Welcome to Rob and Candy's Blog

We are going PINK- we are adopting a little girl from Ethiopia. We'll be sharing our journey to adopt our daughter!

Sunday, November 29, 2009

Off to Ethiopia!

Tomorrow our team will be on our way to Ethiopia!
Please keep us in your prayers.

Friday, November 27, 2009

Ethiopia Count down!

I'm testing out the e-mail feature to make sure I remember how to blog while in Ethiopia. I cannot believe that I leave in a few days. l will meet most of the team at Dulles airport Monday morning.  We will arrive in Addis Ababa on Tuesday.

Karen did great job posting our schedule in Ethiopia on her blog! 
Here's our schedule:
Tuesday - 8:30 am Ethiopia time (8 hour time difference) arrive and travel to the Ethiopia Guest Home.  Visit "Promising" Drop-In center which serves 81 children.
 
Wednesday travel 6-7 hours to the town of Kombolcha (North of Addis) to visit Grace Drop-In center which serves about 180 children, but there are over 400 children identified in need.
 
Thursday - spend morning again at Grace Drop-In center and then travel back to Addis in the afternoon.
 
Friday - Visit CFI school which serves about 25 kids.  Visit "Hope for the Hopeless" drop-in center which serves 15 orphaned children.
 
Saturday - Travel to Woliso ( about 1 hour South of Addis) to visit Emanuel Orphanage which serves 122 orphans.  Then travel to Debre Zeit (about 1 hour East of Addis) to visit Elolam Orphanage which serves 120 children locally, and another 110 children from Addis.

Sunday - Visit Kind Heart drop-in center which serves 56 children in Addis.  We will be attending a church service as well.
 
Monday - Visit Gospel for All Nations drop-in center which serves 40 children in Addis.

Tuesday - Several of us will be visiting the America World Adoption Transition Home where we adopted our children.  We will also have time to do a little shopping and touring before catching a 10:15 pm flight to the USA.

Wednesday- arrive home!!

Monday, November 23, 2009

A little girl's heart and Igor's painting

Today, I received a letter in the mail with a check. The note was written by a little girl whose heart was touched on Orphan Sunday.

Here's Igor's latest painting. It was inspired by a sailboat adventure he had with his cousins a few weeks ago.

Sunday, November 22, 2009

Fall fun, Henry, Flat Stanley & packing

Fall has arrived! The leaves are falling, cooler weather is here... This is Henry's first experience with fall. He loves playing in the leaves.

Igor loves to climb....

Henry has no fear.... Here he is scaling the outside of the stairs. Notice his, "whoops, I've been caught doing something wrong" look? Like many toddlers, I cannot turn my back for a second or he will be in some mischief.


The trip to Ethiopia is in 9 DAYS!!! So far, everything from gift bags to toothpaste has been donated. The amount of donations received has been amazing!!
To everyone who donated- THANK YOU!
I packed two bags yesterday with only donations. The two bags weigh a total of 96 pounds! I need to do some created packing since I haven't packed any clothes or personal items. I can take 100 pounds for free. If I go over it will cost $50...

Do you see Flat Stanley among the markers, crayons and underwear?
Flat Stanley is going to Ethiopia with us! Flat Stanley is courtesy of Dottie, who is an adoptive mom and Elementary school teacher.
It's not too late to donate funds for our trip. Every dollar donated will go towards food, emergency medical procedures, shoes... for orphans. Our team will report on how the money will be spent. We promise to be good stewards of all funds donated. It cost less than a dollar a day to feed an orphan in Ethiopia.
To donate go to:
Click on GIVE
Please put November Ethiopia Mission trip in the comment section.
Thank you!

Monday, November 16, 2009

Weekend recap

Friday night my brother met Henry!



Saturday night we enjoyed food, fun and fellowship at the second annual AWAA Africa get together. We had so much fun!


Four years ago today we adopted Igor in Pskov, Russia! Tonight we celebrated at Igor's favorite restaurant. He enjoyed scrambled eggs and pancakes for dinner. We love you Igor!!

In TWO weeks I'll be in Ethiopia!!

Wednesday, November 11, 2009

catching up

This weekend was my grandmother's memorial service. My sister and I flew to AZ to attend the service. It was a sweet time to remember my grandmother with family.


Sunday was Orphan Sunday. Rob wore this shirt- sharing the plight of orphans along with his sermon on social justice.

Sunday night was the lantern walk at nursery school. It is inspired by St. Martin, a fourth century army officer who - according to legend - went out into the night searching for people in need of help. As we walked around the pond the only light was from our home made lanterns and candles along the path. We hung our lanterns in the trees. Then we warmed up in front of the bonfire and ate baked apples and cookies.

Saturday, November 7, 2009

What are you going to do? By Pete Kidd

Pete and Andrea adopted their little girl from Ethiopia last year. Check out his blog post:
What are you going to do about it?
Or you can read his post below.

Nearly three years ago, shortly after making the decision to adopt a baby girl from Africa, Andrea and I had an after dinner conversation that ended up laying the foundation for a mission and a passion that we never could have imagined.

As we sat around our dinner table that night, we were just beginning the process of getting informed on the basics of the country that would present us with our third child - Ethiopia. We had just begun learning about this poor landlocked country situated in the Horn of Africa - bordered by Eritrea to the north, Sudan to the west, Kenya to the south, and Somalia to the east. We learned of a third-world country roughly the size of state of Texas that had been ravaged by HIV/AIDS, famine, poverty, drought and flood, and home to an estimated five million orphans. That’s right, five million orphans.

And one of them was my baby girl Gabrielle.

As we sat around the dinner table that night, we discussed what Gabrielle might want to know someday about her native country, her culture, her heritage, the circumstances, and the reasons. We vividly imagined the day that Gabrielle would approach us, look into our eyes, and ask us THE question:“What happened to my mother and father?”

As we speculated on how this conversation may unfold, we realized that although we might not have a specific answer to this critical question (unfortunately it’s very common for Ethiopian orphans to be left without a trace of his or her family history) we recognized that we could at least explain the likely circumstances leading her to becoming one of the five million orphans: poverty, disease, hunger. Strangely, this gave us some level of comfort - comfort that we could provide Gabrielle with a rationale (as awful and evil as it is) that might satisfy her need for answers at some level.

BUT our comfort evaporated when we thought further about her next logical question:
“What did you do about it?”

It was at that very point that Andrea and I started to realize that this adoption was just the beginning of something much more than simply adding another child to our family.
“What did you do about it?”

Can you imagine getting that question from your little girl and not having an answer? We had to have an answer, a good answer! We could no longer ignore the massive injustice and problems occurring on the continent that was to provide us with our daughter. We now had skin in the game….
“What did you do about it?”

Can you imagine having an awareness of the fact that there are five million orphans in Ethiopia alone and doing NOTHING about it?
“What did you do about it?”

Can you imagine knowing that 5500 Africans die every day of AIDS (a preventable and treatable disease) and doing NOTHING about it?
“What did you do about it?”

Can you imagine knowing that nearly a million Africans die each year of Malaria and doing NOTHING about it?
“What did you do about it?”

I plan on having a really good answer to this question when it comes out my little girl’s mouth. And if it goes well with Gabrielle, I may just repeat my answer the day when I meet God face to face and have to give Him an account....
What's your answer? (http://www.hopechest.org/)

Sunday, November 1, 2009

Halloween & Igor's paintings

It was 80 degrees on Halloween so we had to make some modifications to the costumes...



Igor's painting- two oil paintings



one water color