Strength Will Rise: Thanking God for my Irrevocable Gifts

One year ago on 5.16.11 we sat before a beautiful woman judge in Addis Ababa, Ethiopia ... for about 5 minutes with a group of 3 other couples.

This judge asked us if any of us had children other than the ones that we were looking to adopt. We said "Yes". Our other five children were with us in Ethiopia, but still at the guest house we were staying at in Addis.

She asked if those other children were aware that we are adopting other children and if they were okay with it. We said yes, they were well aware ... after all they had spent the days previous playing with Buche and Burka and could not wait until they could play with them when Ryan and I were back from court. They were more than "okay" with making Buche and Burka their brothers.

She asked if we had met the children we wanted to adopt and if we had trained ourselves in the issues that might arise in an adopted child. Oh yes, we had spent every minute we could since landing in Africa playing with Buche and Burka and we had studied all we could about adopted children for the whole year previous.

Then, this beautiful judge asked ... Do you understand that this adoption is forever and irrevocable. Yes, most surely, we understood and still do understand this to the core of our being. Burka and Buche are our sons ... forever and always will be.