Go forth and fill your libraries with media.
Seriously, thanks to everyone for being so amazing and patient. You are the reason I love Vox.
from our little pumpkin!!
Stay tuned for pictures of him in his costume!! What will Abe be????
I was just told that the Amazon Conduit will be fixed by tomorrow. I will post here as soon as I get word that it's back up and running.
I know this has been frustrating and I am sorry there wasn't more I could do to make it less so. I really appreciate your patience though.
Cheers,
as a family that is. So you will have to excuse the horrible lateness of getting this post up but well, I've been busy :) So Monday morning of our trip we had arranged for our driver Solomon to meet us at Bejoe House since we thought that we would be going to the Care Center to pick up Abe. Once he got there though Travis called and told us that the other little guy being picked up that day wanted to go see his Mom and Dad now and didn't want to wait on us to get there so Travis said that he would bring Abe along too and would be at Bejoe in about 1 1/2 hours. Since Solomon was already there we decided to run to the store to pick up some bottled water. We got our water and was on our way back when Solomon got a call from Travis asking where we were. He was already at the guest house with Abe and we were nowhere around!! Solomon gets off the phone and says Travis is at Bejoe and I completely freaked out. What did he mean? We still had plenty of time. I needed to get our cameras and have someone video tape the event, I wasn't ready (oh, wait, yes I was, I had been waiting for this moment for years!!). As we start to pull into the guest house alley we notice that Travis is parked in his car at the entrance waiting for us to get back, so we were able to pull in, run upstairs to get our camera (we were going to video tape it but we didn't even have a tape in the camera and Jeremy was shaking so bad he couldn't get the wrapper off so we just went with the camera.) So here's the video for my little camera. Little background, the other couple that was there were caught off guard too so since I had the camera I started video tapping them because I thought Travis was the only one in the car so I figured he would bring up their son and then go get Abe from the car, well I was mistaken.
We spent the rest of the day just hanging out at Bejoe House with Abe. It's hard to put in words all the emotions of that day. It all kind of seemed surreal. All of the sudden this guy walked up the stairs and handed us our child, WOW!! But it also all felt so natural. Having him just fit. All the waiting, all the fustrations and emotions leading up to that moment just all seemed to fade away like a distant memory.
So... I decided to sneak into my professor's CCDA class on his new book (When Helping Hurts). I came 15 mintues late from lunch. (And well, two of my professors wrote the book; Steve Corbett was teaching a session at the conference.) My big boss - Bob Lupton (who is famous in this world) - was sitting on the floor in the back of the room with his wife Peggy. It was a large room packed full. I sat down on the floor in the back next to Bob. I'm sitting there for 15-20 minutes listening when Steve goes to talking about the principal of looking at the neighborhood's assets first and not it's needs... and suddenly I'm hearing "christy norwood" and him talking about my job with Bob Lupton and how I do that. It was a surreal experience. Well... 10 minutes later I decide I need to stand, so I get up and lean up against the wall and all of the lights go out (though thankful Steve is using a powerpoint and so it doesn't disrupt him). And I of course try panic inside wondering if the lights going off are me or not. It was me. It was a weird sort of small 4 little buttons that I had pushed when I leaned back. You know... I just don't think it's nice to turn the lights off on some someone who just gave you a shout-out. Opps!!!
On an exciting note... The CCDA is going to be doing little Saturday institute sessions for $25 for the whole day! They plan on doing one in Chattanooga in 2010! So excited!!! I was thinking at the beginning of this session about how strange it was that this conference that plays such a central part of my year is not known by those in my life outside of those with whom I work. Hoping to get people from my church and maybe even Shannon & whoever else can join me in Chattanooga for the day!!!
... I wasn't really sure what to title this entry. Actually, I generally struggle with that decision. I am just not that creative when it comes to the world of titles. I'm sitting in a rocking chair at the Starr household. I am giving Caleb and Ashlee Starr a much deserved 'date night.' Ashlee's sister is getting married this week. She's been a bit high maintenance and self-absorbed with the whole thing, so I decided I'd try and help give them something nice to start out the wedding weekend. Carrie and I cleaned up the massive amount of dirty dishes that were in the kitchen and tidied up the rest of the kitchen. Ashlee is queen of hospitality and at making everyone feel welcomed, but sometimes at the cost of housekeeping. It's just not her forteit, but that's okay as it enables me and Carrie to feel like we earn our keep around here. :) I really do feel like God's permitting me to experience what it's like to live in an Acts 2 sort of community. I LOVE IT! The little girls are all tucked in bed and now I am getting some internet time before heading off to the CCDA conference. Not sure how frequently that will happen. I just tried to click onto the Sher's and Mom & Dad's blogs, but vox for some reason won't let me do that right now. Hope I don' have to wait all week for that. Didn't realize my fair pictures would be so popular. :) If I ever wondered if folks read my blog I suppose I won't have to wonder anymore. :) So what do you think? I'll answer any questions you have, Mom, just might not be much to answer right now.
Bad news. As many of you have probably noticed, the Amazon Conduit was not fixed in the last week's release. Unfortunately, there was an undetected bug that is preventing the conduit from working.
We are working on this bug fix and hope to have the Conduit back up and running this week.
I will keep you posted.
Thank you for being so patient.
Before I am unfriended and disowned I figured I should at least start blogging about our trip, try to get everyone caught up on life over the past three weeks.
The first two days of the trip were pretty much spent on a plane, fun fun!! We had a 2pm flight out of Cleveland on Saturday, our friend Kate who was staying at our house came over a bit early to settle in with the dogs and prayed such a wonderful prayer over us and our trip, we feel so blessed to have her as a friend. Our next door neighbor Laura drove us up to the airport.
It didn't take long to get checked in, although United wasn't so keen on allowing us 4 checked bags each weighing almost 50lbs but they really had no choice since we had a connecting international flight. She really checked our weights though, I really think she was hoping she could charge us for overweight bags but I had weighed and re-weighed our bags to make sure they were under 50lbs.
We had lunch at the airport and I think that is when it hit me that we were really on our way to pick up our baby boy. I started tearing up over lunch, I know, I'm such a sap!!
Most everyone knows I hate to fly. I was more than willing to get on a plane to go get Abe, but I really do not like to fly. So as we are sitting at the gate waiting for our flight to DC the attendant comes over the speaker and informs us that due to severe turbulence we would not be getting an in-flight drink service and would not be allowed to use the restroom so get something to drink and use the potty before we get on the plane (ok, he didn't really use the word potty). Great, my first flight of a 100 something hours in the air and they are warning us about the turbulence before we even get on the plane!! It actually wasn't as bad as they said but apparently had been really bad coming in from DC. It was only a little over an hour and a bit bumpy but we got through.
We had a 5 1/2 hr layover in DC. We found a Potbelly's Sandwich for dinner. We discovered this little gem on our trip to Columbus this past summer for our anniversary and fell in love with their sandwiches, however I accidentally said I wanted everything on it which included some really freaking hot peppers and after a few bites I couldn't feel my mouth!!
At the gate we met up with another family traveling with Gladney, the Davis'. They became quick friends. We had such a fun time with them that week. We wound up sitting right behind them on the plane. There was also another family on our plane that was traveling to pick up a sibiling group of 4!! 4!! They had 3 children already at home, one of their sons was traveling with them. (More about them on Wednesday)
The plane ride was LONG, but I think I wound up sleeping a lot of it. That's one advantage of being short, you can curl up in airplane seats, plus having a wonderful husband who doesn't mind you laying all over him helps!!
We landed in Addis Ababa around 7pm Sunday night. We had to make our way down to get Visas, go through immigration, change out some cash and find our luggage. We get our luggage off the turnbelts and they are all sopping wet!! It was raining in DC and the only thing we can think of is that United threw our bags out on the tarmac and told Ethiopian Air to come pick them up. I think they sat out their for awhile. The Davis' bags were soaked too. We found Travis, our in-country staff person, pretty easily, the only tall white guy in the crowd. We met our driver Solomon, who became a great friend that week!! He was awesome. He loaded us up and took us to Bejoe House. All 4 of the families traveling that week stayed there. One was already there, and then we and the Davis' got in and then another family came on Tuesday.
The Bejoe staff cooked us dinner which was very nice of them and very yummy!! We had spagetti. It had the best sauce on it!!
We settled in for the night, pretty tired from all the traveling. We would meet our son the next day. We were actually pretty tired so fell asleep pretty easily and got a good night's rest. The next day would change our lives forever!!
It's been awhile since we've done one of these, so I thought I'd pass one of the Vox Question of the Days around the circle to hear what everyone says. I think I know the answers, but we'll see. I have a feeling I'll be in the minority on this one. :)
Blog Action Day is every October 15th, when blogger are asked to post something about a single issue to show our strength and conviction as an online community. It's a great way to feel connected to the greater good, and the participation of so many bloggers to support the world's leading non-profit organizations is something you can do to help, right now. By blogging today, you're supporting some of the world's leading non-profits and sharing your voice for change.
This year's topic is climate change, and we'd love to read your thoughts on the topic. If you participate, leave us a link to your post in the comments, so we know to check out your post!
Go to www.blogactionday.org to learn more, get a badge for your blog showing your participation, and see some ideas for your post on climate change.
Can't wait to read your posts!
~ daisy
Neighborhood
Explore friends, family, friends & family, or entire neighborhood.
