O.K everyone, we’re finally back up and running! What a day to have our computer die!!This is the long version. Sorry, but I thought if I was typing it out for the girls I might as well do it once while it was fresh!
Yesterday morning Dave was called at work by CAFAC to let him know that we had been matched with twin 4 1/2 year old girls! They said they’d e-mail all the information and being a man, he asked no questions… he was in shock.
I had a message at school to call Dave at my break. He’s called a lot lately due to our renovations and since it was a message to call him (he didn’t interrupt my classes!) I thought nothing of it. When I called him he apologized.
“I’m sure you wondered if this was “the call” again.”
“No babe, don’t worry, I’m fine.”
“well it is the call…”
“what?”
“Jenn, we have twin girls…”
“SHUT UP!!!!”
I screamed so loud the principals came running and they had to close the door so the students woudn’t think I was dying! I burst into tears and shook like a leaf. I asked how old? He didn’t know! Names? nope. Anything? no… (now sheepish) I had to go teach, but I told him I’d call him back as soon as I could.
Eventually I found my way to Dave’s office. Dave has a beautiful private office and we opened our file there. He had waited for me to arrive. We first read the first page of the report with names and ages. They are 4 1/2! I didn’t really see much else until one word jumped right off the page – our girls came from the FAYA orphanage. I was struck dumb. I cried again. We have been following the orphanage from it’s conception. It was started by a young Canadian woman with a passion for Ethiopia and a heart for God. I have followed her sister’s blog every day for almost a year – they have four adorable children, three adopted from Ethiopia – and one more on the way! I had read other blogs of parent’s who had visited Faya when they went to get their kids. We had talked about making it a stop on our trip and bringing donations. What are the chances that our girls were brought to FAYA? God is awesome. I am still getting teary over this. Thank you Meg for being obedient and following your Lord. Thank you Sandi for letting us all know what Meg was up to and keeping us up to date. I really hope we can meet someday in person. You will never know how important this is to us.
**aside: This summer I had a dream that woke me and didn’t leave me all day. I dreamt that we were referred three year old girls – twins. I couldn’t shake the dream all day. I kept waiting for our agency to call - it felt that real. I finally wrote down my dream. I needed to do that. It felt so important. When I talked to our agency about twins we were told they were very rare. Our twins turned four in September. They were three when I had my dream. God is so amazing.
We couldn’t read the rest (it looked to technical with my numb brain!) and opened the photo file. We were shown four amazing pictures of our little girls. My response – “oh babe, they are gorgeous!” Dave started to cry. My wonderful husband who never cries (not for our wedding or the births of our children), cried as he looked at his girls for the first time. The girls are perfect in every way. They are not identical – Abebu is four cm. taller than Abebech. Her skin tone is also darker. But there is an evident similarity. They are both tall and very slender. Their hair is in corn rows, so we have no idea how long it is or how curly. Their eyes are so large and beautiful.
We made a quick call to my mom because we knew she was on her way out the door.
Off to Chelsey’s school. We both went in and had her called to the office. When she saw us her face went from puzzled, to questioning, to a huge grin. She said later she knew as soon as she saw Dave’s face. She had NEVER seen him with tears in his eyes (she’s 13!). We told her we got “the call”. She reached for me and started to sob huge body shaking sobs as she clung to me so tightly. We shared that we had twin girls and she couldn’t believe it. We did not show her pictures – that was for her and Noah to experience together.
We then drove accross town to Noah’s school where the three of us called him to the office. He came out of his room (down a very long hallway) and saw us. I gave a little “clapping” motion with my hands and he knew immediately. He broke all school rules and ran that hallway like it was an olympic sprint! He couldn’t stop grinning from ear to ear.
We took the kids out to the car and let them see the pictures right away. They both were in shock. We had wanted to prepare them and warned them throughout the process that the referral pictures may not be what they were expecting- the kids could be sick, malnurished, etc. They kept looking at the pictures and asking us, “really? really mom? they are amazing!” We all had tears.
Off to Dave’s parents to share the news and then to find my Grandpa. Somewhere in the mayhem I made contact with my sister in B.C., my parents and my brother. We spent the rest of the evening calling friends and family, staring at the pictures, and in a numb state.
Finally we realized that we didn’t know which girl was which! 
We called CAFAC to ask – how ironic is that… “can you please tell me which of my children is which?” Jackie and I had a good laugh over that one.
It still doesn’t seem real. How can a picture melt your heart, break your heart, and cause you to fall instantly in love? I am.
I want to say a special thanks to all my friends and family. Your support has been so instrumental and I’m continually blown away by it. Know that if you received a phone call from us or a personal e-mail – you are on our team and we love you all. Our family, our Ethio support group, and my on-line team. We did it. – Now lets bring them home!!
Special thoughts go out to Ramona and Rana, friends who are waiting still to see the face(s) of their sweet children. If my God can give me a dream, bless me with my heart’s desire for twins girls that are healthy, he can bring your babies to you.
I know that I was just exhausted from waiting. I even questioned the sanity of our journey and said I wanted to quit at one point. (but I didn’t really mean it) I’m sure that nothing anyone could say to me last week would have been “right”. (again, just ask Dave!) 
That’s what crazy people do! We take on extraordinary tasks when we really need a break! No really – we need the space to be finished before the kids get home. We had four of my students over last night for supper (they were helping me with a presentation to the school board) and I realized that we need that space now! Budder took out the nerf guns and it was chaotic. Dave and I were ducking darts as we were trying to make supper. Others were playing Rock Band (loud!) and Peanut was trying to do homework at the desk. (all in the same space) I am happy to report that our rec. room has been dry-walled and we are just awaiting the taping!! Tomorrow I go to choose carpet and this weekend I’m going to buy the rest of the lighting! We hope that in about 4-6 weeks we will be done. THEN… we will start working on Noah’s new room in the basement and fixing up the other two bedrooms for the kids upstairs. By summer we hope to have all the mess done with inside so that we can finish our backyard – and Dave announced this week that he wants to re-shingle the house… I’m going to be at my Dad and Mom’s place laying on my air mattress in the pool Dave… 
