Wow

We are just days away from getting on a plane to go meet our boys for the first time...and bring them home! I must admit that I am pretty stressed out between finishing things up at work, preparing the house to be gone, packing Noah for his stay with MawMaw and PawPaw, getting stuff together for the boys, and packing for ourselves. It seems like I cross one thing off my to-do list and then three more things are added. I needed to take a break and update the blog...

Many people are asking how we feel. We are both very excited and very anxious. Excited to get the boys, to bring them home, to hang out in Rome a few days. We are also anxious. I love being on planes, but being 4.5 months pregnant and on a plane doesn't not sound fun to me. I am nervous about how I am going to feel and get the needed rest, etc. We have never met our children and have no idea what their personalities will be like, and we know that they will not understand what we are saying to them since they do not know English. We don't know how long it is going to take them to feel comfortable with us as Mommy and Daddy, we don't know if they will adjust well or if it is going to be really hard on everyone. We have no idea how Noah will react once he truly realizes that his brothers are home forever. There are just so many unknowns running through our minds.

The best thing is that I know that God has led us here, and His grace is sufficient for all we need! He has an amazing plan for our family, and I know we are going to be very very blessed with all these precious children. What an honor that God saw us fit to parent four young men.

We are also so very humbled by the gifts and encouragement we have received from our church family and friends. One Sunday school class blessed us with a multitude of diapers and wipes, and several gift cards. Others have donated clothes and car seats. Just a few minutes ago our doorbell rang and two girls from across the street handed me an envelope with money they had raised for our adoption by selling popcicles. The whole thing was their idea. I am almost speechless. God uses young children to teach us so much about faith and charity. Isn't He amazing and good! I cannot describe the gratitude I feel.

Over and over again I am reminded of how blessed I am that God has called us to adopt. We are simply being obedient to what He has called us to do, and He just hasn't stopped blessing us!

Plane Tickets & Hotel Rooms Booked!

Even though we found out we had an embassy date a couple weeks ago, we had to wait on the official birth certificates for our boys from Ethiopia. We could not book plane tickets until we knew the correct spelling of their names. The birth certificates finally came in yesterday! I cannot describe how it felt to finally see an official document with Kenneth and I listed as the proud parents of Abedi (Aiden) and Merga (Asa). Seeing their pictures at the top of the page with our names listed as parents was amazing, and very real! It is really real!

Although we received the birth certificates via e-mail yesterday, we were not able to book Aiden's flight. I think our credit card could not handle all the expense! haha. We booked our flights, and then Aiden's flight was booked today. We did not get Asa a separate ticket, so we paid a minimal fee for him to ride home on our laps. I think we will be very pleased that we spent the money to get Aiden his own seat on the plane.

We leave May 28 out of Cincinnati to head to Rome. God has really blessed us with the ability to have a mini vacation (just the two of us) before we go from 1 to 4 children in a few months. We will arrive in Addis, Ababa Ethiopia on June 3! Lord willing, we will be coming home with our sons on June 6.

I cannot express how grateful I am to all of our friends, family, and church family who encourage us, pray for us, love us and support us. The journey, although it is far from over, has been a joyous blessing and I am so humbled that God has led us here.

Proud Big Brother

We found out today that Noah is going to be big brother to another boy! That makes 4 little boys for the Bruce household! Yesterday I managed to get this picture of Noah wearing his "big brother" shirt. He wore this both Monday and Tuesday...don't judge me. haha. :) I couldn't get him to wear anything else yesterday, and it was not a battle I was going to fight. He is so excited that he has two brothers in Africa, and just loves to tell people about his shirt. It is pretty adorable, so I caved in and told him he could wear it again, but he had to put another shirt over before he went to school. That shirt is stinking up my laundry room now.

JUNE 3

JUNE 3. This is the day we have been looking forward to for 6 months now. It is the day that we can go pick up our boys and hold them in our arms! We received word today that our embassy date will be June 3. Now we are busy trying to book flights and reservations. Kenneth and I would love to be able to make a short stop in Rome on the way. Just last week the tickets were as low as $2300 per person, and now they have shot up to $5000. We are praying that somehow the tickets prices go down again and we can make one last short trip together before being a house full of children! I have always, always wanted to see Rome, and it would just be an overflow of blessing for me to be able to do that before bringing our sons home. We will see...
For now, I cannot wait for June 3!

Coming Home

I just got on our agency's website. This picture of our boys is on the welcome home page! I was so excited to finally see our sons there. I have been waiting for that since the day we began the adoption process. We are getting so close to having them home now! We hope to be able to go to Ethiopia to pick them up in June.

They are OURS

Asa Charles Merga

Adoniram Andrew Abdi

We got a phone call this morning that both boys passed court! They are officially OURS. We hope to travel to Ethiopia in about 3-6 weeks to bring them home!

Suprise!

We were so blessed this weekend with a suprise shower from our church family and friends to celebrate the three new blessings in our life! I thought we were going to a baby fair with the Dillow family, but when I walked in the conference room at the Hilton hotel I saw lots of familiar faces..and no baby fair. What a nice suprise! We received so many things that we are going to need and lots of gift cards to buy diapers!

Words cannot describe how loved and blessed we feel by the people in our life. We have received so much support, encouragement and prayer throughout this whole adoption process. I cannot imagine going through this without our church family, family and friends. God has truly given us way more than we could have dreamed.

In addition to the suprise shower, we have also heard back from two grant agencies this week. CARI granted us $1,000 toward our in-country fees, and the Oath Ministry from a church in Alabama gave us $400. What a blessing. We were also to meet our goal for the Lifesong matching grant, which was $3,000! God assured us that He would take care of this adoption if we would only be obedient, and it is amazing to see Him keep His Word!

The court date is two days away....please keep us in your prayers!