here she is!

In the midst of all of the tying up loose ends and packing frenzy, we received Hanna's social report today. It tells us all kinds of information such as how much she weighs, what she enjoys, how she is bonding and what she's eating. She's already eating Injera and Shiro Wot which makes her daddy proud! We also got some recent photos, too. Take a look at her. In my own biased opinion, I think she's absolutely, positively gorgeous. We can't wait to meet our little Hanna Tessema.

on the edge of a dream realized...

I can't describe how much excitement there is in me as we sit on the edge of a dream realized.  The dream of adopting was expressed by both Christy and I to each other over 12 years ago while at Creation Festival '96.  We had been married a year, living in Canada for 9 months and with no idea of what the future would have in store.  We had not idea how many kids we might have or what our future would have in store.  We were actually at a point where we were pretty raw emotionally after an intense first year of marriage as we started to face many things in our lives which we did not even know were there.  Yet, in the midst of all of it we both felt that some day God would call us to adopt a little child out there.

Now, here we sit over 12 years later, on the edge of bringing our little Hanna home.   There has been a lot of waiting along the way, too.  We waited for the right timing, we waited for the money, we waited for our papers to be approved, we waited for a referral and for government clearances and birth certificates and travel dates and now for a social report.   But now 12 years of waiting is about to be fulfilled.   This could be why I can't concentrate for more than 2 minutes, can't sit still and can't think straight.  It is because I am so incredibly excited to meet this little one that God placed in our hearts 12 years ago and has continued to fan the flame for over that time.   It is because I am in awe at Our Heavenly Papa who puts desires in our hearts, kindles them over the years and then delights at bringing those plans into fullness in our presence.   It is such a joyful and humbling privilege to partner with The Living God in what He is up to.

T-Minus 2 days and those 12 years of waiting will be fulfilled...

"Wait for the LORD and keep his way. He will exalt you to inherit the land..." Psalm 37:34 

What makes a father proud...

As a parent there are so many things that I can think of that make me proud of my kids.  Obedience. Seeing them grow in love for God. Worshipping. Leading. Passion.  Seeing them try their hardest.  Risking.   Being a good friend.  Displaying Love to others. All of these do my heart good.

Last night, however, one of our kids made me "off the charts" proud.  It was one of those moments where I realized that he had gotten a larger grasp on the world and God's desires...and in that moment I was proud.  Our kids were playing in the backyard with some others when they decided to start taking cup fulls of water and dumping them in our sandbox.  It was at that point that I overheard Joshua say, "Guys lets not waste the water...do you know how many people in the world that don't have clean water?"  I was beaming inside.  He got it!  It was a moment where he was looking outside of himself and was considering the plight of some of the poorest of the poor in the world.   Now, I know it was just a couple of cup fulls of water, but hey, he got the message we have been talking about that 1 billion people in the world do not have clean water.  

It got me to thinking.  I imagine that when our heavenly Papa hears things like this come out our mouths and sees our hands in action it makes Him smile.   Afterall, it is a message that He has been sharing with His people for centuries - the least matter to Him.   Consider Isaiah 58 where God is speaking through the prophet Isaiah to call them to what true fasting was.  It is not merely the spiritual experience or a religious exercise or a deepening of one's walk with God in going without food, rather He was calling them (and is calling us) to spend themselves on behalf of the poor as the action of true fasting.  Consider these words,
" 9 Then you will call, and the LORD will answer;
you will cry for help, and he will say: Here am I.
"If you do away with the yoke of oppression,
with the pointing finger and malicious talk,
10 and if you spend yourselves in behalf of the hungry
and satisfy the needs of the oppressed,
then your light will rise in the darkness,
and your night will become like the noonday."

It also means when we move toward this kind of action towards the least that we have permitted God to do a deeper work in our lives. We have suspended judgment of someone else in order to demonstrate His love to them. We have suspended those judgements we pass such as; "they should help themselves, or they are reaping what they sowed, or they are lazy, or they are ignorant, or they are corrupt" and instead have chosen to respond to others in the same way He pursued us in Jesus - He suspended judgment by making His love known. This kind of loving response would truly rock our world.

I want to live my life truly spending myself on behalf of those who have been on God's heart throughout the centuries. And may I suspend judgement and instead get to know their names, their situations and suffer alongside of them while doing all I can to alleviate their suffering with all Our Dad has given me. May I lay down my need to be right and instead pursue what God has already shared with us to be right - to care for those in need. I believe when we as Jesus followers truly catch this in our hearts and let it flow out in our choices and actions He sees it and it makes Him beam as His love is truly expressed in loving action and suspended judgement for our world.

Another Ethiopian Gold

Last night Tirunesh Dibaba ,nicknamed the "Baby-Faced Destroyer" (on the right in picture) won gold in the women's 5,000 meters, becoming the first woman to win gold in both the 10,000 and 5,000 meter events.   Meseret Defar who won Gold in the 5,000 meter at the 2004 Olympics, won the bronze for Ethiopia this time around.  

Disturbing news about the present food crisis in Ethiopia

USATODAY did this video story on the current crisis in Ethiopia.  Please continue praying for Ethiopia.  Video is here.

Ethiopia takes Gold and Silver

Yesterday in the 10,000 meter, Ethiopia took both the Gold and Silver and set an Olympic record time.  Kenenisa Bekele took Gold with a time of 27:01.17 and Sileshi Sihine took Silver.  They hung in a pack of 6 runners and then for the last 400 meters both kicked it and ran an amazing split for that last lap.   35 year old (yes, that's 35) Haile Gebrselassie came in 6th place.  By the way, his plan is to run again in London in 2012 at the age of 39.    He was very instrumental in helping to set the pace for his teammates and he could be considered for an "assist" in this case, if there was such a thing.  Here is a link (I'm not sure how long it will be active, though) to part of the race: click here

My good friend Dave keeps asking to become a coach for Hanna in long distance running.  He's an avid runner and has been excited to see Ethiopia become a world dominating force in long distance races.   While its too early to see if Hanna will want to become a runner, there is one thing I do know.   If she does, Dave will be a much better candidate for coach than her overweight, terrible knees, shin-splint prone adoptive father!

Thoughts on Adoption

Since we first started this journey approximately 1 year ago I have been thinking a lot about adoption.  Over time there has been a line of thought that I have been planning on blogging about for quite some time, but now the time has finally come.  Along the way we have had people comment about how great it is that we are "rescuing" a child from another land and providing her with opportunities that she would not have gotten in her homeland.   In some of those settings we have been made out to be some sort of hero for what we are doing in adopting.  These are the thoughts which I long to dispel.   I'd simply like to share some of my thoughts on this issue.

The first is that there is nothing heroic in what we are doing.   Rather, we are simply trying to obey a thought that God put in our hearts 12 years ago.  We are trying to partner with Him in what it would seem He is doing in our lives and in Hanna's life.   He is the rescuer.  However it goes beyond Him rescuing Hanna from life in a harsh environment.  He also is using this adoption to rescue our family from our own self-absorbtion and our own harsh environments of consumerism and apapthy.  He called us to step out in faith on a journey in which He has met us, has provided and has called us to a greater sense of the "full life" than what we were experiencing a year ago.  

The second is that by bringing Hanna to America does not automatically mean that she will have a dream life.  She will have many more opportunities here than what she may have had presented to her in Ethiopia, however those opportunities can come at a cost.  She will have greater access to food and comfort and healthcare and education.  However there are some things she is losing as well.   She will lose growing up where life is simpler, where dependency on God is a necessity and where apathy is not an option.   She will be coming to a land of blessing, however lets not forget that she also will be leaving a land of blessing.   Here she will have many more material things at her finger tips, however many people in Ethiopia have riches that money cannot buy - one of the greatest being a contagious joy in the midst of desperation.  

The third is that we are simply trying to participate in a call that I believe God puts in front of all followers of Jesus.   How will we care for the widow and the orphan?   In our case we are going to Ethiopia as a part of caring for the orphans of the world, however we all are called to do something.   God reveals His heart throughout both the Old and New Testaments about His concern for those who have suffered the greatest of relational losses.   It is not about what The Shannons are doing to care for an orphan.  Rather, it is answering the call that God has put before each of us which we need to answer - What will I do for the widows and the orphans in my backyard as well as around the world?

The fourth is that God is speaking through this experience to me in deep ways.  Romans 8:15 says, "So you have not received a spirit that makes you fearful slaves. Instead, you received God’s Spirit when he adopted you as his own children. Now we call him, “Abba, Father."  God adopts us as His own.  We are pursued and then welcomed into His family in the most intimate of ways, where we get to call Him Daddy.  We were God's enemies...we were far from Him...we were lost and unable to find hope...and then He pursued us at the greatest of lengths in Jesus coming, dying and raising again so that we could know life and enter into the most intimate of relationships with The Living God - The Big God we now can know as Daddy or Papa through what Jesus did.  Over this past year there has been what seemed like endless paperwork, tons of waiting, lots of surprises, red tape, money and we are about to embark on a 17 hour flight.  Why?  To bring our daughter home.  I can't wait to kiss her cheeks and hold her close to me.   What I am understanding however is how miniscule our efforts have been compared to the extent and the extreme that God went to so that you and I could know Him as Papa.   In all of this there is my heavenly Dad calling to me about how much He loves humanity and loves you and I - and how He wants intimacy - after all it cost Him a lot to make it possible and accessible.  

This adoption also could not have been possible without community.  We have had an amazing group of people around us who have prayed and listened and helped fundraise and laughed and cried and hoped and sacrificed and thrown showers and helped practically and rejoiced and listened some more and prayed some more.   We, the Shannons technically are not the only ones adopting Hanna.  Rather, this awesome community of people around us are a huge part of this adoption too.   We have many around us who have cared for the orphans - a specific little 7 month old one named Hanna far away in Ethiopia at the moment, however excitedly waiting to welcome her here soon!

I also see this adoption through the eyes of hope.   Our goal is not to bring a little girl into our home and to "Americanize" her (whatever that might mean).  Rather, our goal is to be about The Father's business and seeing His Kingdom advance through welcoming a little Ethiopian girl into our family as our daughter.  I actually would consider it a great honor if someday our little daughter decided as an adult that she would like to return to Ethiopia and make a difference there in her homeland.   Our aim will be to keep her culture as in tact as possible, so that someday she could make that choice if she so desired.  I would love to see all of our kids choose to make a difference in the world by following God's Mission for their lives wherever that might take them and whatever that might mean they are doing.   None of our kids are truly ours...they are The Lord's and He simply has given us the privilege and responsibility of parenting them.     May our children choose to be part of seeing God's Kingdom advance.

Soon after we began our journey, Christy put a label on a candle that says "Hope."  This candle has been in a prominent place in our kitchen as a reminder that what was a dream of some day welcoming a little girl into our family through adoption could become a reality.   Now, as we are just a couple of weeks away from traveling to meet Hanna, to me this candle takes on a new meaning.   It becomes the message of hope for the future.  It becomes the message of hope for what God will choose to do in Christy and I, in Joshua, Micah and Caia as well as in Hanna as she joins us.  It becomes a message of hope for what God will do in the future in and through each of our children as they choose to step into the adventure He calls them to and make a difference in His Mission throughout the world.   

May you know His hope today as you engage in His Mission.

Ethiopia at The Olympics

Ethiopians have been dominating long distance running over the past few years, so it was no huge surprise today when Tirunesh Dibaba took Gold in the 10,000 meter race.  She broke 30 minutes and came in at 29 minutes 54.66seconds.  She also is only the second woman in history to break the 30 minute barrier.   The silver medalist was Elvan Abeylegesse who is an Ethiopian native, but running for Turkey.

A Totally Different Language

I've been doing a bit of reading on Amharic, the national language of Ethiopia. I find the whole study of language and communication so fascinating. While Amharic is not the native language of the region where Hanna is from, it is the national language which is the primary language for about 12 million Ethiopians and the second language of about 1/3 of the total population. The interesting part is that Ethiopia has 63 million who speak 82 different languages with over 200 dialects. I find this so incredibly rich.  By the way, Amharic has 231 characters!

From what I have been able to discover, the village where Hanna is from probably speaks Tembarissa which is a dialect of Kambaata. There are approximately 82,000 people who speak that dialect according to Ethnologue.com. Kambaata is a Cushitic language (named for Cush from the Bible, with the predominant languages being Oromo and Somali) whereas Amharic is a Semitic language (named for Shem from the Bible, similar to Hebrew, Aramaic or Arabic). Both of these languages are subgroups of the same category of Afro-Asiatic language. Here is Genesis 1:1-5 in Kambaata.

So, what's all of this mean...I just find it terribly interesting. It is one thing to hear it spoken and something totally different to see it written. Imagine, Hanna is coming to us with this incredibly rich history of language which very closely resembles that spoken by the Israelites and Jesus Himself. I find it so fascinating and rich to ponder.

By the way, in case you're curious...Here is Hanna's name in Amharic as well...or at least as far as I can tell :)  
 (Hanna Tessema Shannon)

Extra Days in Addis Ababa

Our hope is that we can let Hanna in on as much of the culture of Ethiopia as possible. To help facilitate that we (Joshua, Christy and Jerry) are going to travel to Ethiopia a couple of days early in order to take in a bit of the culture. So, on September 1st we'll fly from Dulles (Washington DC) to Addis Ababa. We'll have a 1 hour layover in Rome on the way through (we'll stay on the plane while they refuel). On the evening of September 2nd we'll arrive in Addis at about 8pm. We'll pass through customs, buy our visas and then change some money. Then we'll meet Aleyu who is picking us up at the airport to take us to a Baptist Guest House. There are a few upscale western style hotels in Addis Ababa including a Sheraton and Hilton, however we felt that to best experience the culture it would be better to stay in a guest house with Ethiopians and eat Ethiopian meals. Its a great guesthouse - check it out here

On September 3rd we'll get picked up early in the morning for a tour. We are hiring a driver, guide and range rover to drive us 200 km north to The Blue Nile Gorge - a canyon that is larger than the Grand Canyon. It is 1 mile wide and 1 mile deep. On the way we'll also be stopping at Debre Libanos - a 13th century Orthodox monastery.

That evening we'll return back to Addis. The next day we are hiring a driver to take us around Addis. We'll visit some of the historical sites as well as go to the Merkato - the largest market in Africa. That day we'll also be meeting with Woody - an Ethiopian Vineyard pastor who lives in Addis. Can't wait to meet him and share some time together.

The evening of the 4th we'll meet the rest of our travel group and move into a guest house that our agency runs in Addis Ababa. On Friday the 5th, we'll get to meet Hanna. Can't believe it!

Where's that gonna fit?

So, what do you do while you are praying that a hurdle that could delay our travel gets overcome? We went shopping.  The spiritual gift of shopping does not fall within anyone in our family's profile, but we had to do it anyway.  We knew it was going to be a huge task to head out on Friday morning to pick up things for our trip, but I'm not sure any of us knew the magnitude of it all.  Imagine for a moment...what could one possibly need during a 10 day stay in Ethiopia in which a husband, wife and 9 year old son are traveling to bring home their 7 month old daughter? After our trip today, it would appear as if you need everything, including the kitchen sink.  

Here's a partial list...Doxycycline for all - keeps us from getting Malaria, Deet bug spray - keeps the mosquitos from biting us in the first place, Benadryl - just in case the mosquitos break through the Deet defenses and Joshua gets bitten (he swells up like mad), Immodium - in case travelers diarrhea hits, Cipro - in case Immodium does not take care of travelers diarrhea, a case of size 2 diapers - in case diarrhea hits Hanna, a case of size 3 diapers - in case the size 2 diapers don't fit Hanna, Dried fruit - just in case we go the other way and need some coaxing, Kids Dramamine - to keep it from coming out of Joshua the other way...Oh, and lest I forget toilet paper and antibacterial hand sanitizer since many establishments are not fully equipped to handle the above forementioned situations.

Of course that was just the beginning...then we needed flashlights - the power goes out often, Ear plugs - the dogs outside the guest house bark most of the night, Bottles, Pacifiers, Bibs, Baby Food, Formula, Childrens Tylenol, SD cards, Voltage Adapters, Film, Money Belts, Batteries, Food, Suntan lotion, Burp cloths, and a Sudoku book to keep mommy from going mad.  Plus dozens of other things I'm running out of time to mention.   

All of this is tongue in cheek, however, because I can't imagine a better excuse to go shopping than to get ready to bring our little baby home.  We'll be there soon, Honey.  Love, Daddy

Leavin' On A Jet Plane!!!

Well, it's been quite the crazy past day and a half. Yesterday, we received some emails from our specialist Jan that there might be another step of paperwork that we might have to go through before we could travel, and if that was the case, it would probably delay our traveling a month or more! UGH! What a tense time! Our hearts were just breaking!

To make a long story short, all has been resolved today. I spoke with Jan shortly after 1pm, and not only did she tell me that everything was in order for us to travel, but she officially assigned us to the Sept. 4 travel group! Jerry was able to call the travel agent we talked to last week and go ahead and book the tickets we had on hold (today was the last day they could be on hold for the price we were quoted. After that, we could keep them on hold, but the price would go up. Phew!) So, on Sept. 1, just one month from today, we will be on a plane headed for Ethiopia to bring home our little Hanna!!!

We got the news shortly after we had completed a marathon shopping trip to get most of what we need for the trip. I'm off to pack a baby bag and a small pharmacy! :)

Thank you, Father, for answering our prayers and the prayers of many faithful friends!