Thursday, October 4, 2012

Gotcha Day

The Ethiopian 787 Dreamliner airplane was beyond a blessing from the Lord. What a way to head into Ethiopia for a busy and emotional three days than to cruise with plenty of leg room and just all around service! I highly recommend anyone using that airliner if possible when traveling to Africa!

We walked through sea after sea of people that were just as anxious to see the beautiful light of day after being on airplanes for the last 17 hours as we were. People were pushing, cutting and all around crazy. I think planes do that to people. The thing about a third world countries airport is, there is no for sure system. So you might go one time and the next time it is completely different. You have to have a willingness to just submit to whatever might come your way. So we finally made it through the throng of people and stepped out into the most beautiful, sunny day. Here we were, exhausted and about to pick up our daughter forever. Wow, what a thought, ours on earth forever.  No more a threesome but a foursome. Nothing was ever going to be the same, in a great way!

As many of you know I have been fretting about all the small details of finally becoming a full-time parent to this vivacious girl. What schooling, what hair, what extra activities, how to bond, how to discipline, how to love, and the list goes on and on. So much to think through. So much to consider. So much to choose. However, with as much planning as we do we can never know fully what will happen until we are thrusted into a situation and we are forced to begin taking inventory on what actually needs to happen. Before we left, Amelia and I were driving and Amelia pointed out a bird in the street that was drinking water. She was so exited because she said he was thirsty and needed some. I reminded her of the story in the gospels of how God provides for the birds of the air. (Matthew 6:25-34) There are so many things to worry about in regards to bringing Tsihon home and beginning to form our family of four. Things that in wisdom, we have thought through and tried to make a plan for. However, things do not always go to plan and life has a funny way of throwing curve balls at you, so those are the times I have to remember that worrying brings about nothing but by prayer and thanksgiving, peace and truth will come. (Philippians 4:6-7) Jesus was right, there are too many things in a single day that bring trial, there is no need to worry about the things of tomorrow. He is in control. She is a child from a broken past, with hurts, hang ups, anger and grief. She is also beautiful, caring, loving, vivacious and fun. I cannot heal her heart and make it okay. It would be arrogant for me to try. So I must not worry and rely on the One who can do those very large tasks. He will heal her heart. I must walk in daily prayer and constantly hand over every situation to Jesus. Things work better when I do! Right now, I have decided to take every day one at a time. I have the broad picture of what it will look like but my main goal right now is to bond and help Tsihon make this transition. Everything else can wait until another day.

We took a much needed shower and headed over to the transition home. I was so excited to hold her again. Everyone had told us that she was counting down the days. It made my heart glad to know she was so excited that we were coming rather than being ambivalent about the whole thing. We pulled up and a very thoughtful family offered to take pictures for us. AWAA families are awesome, I cannot say enough about them. Anyhoo it was time to meet again. We stood outside the door and waited and waited and waited. It seemed like forever but I am sure it was like 3 minutes. She finally came walking through the doors and her mega-watt smile came busting out. She took off running, yelling momma, daddy in her husky little voice. This time Pete had the honor of having her jump into his arms. It was so precious and you could tell Pete was thrilled with that idea. Tsihon is already a daddy's girl. She grabbed me next and it was so good to hold her. A couple hours later, after saying goodbye to many people, we walked out the gate hand in hand saying goodbye to one home and walking into another.

Things have been going well up to this point. She is listening the best she can with a language barrier and she is sleeping well. Our largest issue is food. We knew food hoarding and stuffing could be a problem with a child from an orphanage because of the previous lack of food. She has yet to trust that food will always be around. So we are dealing with her always wanting to eat the snacks that I brought. I mean tons and tons of food. The worst thing right now would be to tell her no because we need to build the trust that we will always provide food. Right now we are trying to give her a few of those snacks and then hiding them. When she asks for more we tell her that she can have another after our next meal, breakfast, lunch and dinner. This seems to be working. The snacks are the only American thing she will eat otherwise she will not touch our kind of food. It is all Ethiopian food for our girl, I cannot blame her, it is good! So we will have issues at home but again we are going to start taking this one day at a time, not week by week or month by month. So right now God is blessing us with peace and bonding. We know there will probably come a time when the grief will begin and we will deal with that as it comes. Right now we are enjoying laughter, hugs, kisses and lots of I love yous!!

We are no longer a family just by blood but a family of adoption just like our Father did for us! That beautiful picture that is painted in the bible about our salvation is more alive than ever for me. However, like one adopted mom so beautifully pointed out, our salvation started with great brokenness and grief. So I imagine there will be lows before we enter true peace and hope. Here is to the journey ahead. Welcome Home Tsihon Evangeline (Eva) Hathaway! We are blessed to call you daughter!

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