out front of the cafe. When they see "ferenge" (white people) the kids swarm begging for money or food.  Tim brought this one in with him and they shared a coke and some conversation (with a bit of help from the translater).
When we got back to the guest house and had lunch, Zoie and Keda had some coloring time together.  What a blessing having Zoie there!
After our farewell coffee ceremony, we started to pack and get ready to go.  Here's a final picture in front of the beautiful view from our balcony.
Here's a picture of Makeda's first friends.  That's Tracey holding Keda's friend Theo.  They just adopted him this week too and we shared our experiences as we were all staying in the guest house together.  He is such a cutie full of tons of energy and joy :)
Just one more pic at the guest house.  Here we are all packed in and ready to go.  We headed to the airport and waited for our time to board and head home.  Makeda fell asleep at the airport and slept while we boarded and for the first leg of the trip to Rome where we stopped to refuel.  (That was about 7 hours).  Then she woke up ready to play.  I got some sleep while she slept in the beginning, but not nearly enough.  It was a bit tough from there on in for me, but she was fine.  We went to the bathroom about 8 or 9 times as it became her hangout.  Somehow she managed to squeeze out a few drops of pee even on the 9th time.  You can't accuse her of calling wolf!  We were in the window seat and had a lot of fun trying to slide out and crawl over an often sleeping dad numerous times.  Ah, memories.  So we made it to DC, stumbled out of the plane and somehow managed to make it to our next gate destination.  We ate some lunch and tried to freshen up a bit.  FINALLY I was able to get her to walk on her own next to me on one of our trips to the bathroom.  Ah, that was good!
This is Keda all dressed up and ready to take off from DC to make the final leg of the trip to Pittsburgh.   She fell asleep on the flight, cried in her sleep as we made our descent into Pittsburgh, likely due to the ear pain but never woke up until we were heading out to the car to drive home.
Here she is "meeting" her siblings :)
AH....we are home!!!  Thank you so much for sharing in our journey.  We are so incredibly blessed!  She is home now enjoying playing with her siblings.  She LOVES to play with them.  We trust she will  make great strides in learning her english, the "rules" :) and just growing in grace into all the plans God has for her without ever forgetting her roots in her beautiful home country of Ethiopia.  We are so grateful to you all for your prayer covering and support.  Blessings to all!












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