Ethiopia Fellowship Group 09-06-08

Rachel Ward holding a card and gift certificates that are from the America World Yahoo group. We wanted to show our appreciation to them for all their hard work and dedication.

This past Saturday, Jason and I went to a cook-out for local families who are adopting from Ethiopia. We're kinda shy, so it was a little overwhelming at first because so many of the other families already knew one another, but by the time the evening ended, we were really glad that we had attended. We were able to meet lots of people who are in the process at some stage and then lots of families who had already completed their adoption.

The highlight of our evening was being able to see Rachel Ward again. She was our social worker until this past February when she moved to Ethiopia to run America World's transitional home with her newlywed husband, Barrett. They are absolutely wonderful. They are our link to our child between the time that the child leaves the orphanage and then is united with his or her new family. Once a child become available for adoption, Rachel receives a call from the orphanage and she makes arrangements to have the child transported to the transitional home which will become the child's new home until parents arrive from America. She provides families with updates on their children and assists the families during their stay in Ethiopia. When asked how long she and Barrett will reside in Ethiopia, she stated that right now they plan on staying until at least next Spring or Summer but that nothing is definite at this time. Please keep them in your prayers as they prepare to return to Ethiopia in the next week or so.

We were really excited to meet the Redfern and Hawkins families - both are active in the Yahoo group, so it was great to finally meet in person! The Redferns have Ethiopian court on October 8, 2008, so let's pray extra hard that they will pass on the first round!