April 18!

Passage Isaiah 45:3:
3 I will give you the treasures of darkness,
riches stored in secret places,
so that you may know that I am the LORD,
the God of Israel, who summons you by name.

On Tuesday, April 18th we heard from Tracy, our case manager from CWA, that our court date in Ethiopia was successful. We were as surprised as she was to hear we had even had the court date. She had gotten the email on Monday stating that Maren and Yabsera's court case was successful. What this means is that they are legally our boys. I guess the actual court date occurred in Addis Ababa on the 17th...but we heard on the 18th. We were so happy! Cal said, "Is this really 100%? Are the 100% ours?" Maddie just seemed a little sad and when I said, "Why aren't you happy?" she said, "I just want them home!" We went out to dinner to celebrate and we will never forget this date.

Someone on the CWA web board posted this verse (above). I loved it because those of you who know me well, know that this is truly a gift to us that came from places of sadness. There is that one essay from "The Prophet" that talks about Joy and Sorrow. It talks about how a violin must be carved out and made hollow to be able to create beautiful music. How, in order to know real joy you must have experienced true sorrow. There are children in my life I have loved so dearly and had to say goodbye to and to be able to bring two beautiful boys into our family is pure joy. I also know that our joy in bringing these two boys home, brings sadness to many of their family members left behind. That in order to join our Barr family they had to leave their Ethiopian family.

Unknowingly, last August, I changed my login at work to "April18!". I have been typing that date for 8 months. Thirty to forty times a day I type "April18!". I had no idea. No idea what-so-ever that on April 18th we would be given this most amazing gift.

God is amazing in His timing and perfect in His plan for us.