Testing the mobile blog update..testing...testing...testing

Testing to make sure we can update our blog from Ethiopia to keep everyone updated while picking up Zoey and Tatem!
 
Leaving at 12:30 on Saturday, July 25th!  Returning Saturday, August 1st.
 


 

Wade and Shonda Donels
wsdonels@msn.com
Wade Cell: 303.913.1432
Shonda Cell: 303.519.6525

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NEGATIVE!!!!!!!!

God moved the mountain and I have been watching him move it these past two weeks and I can say God is AMAZING!!!! His power is AWESOME and I have never seen him more visible then he has been in the process the past two weeks!! Honestly I am in awe.

We just got results for both Zoey and Tatem. We have waited 10 weeks and both ZOEY AND TATEM ARE TB FREE!!! Praise God!!

We are leaving this Sat. and returning August 1st. I will update later but just wanted to get the word out since many of you are waiting for answers.

Your prayers have meant everything to us!

Meet Muggles

Isn't Muggles cute????

Faith is so excited about a new dog!

OK, so yes we are crazy!! Wade and I said that we would never have a dog especially under the circumstances of getting ready to bring home Zoey and Tatem. Blake has been begging for a dog and at the same time my cousin was in need of giving up her cock-a-poo. Muggles was in Iowa at grandma's until a home could be found for her. Well we were in Iowa visiting family, we met Muggles, and the kids fell in love with her. Last Thursday the three kids, dog, and I drove 14 hours back from Iowa and now we have Muggles. She is a great dog and already house broken and sleeps great. I wanted to post some pictures for you. Surprisingly Blake is doing great with her despite his asthma and pet allergies. He hasn't had any problems, I guess those allergy shots do work. On the other hand, I am having asthma issues so we will have to see, but poor Muggles has had many, many homes lately so we are hoping and praying that mamma feels better.

No new news on the adoption front. We are continuing to pray for Zoey's tb test to come back negative. In the meantime we are temporarily holding flights, reserving guest house reservations, and preparing all that we need to think about packing and donating to ET when we go.

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.