Marissa's Baptism, Ethiopian Feast, Defenestration & a Baby!

Marissa took part in believer's baptism last night at church! This is a symbol of her faith is Jesus Christ. (You can't see her, but she is in the tub!) She made a decision to be a Christ-follower last April! We requested our friend Dave, who happens to be the executive pastor, to baptize Marissa. Dave used to watch her in the nursery when she was tiny! (He says that she didn't like him though!) It was wonderful to witness, and our close friends the Hollmans and the Colglaziers came to watch along with Mema, Uncle Scott, Aunt Patti the NC cousins! It turned out to be quite a celebration!

After church, our family came home with us for an Ethiopian Feast! William and I worked all day preparing kik wat (lentils), doro wat (chicken with hard boiled eggs), tibs a'licha (beef), and a yummy cabbage and potato dish. It was our extended family's first experience with Ethiopian food, so we didn't know how it would go. They were a bit surprised at the lack of plates and flatware! All but one of the children ate really well! We were very pleased with how it turned out and stuffed ourselves! YUM!!!!! Now, we need to get some more injera to finish the leftovers!


















William also made the sunflower cake. It was so cute and very tasty also. The petals of the sunflower are Peeps!




Friday, the families with dossiers in Ethiopia had a 2-hour conference call with our African program coordinator. It was a great opportunity to hear the voices of the other families and gather a lot of information about how the Ethiopian program is going. Here are some of the highlights that affect us:

• AWAA is adding 2 more orphanages -hopefully by the end of March.
• The estimated wait times are: infant girl 7-9 months, infant boy 5-7 months, toddler boy or girl 7-9 months, siblings under 5 years 9-12 months, and siblings over 5 years 2-3 months
• The likelihood of getting twins is extremely low since they haven't seen any yet!
• The way that our wait time is calculated has been altered from the way that the previous program coordinator did it. The wait period now begins when the dossier was shipped to Ethiopia. This makes pushes our waiting window back two weeks, so we are no longer "in the window." (Thus the defenestration!) We will re-enter the window on March 19th! (This doesn't really change anything other than help adjust our expectations as to when we will get our referral. It doesn't really make it take any longer!)
  

It was such a blessing to have some direct communication from our agency! We are very grateful to Duni for taking the time to do this and are looking forward to meeting up to do this every 1-2 months! Hey wait, we might not be waiting for that long!

Our great friends in Georgia had their baby, Jason, on Friday morning!! Congratulations Amy & Steve! Welcome to the world, Jason! We can't wait to meet you!