Friends of Orphans and Vulnerable Children

Friends of Orphans and Vulnerable Children
What could be better than an Ethiopian welcome, FOVC style?

Saturday, August 9, 2008

Obedience and Joy (and a few pictures, too)

We began this journey to Amelia out of obedience to God. This is not to say that we are super-spiritual or even very successful in our faithfulness. Do we desire to be faithful? Yes! (Well, most of the time....) Do our words and behaviors reflect a heart of faithfulness? Not as often as we would like.

We are works in progress. Do we get it right all of the time? Nope. What I share about my faith life is this: I'm better now than I was. I expect to make forward progress as I grow up in the Lord. Will I ever get it right? Absolutely--when I get to heaven!

Back to the obedience thing: We have always known we would happily welcome another child into our family. Anyone who knows me knows I loooooove babies, and I always wished we could have had more children. But a long list of stuff (like...Dave and I were old, our girls weren't young, I had had a hysterectomy, we were comfortable and busy and content, and we were enjoying a life of relative ease and freedom) made it seem unlikely.

Until God put this idea in our hearts and minds, to do something that didn't make much sense. To pretty much turn our comfy world upside down and invest much time and effort and emotion and love (and money) in traveling to the other side of the world and welcome another daughter to the House of Howlett.

So, our journey to Amelia started from a seed of obedience. But it has absolutely, undoubtedly, overwhelmingly and completely thrillingly ended in so much JOY!

The journey to Amelia is complete. And now, we start on our journey with Amelia. It was only three weeks ago today that we arrived in Addis Ababa, Ethiopia. We're all so in love with this little gal, and it seems like we have known her forever. It's a different kind of joy for each of us, I think, to be a bit older, and to enjoy the beauty of a baby, this happy and sweet gift from God.

Tummy Time 1


Tummy Time 2


Tummy Time 3 (she's gonna roll over!)(And yes, when we have tummy time on the kitchen counter, I'm always right there! And yes, I realize tummy time on the kitchen counter probably needs to end soon...)


First play date with Lidya!


Holding hands with her cute new friend!


Watching the Olympics with Dad...(they have matching heads!)


She's such a happy girl!

The End!

No comments: