Updates

It has been a long week and a half. Last week I spent most of the week at U of M hospital with my sister and nephew. His surgery went really well and they believe that he will not have to have any other surgeries. We had a little scare when he first came into the ICU. They were trying to push some fluid because he was low and his heart didn't like the method so his heart completely stopped for 3 minutes. My sister and I were in the room when this happened. I have never been so scared in my life. I just kept praying to God to save this little boy. Thankfully our prayer was answered and they were able to get his heart working again. They were 30 seconds from reopening him right there in the room. Since then, he has been doing well. He actually came home yesterday from the hospital. So keep baby Noah in your prayers for a healthy recovery.
On Friday on my way home from the hospital we found out that we passed court. YEA!!!!! Finally we are completed with that step. Mazengia is officially our little boy. We are a family of 5 and now outnumbered. We are planning on leaving on Dec 15th to travel back to Ethiopia to pick him up. We will be back Christmas Eve night. It is going to be an awesome Christmas. I already love Christmas for many reasons and now it is going to be the most special year by far. Now we just wait to hear that they have a new birth certificate and passport for him and we will be all set.
This past weekend all of us except Natalie has had the flu. Boy, was it a nasty one. Ben by far had it the worst. Thankfully we all are in the home stretch of it.
Lastly, I would like to share some stories of families in need of prayers. We have dear friends of ours that just found out that the husband has lymphoma cancer. He is going to be starting chemo on Monday. Please keep them in your prayers as they also have 3 young kids. Please pray that the chemo is effective and that it will kill the cancer completely.
Please pray for friends of ours that have run into a last minute snag with their adoption paperwork. This process is so long anyway and to run into something at the very end when you are so close to bringing your little one home is very hard to understand. Please pray that they can get all of this taken care so that they can travel soon to pick their little one up.
We wish everyone a wonderful Thanksgiving dinner and time with family. We have so much to be grateful and thankful this year.

Surgery day

Today we did not receive any news on our adoption. We believed that we would and the day came and went. This is exactly like being pregnant and being 5 days late and no dialation or indication the baby is coming soon. So that is that.
Tomorrow I will head down to U of M to be with my mom and sister for my little 4 month old nephews open heart surgery. I can't imagine what my sister is feeling like having her baby have this serious surgery at such a young age. We are praying and hoping that the doctors will be able to repair the defect so that Noah's organs can all perform at 100%. His surgery is at 7:30a on Wednesday. He will be in ICU for 24 hours before anyone is allowed to see him. Please pray for strength and peace for my sister and holy divine protection over my little nephew. Also pray for wisdom and gentleness for the surgeons and medical staff that will be taking care of him. My sister has a care page if you would like to follow. It is www.carepages.com/noahlewisriggs

Update

I haven't done an update in a while. This Tuesday our letter was sent back to Ethiopia. We were hoping to hear that they got it today but it looks like Monday we will hear. I can't wait to hear those words that we passed and we now have another little boy to the Wickstrom clan. We did get some good news today. Before we left Ethiopia we asked our friend Abel that if he went to the orphanage if he could show our boy a picture of us so that he wouldn't forget. So this past week Abel was talking to our boy and he pointed to the pic and said who are they and our boy said "man and dad". AWWW.... How cute is that. I was asking God today show me a sign anything that you are still working in this and this brought me the hugest smile. Have a great weekend. Please also lift my friends Luke and Megan up in prayer. They were all set to leave to pick up their girl and they recieved news that they won't be leaving next week. Pray that they can take care of this situation as soon as possible.

Today is a new day.

Today is a new week. I am filled of hope that things will work out this week. My clearance letter is in DC right now. The courier is going to get the neccessary stamps today and I am praying that she can even get it on in the mail today. If she can get it in the mail today, it could be to Ethiopia on Friday. The great news is the judge said that as soon as the letter comes they can take it to court.. So we do not have to wait for another court appointment.
All last week I kept wondering why is this happening to us and 2 things really stuck out. 1. is God wants us to fully trust and believe in Him. It is really hard for me to completely give everything up. I do believe that God will protect us from anything that will not ultimately lead us closer to Him. 2. Is people are always going to fail you but God never will. Instead of first running to other people to fix the issue we should always run to go God first. Unfortunately, I am always learning this lesson.
This week is about grace for me. I have first received a lot of it and now I am going to give it and I am going to give it with a heart full of love and compassion.

The Pity Party is Over

So the last couple of days I have had quite the party. I want to thank of all my dear friends for coming to my party and sitting with me in my anger, frustration, sadness and all other feelings. I truly appreciate you jumping into the situation and getting mad with me. I thank you that you didn't try to offer advice and that you sat in the emotions that I was in. Without all of you, I couldn't reach this peace this soon. I want to say thank you to the police lady for saying sorry, thank you to my social worker for saying sorry and to all my friends who have said sorry and that didn't even have a part in it. I'm sorry I believe is one of the most powerful statements. I'm sorry helps people move forward from frustration to understanding. After all, how could you be mad at someone who says I am sorry with all of their heart. Something in those words does something to your heart. Tonight I have decided to gear up the energy to look forward to passing court whenever that is. It will happen.
One thing that my aunt said to me the other day was: Trust God in the dark, like you trusted Him in the light. That is so true. It is easy to trust God when things are going great or even good. It is so hard to trust Him when you can't see an end and you are in the thick of it. That has been my lesson. For those of you who have prayed for peace. Thank you. I am surrendering and I have peace. Tomorrow is a new day..

Have to redo letter again

Yesterday brought some pretty bad news. The clearance letter that I rushed to get to Ethiopia didn't have the U.S. seal on it so they didn't accept it. I am completely crushed. This error was only supposed to put us back 1 week and instead I am not sure how long it will be. In my mind I just don't understand why we can't get a break in this process. Each step of the way has had an obstacle. To make matters worse I contacted the travel agent to check on availability to fly out for the Dec 23 embassy and they have limited availability and the cost keeps rising. Right now it is over $2000 a ticket. I feel like stuff just keeps piling on. I don't want to keep going back to this is such a silly error and I can't believe that it is going to delay us 2 months but the more that we get pushed back the more it drives me bonkers. So I don't know what is next. I have no idea when our letter will get there. I have no idea when we go to court again. I have no idea when we will even pass court or better yet have no idea when we will go back. All I know is my heart aches that we can't just jump on a plane and go get our little boy. My heart hurts that no one else is connected to this boy in this process like we are.. Why would people rush our case along? They have no emotional ties to our little boy. They have no connection. My only prayer is that they can look at it with new eyes. Maybe look at it as just delivering your baby and before they let you hold your baby they say to you we have to have the birth certificate ready before you can hold your baby but it takes a week to get this birth certificate. During this time you just ache to hold your baby. The staff tries to assure it is only a week, you have the rest of your life to hold your baby, but inside you have been waiting for this day for 9 months, 1 more hour seems like a lifetime. That is how I feel inside. I have an ache in my chest that just won't go away. I pray that this will all be taken care off soon.

Back 1 week

Well we have been back 1 week and it is great. After meeting him we definitely walk around the house wondering what he would be doing, toys he would play or comments that he would make. We can see how Alek and Natalie will be such a great big brother and big sister to him. I knnow it is going to be tough at first but I am so excited for this part of the journey to begin.

They received our paperwork. Thank you to an awesome man named Abel. He stopped by the DHL last week to pick it up. Even though it didn't go anywhere last week at least we know that it is safe in his hands. Tomorrow is our rescheduled court date so we are longing to hear the words you passed and now you are a family of 5.

We have a lot coming up in the next couple of weeks. My nephew is getting open heart surgery in 2 weeks. Please lift up my sister and Noah in your prayers. I can't imagine having to have my baby have such a traumatic surgery.

On another note, my rash that I brought back from Ethiopia is going away finally. I was starting to get a little worried. I took a stronger prescription yesterday and noticed this morning it is already clearing up. We have a busy week ahead of us. May yours be filled with love and peace.