A Year Ago Today...

We got the news that Misrak (aka Sakari Ava Misrak David) had officially became our daughter, as our case passed through the Ethiopian court system after 4 months of waiting!!! We had hoped to have her home before last Christmas, but that didn't stop us from keeping the tree up and presents waiting for her for when we got home the first week of Februrary...yeah, that's right...February! Sakari was too young at just 10 months to really grasp Christmas, but this year was SOOO fun! We went to see Christmas lights and we actually already opened all our presents as a family since we are leaving next week to spend 10 days in New Mexico with Becca's family. We love the lights, presents, shopping and all that, but most of all we want to instill in Sakari the true meaning of Christmas so that she will come to love our Saviour more than the side benefits and fun that the season brings. We are so grateful to have this treasure (Sakari) home with us this Christmas season...having her home has magnified our appreciation to God for this life that we live. Right now as I type, Sakari is playing with a remote controlled car...that well, she hasn't quite figured out yet and it's one more thing that causes us to laugh!! We celebrated Christmas Eve by opening one present and then Christmas the next morning by first opening our stockings, then we had a breakfast of custom created omelets while we read the story of Jesus' birth from the Gospel of Luke. Then it was on to present time...we always go overboard with presents, but we shop throughout the year and are usually done in October and wrapping presents is typically completed by the day after Thanksgiving. It took a present or two for Sakari to get into the swing of things but she adjusted just fine :-) We got her a kitchen set along with other fun things, but that was her big present and she loves it!!! We had so much fun and just reveling in the fact that our sweet girl was home with us. Her new "thing" this week is to pretend that she is conducting an orchestra each time she hears classical music.

Also, this past week we received Sakari's first blog book! For those of you who may not know, you can turn your adoption blog into a book through www.blurb.com - you can pick a format, paper choice cover choice, etc. It's basically incredible. We did our first book and called it "The Journey Begins" and it documents the adoption process from Day 1 until the day we left to go pick her up...we're going to do another one from the day we left Tulsa until her first birthday, then our plan is to do one for each year from birthday to birthday. We highly recommend adoptive families doing this, it's awesome.

To top off our "Christmas", we had the incredible God-orchestrated chance to talk with Sakari's nanny, Elizabeth on the phone via a translator. It was a very unlikely situation, but my Dad was on his way back from Ghana to visit his family in India and happened to have a 12 hour layover in Addis Ababa, Ethiopia. He asked if we had any contacts there and if we wanted him to try and visit anyone. So, I contacted a dear friend who owns the Ethiopia Guest Home (www.ethiopiaguesthouse.com) and he got me his staff phone numbers...I emailed them to my Dad and he was able to get ahold of them. The staff of the Ethiopia Guest House was beyond exceptional and went the extra mile to help him with translation, transportation and even a chance to see and rest at the Guest House. My Dad raved about them and the home, so if you or anyone you know are going to be traveling to Ethiopia to pick up your kids, you must stay there! Once again, the beautiful, gracious Ethiopian people showed their hospitality and even though Elizabeth (Sakari's sweet nanny - they were seriously bonded!) doesn't work at the AWAA transition home anymore, they were able to find her and coordinated a rare and indescribable opportunity for us to talk with Elizabeth (with my Dad there!) Elizabeth was able to talk to Sakari and Sakari talked back to her...between us and Elizabeth, we were all an emotional wreck in the best sense! She never thought she would get to talk to her again, but through the hand of God we were re-united across the oceans. We are forever grateful to her. My Dad was able to get a few pics (will post when he returns from India) and also got to record some of their conversation. We can't wait until we can go back to Addis and visit her and the gorgeous Ethiopian people.

Now that you are teary-eyed and weeping (you'd better be...if not, you may just be the Grinch, haha!) - enjoy some of our "Christmas Day" pics!