In Between

I’m in that in between place  – that place where you can’t really focus or think about anything but the email/call you’re waiting for to tell you when you get to go to Africa. I know that our dossier is being translated right now and that we *could* be submitted to court as early as next week sometime. We’ve been told that it is very likely that we’ll get a court date before the rainy season (so in the next 4-5 weeks). But until we get that court date we really don’t know what our summer/fall is going to look like! So I’m in limbo…. waiting, and aching for just a HINT of when we’ll go to court. I’m checking out other families timelines and trying not to obsess over exactly how many weeks between their case being submitted to court and receiving their date. The problem with that tactic is that there is no rhyme or reason to how they issue dates in Ethiopia! Everyone’s case looks a little different.

Take my good friend (and retreat roomie) Wynne‘s case for example. They were submitted to court about 3 weeks ago. They were waiting and waiting for their court date. They got an email late Tuesday night that they needed to be in Ethiopia… TODAY!! So they had 48 hours of packing and preparing for the biggest trip of their lives and then they flew out yesterday! Will you keep them in your prayers? They meet their two babies tomorrow morning (tonight for us).

So knowing that truly anything could happen has got me thinking of how I can not waste this “in between” time when it’s tempting to check my email 400 times a day for any hint of news. Here are some things I’ve been doing and some things that I have decided to start doing today:

• I’ve been treasuring every moment I have with Mareto. It won’t be long before he’s no longer the only little one in the house – while I know that it will be wonderful to have a new baby I am making the most of every day I have left with just me and Mareto together. We’ve been going to the beach a lot (since we live so close), taking trips to the zoo, playing outback, going on walks, and having tons of snuggle time.

• I’ve been trying to get our home and lives as organized as possible. This includes working on how to best arrange the nursery to hold two little ones, cleaning out closets, finishing up design commitments, and (sadly) actively searching for a new family for our two cats.

• I’ve decided that I need to start preparing for our trip to Ethiopia. Even though we don’t have an exact date, it will probably be sometime in the next 3-5 weeks. And after Wynne’s experience I realized that we need to be somewhat prepared to book our tickets and just GO! So I am going to start making my lists, dusting off the suitcases, preparing my heart to leave my little boy for a week (though I don’t think that’s actually possible), prepare a picture book for our daughter, make an album for Mareto’s “special mothers” at Hannah’s Hope so they can see how big he is now, make a list of all the people we want to see in ET and all the things we want to do, start collecting donations for the orphanages and ministries we love, and keep on fundraising of course!