Please Pray Over our Trip

Dear Friends and Family. I am posting this here so that everyone knows what we are up to, and the best way (at least that we know of so far) to be praying for us while we are gone. We covet your prayers greatly! (Keep in mind that Ethiopia is 9 hours ahead of MST.)

Saturday 11.1.08 Leave Denver at 11:15 am
Layover in Calgary. Leave Calgary at 7:15 pm
Layover in London.
Sunday 11.2.08 Leave London at 10:15 am (their time)
Monday 11.3.08 Arrive in Addis Ababa at 2:35 am. (Fun times...although, that is actually
5:35 pm on Sunday 11.2 for those of you in Boulder) :)
Meet Malachi in the afternoon for the first time !!!!!!
Tuesday 11.4.08 Fun day of paperwork, then some shopping in the market then.......
GOTCHA DAY!!! We go back to the transition home (where Malachi is) and
this time, he comes with us for good!!!! Pray he likes us and that over the next few days, he bonds enough to feel safe with us on the plane ride home.
Wednesday 11.5.08 Head to the Embassy to finish up all of our paperwork. Please pray today
for all of this to go smooth. This is where mistakes will happen if they are
going to happen, which is just no good.
Thursday 11.6.08 We have to go to the German Embassy Thursday morning to file for a transit
visa. Apparently, they are concerned that 1 year old Ethiopians are a threat
to their airport or something. :) Anyway, this is a HUGE prayer request here.
We have a small window of time to obtain our German Visa. Pray the window
stays open long enough and that all the paperwork b/wn the US and German
Embassies come together in the right time so we can leave the country when
planned.
We then head to the orphanage where Malachi came from, then on to another
orphanage. This is going to be so hard for our hearts. Aaron and I feel it
already.....we can't take any more of them with us right now.
Friday 11.07.08 Just a fun, low key day. We can shop, we can explore, we can sleep, whatever.
Again, pray for rest, health, and bonding.
We check out of the hotel and head to the airport.
We leave Ethiopia at 10:45 pm. Pray for sleep on the plane home (for us and
Malachi)
Saturday 11.08.08 7 hour layover in Germany
Arrive in Denver at 3:25 pm !!!! (Don't be fooled....that is 22 hours later than
when we left Ethiopia!!!)


So, aside from all of the daily tasks .... here are a few more ways you could pray for us.

1) Pray for our kids health. Sam has had a funky stomach thing for over 2 weeks now. It is making it very hard for me to leave him. I think it is his little way of showing the stress he feels in all of this. Did I tell you I'm struggling leaving him??? We've never left the kids for this amount of time. And upon our return, Sam has to, for the first time in his 4 1/2 years, adjust to a younger sibling. He's not the baby anymore. :(

2) Pray that Aaron and I stay healthy in Ethiopia. It's pretty common to get sick there, but pray if we do- that it is mild and quickly overcome.

3) Pray that we can sleep on our flights, and adjust quickly to ET time.

4) Pray for strength for those who are watching our kids. Pray a special blessing into their life for doing such a huge thing for us. Pray also that the kids transition well between the 4 different people caring for them throughout the week.

5) Between now and Saturday morning - pray that as a family of 5, we enjoy our time with each other, have peace in our home and with each other, love each other, and get done everything that needs to get done so we can come home and be a family of 6 !

Thanks again for being part of this with us! We couldn't do it without support and prayer ... of which we have had an overflowing amount of. It's almost over! (Then our need for support and prayers change...but we'll save that for another day. :) )