The Gulley Adventure to Ethiopia

Well, it's been a month for us at home as the Gulley 7!  And I have to say that things are going really well!  Everyone is adjusting to another family member in the house, and Lydia is fitting right in.

As far as Lydia goes, she is doing better than we could have ever dreamed.  For the most part, she is sleeping through the night.  Her doctor check up went well, and we haven't heard any negative news from her blood work and other tests.  Her needles are today....not looking forward to that!  She is growing, but staying the same weight.  I think she is doing much better on her low carb, high fruit and veggie diet!!  Plus she is running all over the place!!  This kid can move and get into everything!!!  She is working on her 7th tooth.  And I am desperately trying to do cute things with her hair.  (That is a work in progress!!)  She turned one on March 10, which we still need to celebrate.  (Abby's asthma has put the celebrating on hold for now.  And this seems to bother Abby the most! She thinks it's terrible we haven't given her a gift yet!)  I will say that Lydi is a very busy girl!! She is into everything!!!  AND she knows the word, NO!  Of course, when we tell her no, she just looks at us and grins her adorable grin.  After my heart melts a bit, I try to be consistent and continue on with the NO!  To sum it up, Lydia is loud, funny, smart, adorable, inquisitive, busy, Bekah-like, and fits right in!!  We are blessed!

Dennis is right back to work as usual.  The girls are into their school/sport/work routines.  I am enjoying being home with Abby and Lydia.  It's been an adjustment for sure.  I do miss my job at the school, but I also love being home and playing with my girls.  We are getting our routine down and I am finally feeling less tired.  

We want to thank everyone for their support over these past 3+years.  It's so nice to be on this side of the adoption.  Seeing Lydia with our family makes it all worth it for sure!! She is such a joy and constantly makes us laugh!  I wish we could thank every one by name, but there are simply too many people to list!  We appreciate the love, prayers, financial help, orphanage donations, the list goes on.  Please know that your kindness has not gone unnoticed!!

I envy my blogger friends who can type out amazing posts.  That is simply not me!!  This is our last post and this blog is done.  I am much better at quick blurbs on facebook, so you will definitely find me there! Please keep in touch.  We would love to share life with you all!

Oh, and for those who are wondering???  Yes, our family is COMPLETE!  

Much love,

Jo

 

 

We are leaving for the airport in about an hour.  We are really excited to get home and see our girls.  We are especially excited to introduce Lydia to everyone, especially Hannah, Rebekah, Rachel, and Abby!!

Please pray for our travels with Lydia as she is quite active and prefers to be in mom's arms much more than with dad.  This could make for an interesting trip and a tiring one for mom!

If you would like to come to the airport, we are coming in on Tuesday night at 5:02 pm.  We will be coming from Toronto with Air Canada.  No guarantees what shape we will be in!! 

Just a quick note that Lydia is quite overwhelmed by crowds of people, so just remember this in case she is fussy or is clinging to me!

See you soon!!

We wanted to say a big thank you for all that donated money for us to take to the orphanage here in Ethiopia.  We want to let you know that due to the great amount of support that we received we were able to buy 300 kg of Teff, the grain that is used in the traditional Ethiopian cooking.  That will be split between 2 orphanages, Kingdom Vision International Sodo (where Lydia is from), and Kingdom Vision Adama, about 2 hours outside of Addis Ababa.  This will provide enough for each orphanage to feed the children for more than 2 months. 

We were also able to make a huge capital purchase for the orphanage in Sodo.  We let them know of the generosity of our Canadian friends and asked them if there was a large purchase that we could help them with.  After much prayer and meeting with his staff, the director, Solomon, determined that they could use a copy machine.  They have much copying to do for all of the files for the children in the orphanage and the sponsorship program.  They currently were going in to town each time and paying $0.50 per copy and those funds are taken from the same pot as food and supplies for the children. 

So we went shopping in Addis for a copy machine.  We bought a new Ricoh copy machine for 34,000 Birr, or about $2200 US dollars.  We also purchased 2 extra toner cartridges for a total of 30,000 copies.  Solomon, the director of the orphanage, screamed for joy on the phone when we told him of the purchase.  He says this will free up money on a regular basis to provide food and supplies for the children so we felt it was a great purchase.  It is also a purchase they would otherwise never be able to make.  That same day Solomon sent a staff member the 6 hours to Addis to be trained on the machine and Solomon himself is coming today to carefully transport the machine home to the Sodo Orphanage.  He is going to put it on top of his van and tie it down with ropes!  Pray for safety as he travels back!

So on behalf of the folks in Sodo, "Amisiganalo" (Thank You!) to all who donated!!

Yesterday we had the privilege of visiting with our Compassion International Child, Yabetse.  This is the second time we had this opportunity.  Last visit we had a tour of the project as well as seeing all the kids singing for us, etc.  This time around, we asked to just visit with his family as we know that it is a lot of work for them to prepare! 

We met Yabetse and this mom, dad, and 1 year old sister at the project.  Yabetse gave me (Jo) some beautiful flowers.  We then took them to their home where we were able to visit (through an interpreter) for over an hour.  Yabetse was quite shy and played with the Lego motorcycle set we gave him.  He was very excited!  His mother prepared an Ethiopian coffee ceremony for us, which was a real treat.  It was a great chance for Dennis to talk to Yabetse's father about ministry since he is also a pastor.  Lydia and Yabetse's baby sister played a bit together as well.

We feel very blessed to have this chance to meet our sponsor child.  It makes it very real and meaningful to actually be in the home of these wonderful people.  They are so happy and grateful that we are sponsoring Yabetse.  He is a very bright and smiley little 8 year old boy.

We ended our time with Dennis praying for the family.  All in all, a very wonderful day!

We will try to post a few more times.  It has been hard as we have been busy with going different places and trying to keep busy-Lydia entertained.  We are very tired and anxious to be home.

More soon.....take care!

It is already Wednesday here!  We have very mixed feelings about being here right now.  On one hand we are enjoying the company of so many families here at the KVI Guesthouse and meeting up with a few others along the way.  We are enjoying shopping and eating out with our new friends.  We love the staff here at the guesthouse, and we LOVE the culture and people here in Ethiopia.  Mostly, we are overjoyed with having Lydia!  She is wonderful!!  One the other hand, we are missing our girls at home and wish we could just leave now and be in Canada!  It has been difficult to have an 11 month old in a tiny room with a double bed and a crib.  She does much better without so many people around, and we are having a hard time finding a spot to just lay down her blanket and let her play.  She is a mover, and she is tottling all over the place!!  It is also hard because she wants me (Jo) all the time, and is fine with Dennis if I am out of the room.  We want to get home so we can just begin our lives as a family of 7, and get her into a routine.

Now about Lydia...she is BIG!  She weighs at least 22 pounds and has rolls galore!  She is one solid girl.  She has 2 dimples, 4 teeth, and beautiful loose curly hair.  She has an adorable laugh and loves to talk, sing, and dance.  She is also very dramatic, and has a serious set of pipes on her.  Man, can she cry and scream!!  Another great reason to get her home and into a routine!!  All in all, life is good.  I can hardly wait to get her home to her sisters!!

Speaking of sisters.....Happy Birthday to Abby!!  It was hard to be away for her 5th birthday, but it sounds like she was spoiled by family and friends back home.  And Skype is a wonderful thing!  We purchased a webcam to leave here at the guesthouse, and now we can all talk to our families and see them back home....for free!!  Technology is a beautiful thing!!  It was a joy to see Abby open her birthday gift!! 

We are attaching a few pictures of Lydia!!  She is such a dolly! 

Later today, we are going out to traditional Ethiopian dinner as well as taking a trip to "the mountain" and souvenir shopping.  This day is provided to us by our adoption agency...something they do after you receive your child.  We are excited to share this day with our new and wonderful friends, Gwen and Usko and their 2 beautiful children!

A quick note to those who gave us donations for the orphanage.  We are in the process of communicating with the director to see what they need right now.  Because everyone was incredibly generous, we may be able to buy a larger needed item for them.  They are very appreciative and excited.  I'll fill you in more later.

Off to sit in the gorgeous sun with my newest daughter!! 

Last night was very good, considering Lydia was in a new place.  She feels very comfortable with us, especially me (Jo).  She is very happy and giggly, and she talks constantly!  She woke us up a few times last night and then decided to get up at 6:00.  She is very busy, and her 22 pounds are giving me a real workout! 

And to our surprise, she took her first steps today!!  We are so thankful that she saved that for us!  She was pretty proud of herself.

We also received all of her documents and passport today.  We are set!  Now we are just enjoying the company of all the other families here, also adopting.  Gwen and Usko, our friends from BC we met last time we were here, are also here.  It is wonderful to see them here again and we went for a long walk today. 

The next few days will be fun....filled with sightseeing, meeting new friends, and visiting our Compassion International child.  We will keep you posted....thanks for the prayers!

We started off our day by going to church with our friend Soloman.  After returning to the guest house Soloman called Sister Hannah at the transition home to make arrangements for us to get Lydia tomorrw.  Sister Hannah said that she was waiting on our call and would have the driver pick us up at 12:30 pm today.  He arrived at 1:00 and we went to see Lydia at the transition home.

The initial response by Lydia was one of many tears, but she calmed down for Joanne, but was still not sure what she thought of Dad.  We made it clear that we wanted to take her today, so since she was sleeping on Mom, Dad and the driver went grocery shopping and then we returned to take her back to the guest house with us.  We arrived here just about 45 minutes ago and she is already settling in with us and has had a few giggles with Mom and Dad.

We will write more later but wanted to get the word out on the good news.

We are having a problem posting pictures but we will as soon as possible.

Just a quick note that we made it to Ethiopia safe and sound and we had a good nights sleep.  We are now heading off to church.  We hope to have Lydia with us starting tomorrow so there should be more news.  Thanks for all of the prayer and support.

Well we learned from our MP's (Member of Parliament for the Americans) office this week that Lydia's Facilitation Visa is ready.  That news was supported by a call at 5:30 Wednesday morning from the Canadian High Commission in Nairobi, Kenya informing us that the Visa was complete and had been sent to Addis Ababa on Wednesday.

Joanne and I have made our flight reservations and will leave next Friday afternoon, February 4th and return on Tuesday, February 15th.  That means that in a little over a week we will have Lydia for good.  It only took 3.5 years!

So we are firing the Blog back up to chronicle the next and final leg of this journey.  

Here are the most recent pictures of Lydia that we received today.