Recap - Take off!

I usee this blog as a memory book for my kids more than anything, so I think it is important to blog our memories from our trip to Micah Awate.

We got up early for a 6am flight to JFK. We arrived at the airport to super long lines and LOTS of crabby travelers. We were met by the crankiest airline worker I've ever seen - and that says a lot. He kept shouting "I don't feel sorry for you! You should be here 2 hours before a domestic flight and 3 hours for international!" Just shouting that to the crowd in general - super big helper. The computers for people to do self check-in were not working - people were asking for help. Helpers were yelling at them. At one point the cranky airline worker says "What do these people think I am? Jesus Christ? I'm not a savior!" WOW!! I am glad he cleared that up - he was acting suspiciously like Christ would, so I was wondering....We were calmed by the fact that we had 24 hours in Dubai and we were willing to give up any of those hours. We were confident that any delays wouldn't interfere with our meeting with Micah. For some reason, the cranky man took pity on us and helped us checked in. We weren't charged a dime for luggage! What a blessing!

We arrived in Dubai around 8 am the next morning. I had paid attention to detail during this entire adoption process. Lots of details. Apparently, too many. I had no idea what hotel we were staying at or where it was located. Plus, I hadn't processed that we were getting there at 8am - the hotel wouldn't have a room ready until 3pm. We were exhausted and that sounded a little like torture. We found a travel agency that was willing to let us use her internet and get the hotel name off my email. We took a cab to the hotel. "For an minimal fee" we were able to check in early. Minimal is a relative term. We didn't do good calculations on the exchange rate. I was sure that we made the right decision. We ate breakfast, walked the hotel grounds a little and tried really hard to stay awake. We were mostly successful. There were a few points where we were sitting in the hotel lobby sleeping while waiting for our tour driver.

We took a drive in the sand dunes in a Land Cruiser. We were in a van with a couple from England and their three year old daughter, Alicia. They were great company and great medicine for a momma missing her babies at home.

The ride was crazy! It is like driving in snow and ice, but it's sand. Just to prove that I can sleep anywhere - I fell asleep during the ride a couple times. We slept the entire way back to the hotel and crashed! Tomorrow was the big day!!

On the other side....

A few quick scattered thoughts....

• We are home. Micah did AWESOME on the trip. I whined a lot more than he did!
• His ears were fine - thanks for praying
• This week has been great at home. Dan goes back to work next week. Hopefully, it will continue to go well here at home.
• The whole thing feels like a complete blur - My personal theory is that no matter how much you try to savor the moments it is such an emotional thing that you end up feeling like a spectator.

Our case manager and social worker, Erica from Wide Horizons, was able to travel with us on our trip. She is an incredible photographer. These are a couple of her masterpieces.

* I can't get them in the right order - UGH! The bottom one is Dan and me on the way to the orphanage.

Pray for Micah

Aimee's recent email:

We returned to the Horizon House from the birth family visit this afternoon. Micah has a ruptured ear drum! He has a lot of drainage in his ear. He is pretty mellow. So, I don't think he is in a lot of pain, but I am nervous about him flying home. Please pray that he will be healed so he won't be in pain for the flights!! We have him on drops and anti-biotics now.

Family Visit Update

Here's the latest news:

We are safely in Awassa - hardly! It was a crazy trip - what else is new? We had the birth family visit. Wow! I am exhausted. Everyone cried - so crazy. I will give details when I can complete a thought.
When I went to kiss Awate goodbye this morning he was wearing a lavendar velour sweat suit, hood up - it said "tweet" with littlebirds on it. I cracked UP!!! I took a picture. Funny stuff.


Hopefully we'll get some more details tonight:)
Lauren

Birth Family Visit

Aimee and Dan are on their way to meet Micah Awate's relatives. You can pray that this will be a great experience for both them and the birth family. I can't imagine how hard it would be as adoptive parents to express their gratitude to the birth family who has lost so much. Having to speak through an interpretter makes this difficult situation even harder. So we can pray that the Lord would amazingly bless their interactions with this family and that they'd receive information to pass on to Micah later in his life.

They are leaving Micah at the Horizon House with his nannies while they go on this trip. When they get back they will have Micah with them the rest of the time:) Hopefully all the paperwork stuff goes well and the Neal family will all be reunited on Saturday!

Thanks so much for all your prayers.

New Update

Here's the email I received this morning. They're having a hard time with the accessing the internet. So whatever pictures they upload on dropshots we're lucky to have:)

The days are beyond long here! I am sure they will pickup a little, but we are in the small compound of the orphanage all the time. I took a walk to the Horizon House 2 where some of the older kids are. Every room you walk into the kids yell "Mommy! Mommy!" I had my sunglasses on and they all went crazy trying them on! It was so adorable. I ended up leaving the glasses there for kids to play with(someone brought them back later). The kids are just so loved and cared for and so adorable!

We went out for a bit yesterday and had our first encounter with kids begging. Wow! It broke my heart - obviously.

We are going to the embassy soon - I feel like I've written that 800 times, but it's the only thing planned. We are enjoying having time to bond with our little man and playing with all the other kids. You learn their names and fall in love with them too. Most of them are referred and have parents waiting to come get them.

Introducing Micah Awate