Farwell Party at Orphanage

Today was the farewell party at the Care Center for the twins. It was not at all what I had expected. I thought it would be sort of like, kids running around, maybe some cake, and after some small talk with the other parents and care takers, we'd be on our way. What actually happened was, we arrived and they asked all the parents to go downstairs and wait for the children. When I say downstairs, this place is marble floor, huge chandelier, beautiful. They had chairs all lined up on one section and chairs all around the outside for the parents. Then, all of the other children who are there waiting for their parents came downstairs, removed their shoes (without being told) before walking on the carpet, and sat down in the chairs. One really cute little boy came around to all the parents and gave us all hugs.

Then, the social workers came downstairs and started things off. She told us how much all of our children meant to them there at the orphanage and the they believe that children are a gift from God and they hope we will feel that way too as we care for them in their new country and honor Ethiopia as well. Then all the care takers came downstairs, dressed in these beautiful white dresses with Ethiopian embroidry on them. They were each holding one of our children who were also dressed in traditonal Ethiopian dress. It was so moving and beautiful.
They had us all stand in a circle and then a prayer was said by a local minister and asked if anyone wanted to say anything. One of the parents said a prayer and then we all took a seat.

They made a book of all the children's hands who were leaving so they had each child come up, one by one, to put paint on their hands. They had all of the children who were sitting in the seats to chant each child's name when it was their turn.
Then they served soft drinks and cake. We were all emotional throughout the whole thing. At the end, Kathi broke down crying and said, "They are ours! We get to take them home now!" And she and Ty both broke down. I was already crying. Oh, I forgot, Ty had alergies, not crying.

Then this afternoon, we took them to the Embassy. We were nervous about it, but it was really painless. We waited our turn, they looked at the papers, had us sign our names a couple of times, asked us a few simple questions and we were done! It went really easy and we had been all nervous about it. The babies are so easy, we felt we could manage ourselves on the flight home. We'll see if we are right.

Max had gotten pretty ill a couple of days ago. We think he ate something that his body did not like or had something that was prepared with the drinking water, we aren't sure, but he had one really bad night. Then he felt ok the next day but everyone else ended up getting sick. Ty was ok, Kathi was ok, but Brian and I both got pretty sick. Today we are all starting to feel better but I just think max had enough of this trip, so we sent him with Kathi and Brian. He has been really great this whole trip. He had a great time, ate the ingera and all the rest of the Ethiopian food and loved it. He even ordered it for breakfast a couple of times when there were other things he could have ordered. He has loved this trip, we are so glad we brought him and that is all thanks to kathi and Brian, we wouldn't have done it without them.

Tomorrow we are have a free day to basically do whatever we want to do, and then hopefully on Thursday, we will get to come home! We are so ready to be home. this has been the trip of a lifetime. We will definitely come back. I can't say enough how wonderful this place is, what rich culture they have here. I will never forget this place.