Five Months Home

Last week, we celebrated five months as a family of seven.  For writing, Tatum and Kierstyn chose to use Eyob as a subject.  I love what they came up with.  Here's their paragraph:

     Eyob Masebo Robbs is a konjo, four year old little boy.  He has cute hair and beautiful skin.  He is compassionate and caring when someone gets hurt.  Eyob was adopted from Ethiopia five months ago.  He is different and unique with a great personality.

He's just a part of our family now.  It feels like we're starting to gel together as a unit and I fantasize at least once a day cannot even remember what life was like with only one little.  Our littles, Eyob and Maci, are quite a rambunctious pair.  I'm working some preschool into our school days and two and a half weeks in they both recognize A, B, and C, write the three letters, and tell what they 'say'. 

The other kids are having an excellent school year so far, too.  I skipped Tatum up a grade, so she went from 4th to 6th and is doing awesome!  Cade is bopping along with all his eighth grade stuff - Algebra II being what I was most apprehensive about, but he's doing great so far.  Kierstyn is blowing third grade right out of the water.  What a smarty pants!  We're also learning Greek, which has actually been really fun so far.

Sports start full force this week, with games and practices and the constant juggling of schedules and eating dinner on the go.  As stressful as that is sometimes, we love it and praise God every day for the joy he has given us.

Over the weekend, we de-stressed with a rock star birthday party for Tatum and some of her friends.  We had lots of fun and Justin and I looked like has been 80's rock stars incredibly hot.

Help Us Celebrate Eyob's Birthday and Make a Difference in Kenya

Superhero birthday party

Our sweet boy celebrates his fourth birthday today!  Melkam Lidet, Eyob Masebo!  We celebrated on Sunday with his closest friends.  

He opened gifts!

He loved the cake!

Justin and me with Little E

Please keep reading to see how you can help us celebrate and honor him!

After visiting Ethiopia twice, we became passionate about helping provide clean water to people there.  Everywhere you look, people are carrying or otherwise hauling large yellow jugs for clean water.  

Here are some water facts:

• 884 million people lack access to safe water supplies; approximately one in eight people.

• 3.575 million people die each year from water-related disease.

• Millions of women and children spend several hours a day collecting water from distant, often polluted sources.

• At any given time, half of the world’s hospital beds are occupied by patients suffering from diseases associated with lack of access to safe drinking water, inadequate sanitation and poor hygiene.

For months, we've been trying to make arrangements to put a well in the community that Eyob is from.  We've talked to many organizations and hit dead end after dead end.  We had two requirements.  #1 - the organization had to spread God's word to the community in the process of placing the well.  #2 - it had to be close to a specific location.  Unfortunately, no one that we could find is drilling wells in that area right now.  We waited the whole summer for a site survey to come back from one organization and in the end, they could not accommodate our request.  So we decided to just fundraise for an Ethiopian well in an unspecified location, but God had other plans.

We have a friend, Tom Abungu, who runs a school and orphanage in Kenya.  He spent most of the summer staying with some of our good friends and was able to travel to the church I grew up in to give a presentation.  During that service, he talked about another part of his ministry, which is helping to put wells into needy communities in Kenya.  Tom gave examples of being able to spread The Gospel during past projects.  *Ding*  A light went on for Justin and myself!  It resonated so deeply with us that we immediately knew this was where we should focus our energy.

Drum roll please.... I'm excited to announce that we are now working toward a goal of raising $10,000 for a well in an area of Kenya called Urimba, Siaya Village!  People in this area have no close source for water and must walk two hours to obtain it.  Tom says a well will bring great hope to this community.

We have several awesome fundraisers planned for this fall, so stay tuned for that.  Right now, though, you can help us kick off our project by celebrating Eyob's fourth birthday.  In honor of him, please consider making a donation to our well fund.  Any amount will help $4, $40, $400 or whatever you feel led to give.  You can click the donate button on the right side of this page to make a contribution through Paypal.  If you'd like to make a tax deductible donation, please contact me directly and I will get the information to you.

Thank you for helping us to help others! 

Whoever believes in me, as Scripture has said, rivers of living water will flow from within them. John 7:38

Four Months Home

His super cheesy grin.

Four months ago yesterday we arrived home with a certain 40 pound Ethiopian, so last night we had a little celebration.  I made injera and doro wat.  It tasted moderately completely authentic.  Eyob pigged down a massive amount of injera and has been snacking on it today, too.  This boy loves his food. 

Here's who Eyob is to us after 129 days:

• He loves to cuddle and say his prayers.
• His skin is so soft and squishy that none of us can keep our hands off him.
• We admire his resilience
• His love of sleep makes me feel like he's a kindred spirit.
• His gentle way with babies makes my heart happy.  His enat and the nannies must have been very affectionate with him and the little ones he lived with.
• His curls are to die for. 
• We love how he says 'yes' -- 'yeth'.
• He's already a true New Mexican - he loves anything with green chile in it.
• He thinks his Poppy hung the moon.  I agree.
• I celebrate the fact that he loves to ride in baskets.  It's enticed Maci to also become a passenger again.  Score!
• He's probably about 70% fluent in English.  We're sad that his Amharic is disappearing but happy that the communication barrier is crumbling.
• Tattletale, tattletale!
• A typical three year old boy who loves cars, balls, and hats.
• His smile!  His eyes!  simply.gorgeous. 

My view of the many hugs I get every day!

Such a good sis making injera in a kitchen that was over 100*.  Our a/c is broken again. 

Thank you, Lord, for blessing us with Eyob!

Wordless Wednesday

Bedtime story with Daddy. Not a great pic, but still oozing sweetness!

Encouragement Needed

Sometimes I think things with Eyob are going so well.  When he wakes from sleep or gets distressed about something, he immediately starts calling for "Mamas!  Mamas!".  That's a new development.  So I'm bopping along thinking we're doing pretty good.  Starting to bond and connect.  Ok.  It's happening.  Then we lived the last five days.  A series of events that made me realize that we're not quite as far along as I thought.

After we delivered Meals on Wheels on Wednesday, we had lunch at Sam's Club.  Then we walked over to get a basket to do our shopping.  But in the process of shepherding five kids, my slow little Ethiopian got behind.  Now, I knew where he was and what was happening.  This is a common occurrence.  He's the biggest slowpoke this side of the Mississippi.  I went on a few steps ahead so I could see the kid I sent for a basket while I waited for him.  But, Eyob lost sight of me.  He stopped, looked all around, went in a circle, and I watched expecting distress as I prepared to call out to him, thinking he would be terrified to be alone and separated from us.  But instead, he kind of shrugged and strutted off in the opposite direction.  No worry, no fear.  It was extremely disheartening and I've felt kind of beat down ever since.  Seems like he was thinking - oh well... on to the next thing....

Then at church on Sunday, he daddy shopped like nobody's business.  He went from man to man as I politely tried to disengage him from situation after situation.  Of course, the week I forget to bring my Ergo in, he's acting like he did three months ago.  Climbing all over every man he sees.  Ugh.

Combine that with his renewed fear of dogs, bedtime, and bubble baths and I think we have regressed at least two months.  I know it's a process and I'm certainly not upset at him.  I just wish I could understand what goes on in his head and what more I can do to help him integrate into his new life.

Sometimes this adoption stuff is so overwhelmingly difficult.  Suggestions and encouragement appreciated.