Sad news

We received an unexpected call from Duni today. Today was our court date and we did not pass.:( There was one piece of paper work that was missing. It was a government agency over sight, I guess. All of our travel group had the same problem. Our new tentative travel dates are in mid-December IF we pass court on the second try. We are so blessed to have a fantastic travel group. There are five families in our group that got the sad news today. Please pray for us.
We know that God has a great plan but right now we (The Sparrs') can't see beyond ours.

One Month and counting!

It is SO good to be counting DOWN! For so long we were counting up. Adding up the days of the wait!
Yesterday our sweet little daughter received a package from us! Our yahoo group friend, Amy Lusse and her husband are in Ethiopia RIGHT NOW! They took our package and all our love to our precious girl! We are so thankful to this family! In the excitement of her trip she thought of a bunch of us and on her blog gave us a written glimpse of our children! She is so wonderful!
I am at the point were I can barely write about our little girl without tears in my eyes. It is not sadness it is so much emotion! It is gratefulness, love, longing, happiness and so much more. It is hard to describe!

T.I.A.

Rob has come home from work with some new lingo. Our good friend and Lead Pastor at our church, Dean keeps reminding Rob, "T.I.A.".
Till In Africa, nothing is set! Besides traveling quite a bit to various parts of Africa,Dean and his wife Beth have two adopted children from Africa so they are all too familiar with the ups and downs of this process.
So, You might have noticed a new time line to your right. If you read my last post you also might notice it is a day off. The whole tentative part of tentative travel dates has already been proved! I know it is only one day. But it is one day closer to bringing our daughter home! Now also realize it could go the other way. One day you might take a peek at this blog and see the time line has been changed to reflect a January travel date! God is good and He will bring our daughter home.
We hold Y loosely in our hands because we know she is firmly in HIS!

Tentative Travel Dates!

Yesterday we received our tentative travel dates! They are TENTATIVE! But here they are...Nov.30-Dec.5th! If we pass court the first time around these are the dates we will be traveling. We don't know the specific day of our court date but from the e-mail that was sent we assume that it is in the next 3 weeks. So as soon as we have passed court our little one is officially our daughter and we can share her name and picture here!
Please pray for successful court dates over the next 3 weeks. There are many of us from AWAA and other agency's waiting to pass court!

For the past week Joel would pull me aside and ask "Mommy, can you believe your baby is going to be 9?" And then he would give me a big hug. He is the sweetest boy!
God gave us Joel as a gift! I wish I could put in words how great full I am to Him for that! All of the circumstances around Joel coming into this world are truly miracles. We are blessed beyond words because what God has done in and through this little boy.

Got Formula?

The orphanage that Y is at is in great need of formula. There is a formula shortage in Ethiopia! Even if we brought money with us to buy formula in Ethiopia it is difficult to find. So we are hoping to bring formula for the orphanage and diapers and wipes for the Transitional home. If anyone would like to donate any of those items please let me know! Thanks!

Any good painters out there?

I have grown used to waiting. Not very gracefully I might add but I have grown used to it. I guess you could say I am very comfortable waiting. Not gracefully comfortable but comfortable. I can pass by Y's room without crying now and the thoughts of going to get her in January feel,well,comfortable.
When we received our referral in August Duni told us we could travel in December but it could be January. So, I have been letting myself believe we will bring Y home in January. After all,the time lines in this whole process haven't been really accurate.
So, we had a conference call today with AWAA. We learned a lot of great stuff today! One being that all of the summer referrals have court dates. And all of us that have court dates should(if we pass court)travel to Addis to bring our children home by or on DECEMBER 6th!!!! There will be 5 groups from now until Dec. going to ET to get their children!(We should get tentative travel dates on Monday!)
So, thinking that I had until January to get everything ready-I probably don't! Y's room isn't painted yet...so,friends...Is there any good painters out there?

Our first update!

It is so hard not to type our daughter's name when I am referring to her in our blog! I think from now on I will type Y when I want to type her name. The day we received our referral we knew we wanted to keep her Ethiopian name. It is the name her parents gave her and we want to honor that.
So anyway-The update. It was small, just a few lines but it is just what we needed to hear. She is in school at the orphanage, she loves playing with the other children and is friendly. We also received a new photo! Y is smiling in the the picture. She looks happy! When Isabelle saw the picture she concluded that they must have told her that the picture was being sent to her family!
The courts reopen soon-in 6 days!(there is a buzz that they might have already reopened!) So we are praying that everything is running smoothly and we receive a court date soon!