One Year!!!!

One year ago today, we landed in Ethiopia and met our son! I can't believe how quickly the year has flown by or how much has changed in a year. I have thought many times about posting the details of our meeting, but have never done it. Part of the reason is that it is very emotional for me. But I'm going to try to post it today. It is probably going to be pretty long.

We arrived at the airport in Addis Ababa Saturday, August 30, 2008. Our plane was already about an hour late, and then we were a little bit confused on how to get the Visa and where to go after that. We were expecting to have our luggage scanned and looked through before we left the airport, but they just waved us through. The (then) agency director and our driver had been waiting for us for probably over two hours past what they had expected. I felt bad about keeping them, but we had no way of contacting them to let them know the plane had delayed a bit. The driver loaded our many things onto a cart and we walked out to the van. We were, of course, greeted by many "helpful" men out in the parking lot who wanted to help us with our things. The director waved them away until we got to the van. A few helped unload our things, and then expected to be rewarded. I probably only gave them enough tip for one person, but I was in a daze and a bit disoriented. (I kind of felt like I was just observing things from the outside rather than just being a participant. It was somewhat because of excitement, somewhat fear, and somewhat extreme lack of sleep--I had only slept about two hours the night before we left and not at all on the plane.)

We hopped in the van to head to our hotel. It was an interesting drive, just trying to take everything in. They mentioned that they would just drop us off to let us rest for the day, and we would meet Josiah the next day. While I was a bit disappointed with this, I though maybe it was for the best. I did mention that we had talked previously talked with the Kladders about meeting up with them before they flew out that evening, but wasn't sure if it would work. Their next stop after dropping us off was to pick up the other family, so it was decided we would take our things to the hotel, and then go along with them to pick up the Kladders. We tried to sign in as quickly as we could, drop our things off, use the restrooms, and reapply deodorant. Then we headed out again.

We met the Kladders at their guest house and were able to meet their beautiful daughter Bereket. (She has just grown more and more beautiful as she has been home with her family!) She and Elizabeth hit it off pretty well and played for a bit. Elizabeth was happy to give her a doll we had brought for her. We all drove together to the Bethany office and were given a bit of a tour. Then the director said we would go over to meet Josiah. Everything kind of halted for me. We didn't have any of the toys or fun things we were hoping to bring to make the meeting easier. More than that, my emotions had shifted to preparing to meet him the next day. I was nervous and kind of scared, but also excited to meet our son! What was he going to think? How was he going to react to us? I felt totally unprepared!

Okay, I'm going to post this even though it is not finished; I'm too tired/scatter-brained to finish tonight....

why do I have the "Cliff Hangar" song running through my head? :-)