(Continued from here)

After lunch, we went to the orphanage, but as we got there, the skies really opened up. We don't get rain like that in Utah. I think they call it a “gully washer”. Greg says you see 'em like that in Missouri though. It came down SOO hard the rain gutters were overflowing! We waited under the tin-roofed carport until it slowed down enough for us to go inside – at least ½ hour. Aaron tried to hold Ashenafe in the rain and we told him to knock it off. Aaron (age 17) finally went off by himself and when I went to talk to him, he just started bawling. It's just all so much – it's emotionally intense, for many reasons, he misses the kids at home, it's been stressful and he finally just needed a release. Good for him. He cried on my shoulder for just about the whole time we were under that carport (and he had to bend down quite a bit!) He feels a lot better now and is not being such a stinker with teasing. It's one of the things to expect when traveling with a sibling – and the kids at home struggle as well.

In spite of how hard it's been, we also can already see many reasons why things have unfolded the way they did. God has had His hand in all the events we've experienced over here. We have received absolute confirmation that these 4 children are the ones we were meant to come and get. How much we love and appreciate them – and the people who have loved them before us! Even the baby – whose journey to our family has been the most convoluted – has been confirmed to us as “the right one.” She is the one who has been on our minds and in our hearts for over two years. We are so excited to finally get here to our home! How reassuring to know that even if we weren't sure who we were getting before we got here, Heavenly Father knew and “prepared” them for us – and us for them, even in round-about ways.

All in all, it's still a very short adoption – a total of 5 weeks from first glimpse of kids to home with new Richardson's. Even if you go all the way back to when we first “knew” we were supposed to come do an independent adoption in Ethiopia (the end of January), it's been less than 5 months. That includes the time to do a new homestudy, get INS approval, finish a dossier and have it apostilled, then go to the US State Dept, then the Embassy of Ethiopia and back to us. Give me about a month and I'll be telling you what a quick, easy adoption it was. :) (Well, maybe I won't quite be ready to say “easy”, but certainly worthwhile – oh wait, I'm already saying that. . .)