WE PASSED!!!!!!

Praise God!! I can finally write the words that we officially passed as of today. We were on hold a bit since Friday because there was a misunderstanding with the judge. He was under the impression that Zoey's parents needed to be at court but since she was abandoned they didn't need to be there and we had to wait until that was proven. So today was the day~June 23rd and referral was on March 23rd. The 23rd is definitely going to be a special day for us!

Couldn't be more excited and praising God! We are still waiting on Zoey's TB test and just really praying that it is negative so that we can bring both kids home soon and together. We should have news in the next couple of weeks.

In the meantime we are preparing to travel the end of July or mid-August since our agency schedules the embassy appt. that we need to be at every other Wed. I am really hoping for end of July since I wanted the kids to spend some time together before school starts and possibly start Zoey in school. We will have to see and continue to trust God's timing on that and that Zoey can come home this summer as planned.

Thanks again and again for everyone's thoughts, emails, texts, and most importantly your prayers. Whewwww...a big sigh of relief today. Now lots of prayer for our friends the Andersons on Thursday for their court date to pass!!!!

More Updates

We have gotten so many emails, phone calls, and texts today. Thank you for all of your support and prayers. You don't realize how much that means to us. It has indeed been a very tough day here. Many of you have asked what to do and we continue to say please continue to pray. God can move mountains and he will help us to get Zoey and Tatem home soon.

We were told later today that Zoey did in fact have the testing done that the CDC requires for TB about 3 weeks ago. We are soooo thankful that the process of waiting for those test results has already started. We will need to wait 3-5 weeks for those results to come back. They also did say that she does not currently have a cough and she has had a good appetite. Once again that was good news. Praise God!! Her initial skin test for TB was negative but that test can be very inconclusive. For some reason the doctor did order the more thorough testing so he must suspect something.

Please walk along with us in prayer that Zoey would be healed and completely healthy, pray that court would pass for both Zoey and Tatem next Friday, and that we could bring them both home in July as anticipated.

Thanks so much! Wade, Shonda, Faith, Blake, and Bryce

Another Hard Day with International Adoption

In tears right now...got the call and neither of the kids passed court with no explanations as to why. Our new court date is scheduled for June 19th. I am glad to hear that we have a new date scheduled but that isn't the worst part of the news.

Zoey had a TB test awhile back that came back negative. They are once again suspecting TB. We don't know what her symptoms are or why they are suspecting it and how far they are in testing her for it. She has had a medical concern from the beginning related to an unexplained high ESR blood test. Maybe the TB is related to this test. I guess if she has TB that could be better than other things because TB is treatable. To diagnose they would need to start with a skin test, then do a chest x-ray, and follow up with some other septum test or something, I am not sure at this point. That test would take 8 weeks to get the results from. If the test is in fact positive Zoey would need to receive treatment in Addis Ababa for 6 months!! That's the part that I don't like at all. We wouldn't be able to be with her and we don't know whether she would need to go to a facility to live and get treatment or how that would exactly work.

Our coordinator that called this morning said that only like 1 in 10 orphans has TB. Let's pray that Zoey doesn't have it. Let's pray that test results come back quickly and that they will pass court next Friday. Thanks again for continuing to stand with us in prayer. We appreciate all of your support, phone calls, and emails so much. We continue to trust God's timing, power, and mercy during this journey.

Tuesday is the BIG DAY!!!!

We are getting so close!! Tuesday is court day, since ET is 9 hours ahead of us court will happen while we are sleeping or at least some of us are sleeping on Monday night :):)!! Tuesday morning we should find out whether Zoey and Tatem passed through or not. We found out that Tatem's mom has to show up at court even though she already relinquished him. We are praying that she does indeed show up on time and that all of our documents and each of Tatem and Zoey's adoption documents are in place. If they pass through they will officially be a Donels after Tuesday! WhooooHoooo! Please keep on praying with us.

Friday night was a tough night for us. Poor Bryce was hit by a bat at Blake's baseball game while playing a pick-up baseball game with friends. Luckily we were pretty close to Children's Hospital and Wade and I were able to run him there. We were all very concerned about his vision, whether his eye was OK, a concussion, and broken bones around his eye. Praise God he had none of those. He did need stitches and he has a very big swollen eye right now, but again we are so thankful that he is OK. The ER doc said he was very lucky because the way the eye was so swollen and the size of the cut made them think it would be much worse. God definitely blessed us through that deal.

Here is a picture of Bryce yesterday! He thinks he looks very ugly and he won't leave the house without sunglasses at all the last two days. Bryce even sat by us in church today through the whole service with the black sunglasses in place:)! I should of gotten a picture of that! I don't even know if he realized that I took this picture while he was on the phone~poor guy! This was Bryce's second set of stitches in 3 weeks!

Bryce and Tatem's Room all ready to go!

Faith and Zoey's room all ready to go!! Faith wanted to go with a beach theme. We are getting the girl's room closer to being done!

Now you may wonder, but what about Blake who will he share with?? Believe it or not Blake is asking for a dog non-stop lately! He is driving us crazy. We have never had furry animals before because he is so allergic. He seems to be doing better though so we will see....Mom and Bryce seem to be allergic too so obviously it would be a dumb idea. I think we are crazy lately though because we are considering this very cute three year old dog that is being passed around the Franck family (my side) in Iowa named Muggles. She seems like the perfect family pet so we will have to check little Muggles out when we are back in Iowa this next week.

Thanks for all of your prayers for court this week. You KNOW I will update the blog as soon as we have news.

Mama is Nesting

We had three coat hooks and cubbies and today we had the cubbies completed so there is a spot for all 5 kiddies to keep their coats, backpacks and sports equipment sorted. YEAH!!

Here are the empty spots for Zoey and Tatem

Next was the task of making room in closets so that Zoey and Faith can share a room and that Bryce and Tatem will share. To you this might not look like much but to us around here it is bliss! In Faith's closet we added shelves and two levels of rods to hang clothes. Bryce's closet also got two levels of rods too!!

Above is Tatem's closet space!
Above is Zoey's closet space!!

I didn't even know about these crazy, HUGE bags! My friend Karen loaned me some clothes for Zoey in bags like this. I ran off to Target to get some and I sorted all of the kid's clothes that will be passed on to Zoey and Tatem and sized them. Another job checked off of the list.
Aaaaahhhhhhh....Look at that sorted storage room. Another job I have been dreading and finally tackled.

I am a little late, but I wanted to add this picture is of the kids and I on Mother's Day!

Dust is flying around here as we are getting ready for little Zoey and Tatem to come. Many of the weekend's tournament games were cancelled this weekend because of rain so we made the most of our time. We are busy getting Faith and Zoey's room ready. We sold Faith's furniture on Craig's list last week by trading her full bed in for two twin beds. Lynn and I painted Faith's room and I can't show you photos yet but we are working on decorating her room now. Faith is loving the chance to re-decorate. She likes to change her room as often as we all change toothbrushes!!

Two more weeks from today is court so we are busy getting ready. Thanks for all of your kind words, prayers, and thoughts.

Tap, Tap, STOP.... We Have A COURT DATE!!!!!!!!!!!

That's right Ladies and Gentlemen!! I know I am a little slap-happy right now, but I have a right to be!! We are elated today as we celebrate that we officially have a court date!! The date is June 9th. God had to beat me over the head with a bat before we got the date but I finally figured things out and he delivered! This morning I was listening to KLOVE (my favorite Christian radio station) after dropping the kids off from school. I was listening to that song that I think is called, "Finally Home." I have loved that song in the past but probably more just the tune and sound of it. Today the words just spoke to me. The song talks about God being our daddy and finally being home with him at his throne. I have been struggling with when this court date would be so much lately. I keep thinking that it is in God's hands and that in his timing but I don't think I internalized all of that until this morning while listening to that song. I realized that I parent my kids constantly and always want the best for them, I guide them, and make them wait for things that I know they should. I finally completely understood and allowed God to be God the Father or dad! I felt complete peace in realizing that indeed everything is in his control, and he will time things perfectly. I think this was the first peaceful moment since this crazy adoption process has started. It was so freeing to finally just let go and give it all to God. Then guess what....not even two hours later our coordinator called and announced to me that we had a court date. God is good! He is awesome and he delivered at lighting speed as soon as I let him take over. I realized that just as I want to reward and bless my kids God has so many blessings available for us all once we completely trust him and just let go of the worries that we carry around! It has been so amazing to see God at work today in my life. He confirmed to me once again that he really does care about each and everyone of us and our struggles.

I will update more later, but just wanted to share the date. It sounds like we will more than likely travel sometime in July to pick up Zoey Abebu and Tatem Mesay. YES!!!!

Tap, Tap, Tap

Really I don't have time to just sit and tap my fingers waiting for a court date but waiting for a court date is continuously on our minds around here. I talked to our coordinator on Tuesday and she said that it looks like the paperwork is in place so hopefully we should hear something anytime soon! We want to bring Zoey and Tatem home this summer so badly. We will keep hoping and praying to be scheduled soon.

I had a very exciting email last night. A friend of mine is in Ethiopia right now picking up her sweet little baby. She and her husband are using the same agency and orphanage as Wade and I. She has spent the week at the orphanage so she has met Zoey and Tatem. I am living vicariously through her right now. She said that Zoey was playing cards with her husband, that Zoey is darling, and that Zoey got her hair washed on Wed. and it was so beautiful and curly. She said that Tatem has the most adorable eyes and that both he and Zoey have been very shy but they are starting to warm up. She also said that she has gotten some great pictures so I can't wait to see. It is amazing to me that she is half-way around the world loving on our children. We cannot wait to be there ourselves and loving on other people's children as well. Hopefully the wait won't be much longer.