Reminiscing about Ethiopia

In the last two weeks we have had two more home study visits.  These last two were just asking us questions about each other's family history and then some other pretty personal questions.  One meeting our social worker met individually with Sarah and I to ask questions.  Our home study process has been a little different this time around, but I think we'll survive!  We will have one more visit next Monday. This one is with the kids.  That always makes Sarah a little nervous.  The last time around Hope said some things we can now laugh about, but at the time it about gave Sarah a heart attack.  After this they put all the info together for our home study to send off to the Home office to get approved. Then we get the pleasure of working on more paperwork.

As I said last time I am going to try and let you get to know us a little better.

Jeremy - favorite food is Ethiopian.  Most amazing food ever.
Sarah - worries about everything.  You name it, she has definitely worried about it.
Taylor - wants to go to college to be a doctor or a writer.
Jacob - He has a mole in the middle of his belly button.
Hope - loves to sing.
Judah - can flip his upper eye lids inside out.  This is pretty freaky.  First time I ever saw it was the first night we had him in Ethiopia.  We were sitting eating spaghetti and I look over at him, and he has his eye lids flipped just sitting there eating like nothing was going on.  I took a triple take and said "uh. Sarah. Look."

With this post I thought I would leave some videos and pics of our trips to Ethiopia.  This has to be one of my favorite places on earth, even though I haven't been very many places.  The land is beautiful and the people of Ethiopia are so kind and gracious.  The family we stayed with feels like our family and I know they always will.  I cannot wait to go back to see them.  Birtukan and Nesibu know how to show Jesus' love to others.  I really think Sarah and I could retire there someday.

This video is of the Nile river at 40,000 ft.  When we were flying over, the first thoughts that went through my head were, did God turn that whole thing into blood?, and I wonder what part of the river Moses was in as an infant.

The next four were from an authentic Ethiopian restaurant, with live music and dancing.

Look at that food. I LOVE it.  Plus there is no silverware to clean up. Your utensils are the rolled up flat bread(injera) on the side.

This was a common scene throughout the city. These were people's tin roofed houses packed in tight.

I'm not sure what this was that we drove by every morning and afternoon in the city, but there was a guy there everyday.  It looked like he was crushing rock.

These were very common throughout the beautiful countryside of Ethiopia.

This is a view of the city from a restaurant we ate at. 

This is from up on the mountain.  Nothing to exciting from the pic but the story behind it.  First they said that the Olympians from Ethiopia train up in these mountains, and you can hear them running through the timber in the early morning.  I suppose training where the air is thinner is better, cause then it's probably like doping to the body when they get down in the lower elevation and have a lot of oxygen.  Second when we were up there we heard all this loud cracking.  Come to find out that the kids take the bark off the trees and make these whips out of the bark, and up in the timber in the mountains these babies are loud. 

These two were from an Ethiopian coffee ceremony we had.  The coffee starts out really rich and dark, and by the end it is a lot lighter.

 Here is Judah's first experience with the best baseball team around, american rock n' roll, and angry birds.

I'll stop here and load some more later in another post, otherwise I'll be here forever and you won't be able to see any of these.:)

I'll leave you with a song that our family has been singing lately.  Jake and Hope have been role playing "Phil and Marcy", two local rock stars that I have the privilege of being friends with.  They just sang this song this past Sunday so Hope and Jake had it stuck in their head.

Rock on
J