Our Journey

Wow! What a journey it has been so far! Our adoption process started on June 12, 2009 when we walked through the door of Catholic Charities to fill out our initial paperwork. Throughout the next 6 months we filled out tons of paperwork and meet several times with Cynthia. She was awesome and eventually approved our home study in August.

As it got closer to the end of the home study we contacted Arise for Children as we decided to adopt from the country of Ethiopia. We debated this for awhile because we had been exposed to Ethiopian adoption at our church and were not sure we wanted to also do that. Matt and Nikki Ness had started Kingdom Vision International orphanage in obedience to God's calling. We prayed about it for a while and finally attended a meeting at church about by a group who just got back from Ethiopia and we were sold.

We then started the hours and hours of more paperwork - our Ethiopian dossier. The dossier was completed and processed in December. Now the waiting began for a referral.

FIRST GLIMPSE OF RABERA
I will never forget the phone call from Susan at Arise for Children on January 7, 2010 at 10:18 am. She said they had found a little boy for Hannah and I. His name was Rabera and is was about 8 months old. She sent us his files and a few pictures (see below). I raced over to North High School to share the news with Hannah. Both of our hearts were melted instantly as tears streamed down our cheeks. We prayed about it that night and let both Nikki and Susan know that we accepted the referral.
PATIENTLY WAITING
One of the hardest parts of the adoption process is the wait from referral until you pass court. At one point were told we may have to travel to Ethiopia twice - once for the court date and then again 4-6 weeks later for the U.S. Embassy date. We were going to be informed when our court date was, and then the policy changed and we would only be called once we passed court. We continued to pray and trust God's plan for this process even when the wait got long and stressful.

OFFICIALLY PARENTS
The second phone call I will never forget came mid-morning on April 22, 2010. Susan from Arise called. I figured it was one of two things...we had to travel to Ethiopia twice or we had passed court. Wonderful words that morning from Susan - "I am calling to make your day much better, YOU PASSED COURT, you're a dad!" Rabera was officially our son! I called Hannah to let her know and we both cried over the phone. I then went into our staff lounge and when the conversation lulled I announced the news. They were upset I patiently waited that long to say something. It was such a proud and exciting moment. Praise God!

PREPARING TO TRAVEL
After April 22 we just waited to hear of our embassy date in Ethiopia. In the meantime we met with Leslie from Arise to start talking about travel plans and get everything in order. Wow! There is a lot to think about when preparing for a major trip like this. We slowly started to prepare ourselves.

TRAVEL DATES
We eventually got word from Leslie at Arise that our U.S. Embassy appointment in Ethiopia was scheduled for Thursday, June 3rd. Let the ciaos begin!! Friends and family scrambled to put together baby showers and give us Ethiopian travel advice from previous trips. We are very blessed with awesome family and friends. Thank you for your love and support in this process! We love all of you!!

ELIJAH RABERA BROWN
We have always liked the name Elijah and decided that it would fit with his Ethiopian name. It is pretty common to use their Ethiopian name as their middle name and to select another name for their first name. That is how Elijah Rabera Brown came to be.

We are now 4 days away from flying out to get our little guy. We are running errands all over town and packing food, clothing, and toys for a 1 year old (his birthday was May 4th) we have never met. A lot of it is guessing, but we have confidence that God will take care of everything. He has so far in every step of this process! We are so humbled and grateful!

We will be posting things on our blog from Ethiopia as well as emailing when there is time. Stay tuned next week as we prepare to bring Elijah Rabera home to Eau Claire!!