Hello from Charlotte!

We are currently having missionary training in Charlotte, NC and having a fabulous time reconnecting with all of our friends here. It has been an amazing week and it is only half way over! We are so excited to be able to share all the things we have learned this week with you very soon! Be on the look out because we will soon be changing this blog over to our ministry blog to Ethiopia! (Anyone have any creative titles?) I can not believe this time next year we will be on our way!

Ethiopian Dinner

I forgot to take a picture of the food because we were too busy digging in....most people don't really enjoy Ethiopian food but our whole family LOVES it. Good thing, huh? We are having a great celebration weekend and I will try and blog about our fun tonight and post it in the morning!!!

Ethiopian Reunion! and Olivia's first..........

Two weeks ago we were able to go down to Austin to meet some wonderful, and hopefully life long friends! Troy and Amber were down in the trenches with us when we were adopting Olivia and they were adopting her buddy Silas. In fact, I was in the middle of emailing Troy when we got "the call!" I don't remember exactly what I was emailing about but I remember in the middle of a sentence typing JULIE JUST CALLED! EMAIL YOU WITH DETAILS LATER! I think that was pretty funny. Actually I think Troy and Amber might of known before Paul! They traveled to get little Silas a couple of weeks before we went to get Liv and we were blessed to finally meet them in person when we drove through Tennessee on our way to Virginia for Thanksgiving. It was great to finally see them again as we emailed almost daily for a year!


We also got to finally meet another great family that traveled a little bit before us. Kim and her family adopted Finn and it was so awesome to finally see all our kids together and not just in pictures through blogland!

cutie finn


handsome silas

We headed to the Austin Children's Museum to have some fun!

seriously that little Finn was so delicious I just wanted to eat him up!!

After the museum we headed to the County Line for some yummy BBQ and amazing views of Austin.

Olivia was in heaven dancing with Kim's son Tucker


Then Silas got a bit jealous and had to show her who her man was.....



Then Daddy chased him clear out of the state! Or maybe he just got on a plane with his parents and went back to Tennessee......

We miss you Silas and Finn!!

Give All For Love!

So I was reading over at Happy Girl Hair, which is my favorite hair site and probably the only reason Olivia isn't ashamed to go out in public, and they were sharing about a brand new hair product that you adoptive families out there may love! It is called Give All For Love.


Give All For Love specializes in all-natural beauty products. We use the highest quality organic ingredients straight from nature to create body products for all skin types and hair products for naturally curly hair. We can also create a custom product specifically tailored to your needs. Our products are suitable for children and adults.

We will be adding new products in the following weeks, so please check back often!

To share the love, 50% of the proceeds (50! that is awesome!) from every purchase go directly to support one of three Ethiopian charities. You can personally choose which charity (Ethiopian Orphan Relief, Ethiopia Reads, or Addis Ababa Fistula Hospital) you would like your purchase to support.



I haven't ordered mine yet because I just got some new Carol's Daughter products to try out two days ago and now I am kicking myself because I don't love it and the proceeds definitely don't go to a country I love. But as soon as we run out I will order some and let you know what I think! In the mean time why don't you head over to www.giveallforlove.com and leave a comment about what you think and what your favorite hair products are!

A day without shoes!

Did you know that in Ethiopia, approximately one million people are suffering from Podoconiosis, a debilitating and disfiguring disease caused by walking barefoot in volcanic soil? Podoconiosis is 100% preventable with basic foot hygiene and wearing shoes. Through everyday encounters with domestic poverty, we are reminded to appreciate having food and shelter, but most of us all but forget about our feet. Food, shelter, AND shoes facilitate life’s fundamentals. Imagine a life without shoes; constantly aware of the ground in front of you, suffering regular cuts and scrapes, tending to infection after each walk, and enduring not only terrain, but heat and cold.

The problem is large, but the solution is simple. Wearing shoes and practicing basic hygiene can prevent both infection and disease due to unsafe roads and contaminated soil. By imagining a life barefoot, we can all contribute to the awareness of these conditions. (from toms.com)

Today we joined TOMS Shoes and many communities, campuses, organizations, and individuals who are banding together to walk barefoot for One Day Without Shoes.

Did you know that you can buy these cute shoes from TOMS and they donate a pair to a child in need? I LOVE mine and they feel like a bit of heaven on my feet!

I want these.....hint hint?

Want to spread the word? Just take off your shoes! Or go to http://www.onedaywithoutshoes.com

Bingham Academy

Bingham Academy from DC on Vimeo.

More Details on Ethiopia

So as we move forward, more details are getting firmed up. So I thought I would answer some of the common questions we are getting.

So what exactly will you be doing there?

Paul has accepted a position at Bingham Academy in Addis Ababa. He will teach computer to the jr. high and high school students there. We are really excited about this opportunity since Addis is home to the African Union and many embassies. Most of the diplomats send their kids to Bingham and over 55 different nationalities are represented at the school. We are excited to see the gospel impact these future leaders.

Will the school pay you?

No, the school is run by our mission agency SIM. We will have more details about how much support we need to raise in July when we return to SIM headquarters for orientation.

When will you leave?

We would like to leave for Ethiopia in August 2011, but that is just a target date as of now.

Will you be involved in orphan care?

We do plan on doing some sort of orphan care at some point while we are there. Right now we are focused on our role at Bingham and getting our family adjusted. We are trusting the Lord to work out the details and contacts for getting involved with orphan care once we are in country and adjusted. Please keep that in your prayers for us.

How long will you be gone?

Right now we have accepted a contract for two years. We are considered long term with SIM so anything beyond 2 years will be up to the Lord and how he leads us.

What will you be doing between now and then?

A LOT! We have so much training and support raising to do before we leave! We are currently listening to 115 hours of seminary training, the perspectives class in the fall, several trips to North Carolina and New York this summer and next summer for training in support raising, language acquisition, and teacher certification, and lots of reading. We also have to sell our house, move into a rental until we leave, buy a......minivan, then sell a minivan and our other cars, and downsize majorly. We really are looking forward to having a lot less stuff!

I received an email this week from a sweet family thinking about missions and they said, "God does not send the equipped, but equips who he sends!" That could not be more true. Paul and I had to laugh when SIM asked us to fill out a long set of paperwork that was supposed to detail all of our bible training.....I sent it back blank. While the Lord has taught us so much through our church, our pastor, and our ministries, we have NO professional training. But that isn't what God wants. He wants willing hearts to serve Him. We pray everyday that He will shape our hearts to be humble and ready to do what He calls for our family.


Ok any other questions you are dying to ask? I will try and do my best to answer them.

Adoption Changes

UPDATED: You can find out some more information here on this blog and be sure to keep an eye out on the US State Department website for official changes and information.

Ethiopian Federal Court

I wish I had the time I used to to follow everything that is happening in Ethiopia, especially regarding adoptions. Somehow time is something I have very little of right now.....hmmm.

Today I found out that Ethiopia is changing the rules regarding court. As of right now (and they pretty much mean right now, very few cases will get grandfathered in under the old rules) they want parents to travel at the time of court and then again a few weeks later to pick up their child when they have an embassy date. You see, just last week parents could sign a power of attorney and someone from their agency would represent them......well, not anymore. While I am glad to see Ethiopia putting rules in place to make sure that every adoption is ethical, this is going to put a huge strain on families.

For instance, we got the call that our court date was in three weeks. Now can you imagine if someone called and said that along with, "Oh by the way, and you need to be there. And you won't be able to take her home. You will have to leave her here for another 4-6 weeks and come back again to get her." That is what happening to these families. Now this isn't the end of the world but coming together with an additional $5,000 to travel on a moments notice when you are already on the edge of the international adoption cliff, is enough to make anyone a little upset.

So I just ask you to keep these families in your prayers. Keep Ethiopia in your prayers, these kids need homes, but Ethiopia also needs hope. Only the saving grace of our Lord Jesus can truly make a difference in this country. It is my prayer that international adoption is not even needed there anymore one day. But today, kids need families.

Are we crazy?

Welcome to my brand new blog! I am so excited about all the changes coming up in our lives and how God is moving and guiding us. We are thrilled to be able to share with you as we embark on this new journey.....so what's all the big news?


Well, I am sure by the title you can tell we are now expecting our third little babe! Baby #3 is expected to make his or her arrival sometime in October and we are beyond thrilled. Jackson and Olivia are very confused and excited about the baby in mommy's tummy.

The other big news is that we have decided to become full time missionaries with SIM in Ethiopia. We have felt God calling us towards missions for a while now and we have spent the last year praying and preparing for how this will look for our family. We are so happy about SIM and being apart of such a great organization. Our time frame for leaving is fall of 2011.

What are we doing in Ethiopia? Well we are still waiting for that to be finalized and it should be very soon, but you know how things run when you are on Africa time....if things go as planned right now, it is a great fit for our family and we are excited to share it with you all soon, so stay tuned!

So, are we crazy? This was the question that I asked my sweet husband as we were laying in bed one night after coming home from a week spent at our mission agency in North Carolina. Without skipping a beat, he said uh yeah, I think we are. So there you have it....the question I am sure you were just asking yourself! We are crazy! We are crazy for God and his people. We are crazy for our sweet kiddos, and we are crazy for each other. And we are happy to be on this crazy adventure that God has called us to.

As for this blog, I would absolutely love to be able to keep our family, friends, and supporters up to date with what is going on with us. The next 18 months will be filled with baby growing, studying, training, support raising, and lots of praying!

To kick off this new blog I am going to do a fun giveaway to support one of my favorite organizations, Compassion International. If you want to be the proud owner of one of these cool t-shirts that support orphans and people living in poverty all over the world just leave a comment to enter! Giveaway ends on March 8th. For extra entries:

1. Become a follower of Raising 3 Babes in the 3rd world and leave me a comment telling me you did so.
2. Blog or post to Facebook, or even Twitter about our new blog and the giveaway and leave a comment telling me you did so. One entry for each one!
3. If you sponsor a child with Compassion International, leave me a comment with the country from where your child is from (this is on your honor of course!).

If you win, you can choose from:

The Child Survival T-Shirt
Compassion's Child Survival Program means the difference between life and death for vulnerable babies. Translated in Hindi, survival means "protect life". Join the fight for life, a portion of the proceeds will go directly to the Child Survival Program.

The Global Food Crisis T-shirt- Creole
Eco navy heather tee shirt, imprinted with Please design in Creole on front and back and Compassion International logo

The Global Food Crisis T-shirt- Spanish
Eco red heather tee shirt, imprinted with Please design in Portuguese on front and back and Compassion International logo


The Global Food Crisis T-shirt -Bengali
Eco green heather tee shirt, imprinted with Please design in Bengali on front and back and Compassion International logo

or my personal favorite......

Global Food Crisis T-shirt- Amharic (Ethiopia's national language)
Eco black heather tee shirt, imprinted with Please design in Amharic on front and back and Compassion International logo (It looks like the others but for some reason I could only get the zoomed in view!)

We hope that you join us in prayer as we prepare to raise 3 babes in the 3rd world!