Life with the Vondra's

As I was writing this post from my point of view, Luke plopped down beside me and asked me what I was doing. He liked the looks of it, so he helped me write it! He said some cute things so I made sure to include those. I tried to convey his cute accent and broken English! The writing in "" are Luke's words!

LIFE AS A PART OF THE VONDRA FAMILY!:  "WOW!  I pray to God, I wanted a family, I want for two brothers and two sisters, a Mom and Dad, and God give me dis".  Luke told us shortly after he got home that he had prayed for two brothers and two sisters for years before we met him. He remembers last summer his joy at finding out his new family was just that! Well, God answered his prayers, but be careful what you pray for Luke, cause "this family a crazy family". What he didn't  know is that Dad has 8 siblings. He has met most of them but only briefly. He also doesn't realize is that he is the 38th grand child of Gramma Vondra. There are nearly as many great grand children now. SO, Luke you have know idea the crazy loving that's coming your way!

Luke likes playing with the girls hair, but he's not so gentle!

This is one of the Ethiopian meals Jo made! Its called Tibs and it is delicious! Luke was thrilled to have this meal! He was dancing in his chair while eating!

School: One of the biggest things going on in Luke's life is of course his introduction to the teachers and classmates at Trininty Lutheran School.  Mr. Loomans, Mrs. Kanning(before he could remember her name it was "lady who crys"), Mrs Jackson, Mrs. Michaels, Mr. Thomas: "I love them verrrrry very much!"  The kids in the classroom have been fantastic to Luke and very welcoming to him. We know school is going to be a challenge. We have all experienced bit of frustration already, but Luke is such a driven kid that we are positive he will catch up.

Class trip to Great Falls: This past week Luke's class took their annual trip to Great Falls MT. Conveniently, that is where Jolee's parents live. So, Luke and Jo went up and spent a little time with the class, but a lot of time with Jolee's wonderful parents. Jake and I had to stay back because Jake had a football game, but Molly and Rebecca drove up to spend the weekend. Luke loves his sisters, but they don't play quite as rough as his brothers. The girls tried to play soccer with him, tried to wrestle him, and tried to make up for his first weekend away from his brothers. But when Luke got home he was THRILLED to be among his older brothers who made sure to rough him up a bit right away.. Those sisters are good for some things I suppose!

Staying connected: Luke has made many lasting and meaningful friendships in his years the orphanage in the past years. The bond created between these kids is absolutely amazing! Before going to be their forever families, the children are each other's family. Luke was one of the last kiddos to make it home, so when he did get here, he was so excited to be able to catch up with a few pals. Me, Jolee, and Rebecca have tried to find as many families adopting from Ethiopia as possible in order to track down his friends (via Facebook). Wow is it fun to get to see the look on his face as he Skypes with his sweet pals. WE LOVE HEARING AMHARIC IN OUR HOUSE! We have such an amazing new community of friends with amazing kids!

SOCCER SOCCER SOCCER: Luke is playing YSA( developmental league), with girls and boys.  Luke didn't want to have girls on his team but he does and now he likes the girls. "They're good."  Luke tried out for Magic City which is a very competitive league. He will play on this league in the spring and is anxious for the added competitiveness.

Tidbits from our Time so far:
Dentist Appointment: We thought Luke might have lots of cavities, but only one!  Yeah!

Bicycle: Wild man!  Luke hasn't ridden a bicycle very much and is always about 2 seconds from a "firey crash"!  You might see a scuffed chin in some of the pics, Luke fell riding too close to a wall, wall kind of reached out and grabbed him. 

Luke is a picky eater unless he has berbere on it. Berbere is a very common spice in Ethiopia. They put it on everything! We can usually coax Luke into trying something if we put a dash of berbere on it! As a family, we really dont  mind Ethiopian food! It's really quite good. So Jolee tries to prepare at least one Ethiopian meal every couple weeks.

Swim parties: "One for the class and one for Mom and Dad's friends"

Basketball, football:  "Michael and Jacob have been teaching me" He knows he'll have to play basketball for Mr. Thomas at Trinity Lutheran so he's trying very hard to learn it. He doesn't love football though!

Sisters - "They kill me ha ha. They love me.  My sisters are Stinky!  (but very beautiful...)" Hmm. Seems like he's a little conflicted on this one?

Brothers - "My brothers are handsome and stinky"

"Walter  (the dog) likes playing with me but he doesn't want to listen to me.  My Dad told me to MAKE him listen to me, and he will."

Mom - "Mom is good, she love me very much. I love her!  She take good care of me!"

Dad - "Dad is good, always saying to me to do good, and helping me."

I think this is a kind of confusing post! Sorry about that. I tried to make it easy to follow! We LOVE Luke and Luke LOVES us. It has been fun to see how we are all being challenged- in almost every way! FYI: This is challenging at times folks! Its not all smiles and giggles all the time. But we know this is the Lord's will and that since he led us to it, he will also lead us through it! God is good all the time!

Finally! Homecoming!

Wow, what a journey home from Ethiopia.  You start with a 17 hour flight from Addis Ababa to Washington DC-Dulles, via Rome Italy.  The elevation in Addis is so high, they can't get the plane off the tarmac if they completely fill the fuel tanks on the plane.  They fill them half full, and stop off in Rome to then completely fill up to make it to Washington DC-Dulles.

By the time we'd made DC, Luke's stomach was hurting him pretty good so when we finally had got through customs and immigration (yes we did it LEGALLY) we hit the first place we could find chicken.  Luke has a favorable impression of "American chicken" so we stopped by Wendy's and had a couple of chicken on a biscuit breakfast sandwich.  After some breakfast, Luke met some local politicians campaigning.  It was nice for them to come to meet Luke. 

44 hours!  Other than a couple of cat naps on the different planes on our way home, Luke, Mike and myself were had been up for 44 hours, and we were feeling it!!  Luke was now falling asleep at the drop of a had and falling asleep HARD.  Landing into Billings, just within 30 minutes of touch down, Luke said he was going to sleep, and sleep he did.  He fell into such a deep sleep, I had to pat him on his leg for 5 minutes before he'd wake up. 

But then we got home and came over the top of the escalators, we forgot all about being tired.  How honoring, how surprising.  I knew we had about 20 people that had expressed interest in welcoming Luke home, but we had no idea of the size of party waiting for him.  We know there were a lot of other's that wanted to attend but couldn't because of a busy Friday night, but to all of you that could make it, THANK YOU, you totally blessed us all.

 

Our Last Full Day in Ethiopia

Day Four!

Today is our last full day in this country. Those of you who have been to Ethiopia will share these sentiments, but this country has a way of getting in your heart and staying there. We feel forever bonded to this place, and not just because our son was born here. It's hard to explain, but my heart will forever be connected to Ethiopia!

Today we visited an area of the country called "The Gorge". The Gorge is about two hours north of the city. This is the Grand Canyon of Ethiopia. It was so fun to see! And I enjoyed having Luke along because although he was born here, he has yet to see very much of his country. In the area are the famous "bleeding heart" baboons with the red mark on their chest! We saw a few, which was fun!

We passed a few waterfalls...

This is very interesting: These men or women haul dung on their backs or on donkeys. Then they sell it as a fire starter.

We had a really cool experiance in a market along the way. We got out and mingled with the locals while they traded their goods. We were sort of a novelty (being white as snow), so people sort of hung around us. We had fun taking people's pictures and then letting them see themselves digitally. Some had never seen that before. Man are Ethiopians pretty people! The men are very strong and handsome and the ladies are just gorgeous! I'm proud to have a son from here!

And finally, here's Mike and Luke at the Gorge. Its hard to see, but there is a cliff back there. Clearly they are about to fall off...

As I said today is our full day! Tomorrow night (about 1:15 p.m. in Montana, 10:15 p.m. in Addis) we will board to fly to D.C. After a looooonnnngggg flight, we'll have a brand new U.S. citizen with us! Then at about 7:10 Friday night, we'll land in Billings!

Pray for safe and smooth travels with no delays!

 

Embassy Day

Okay here we go! Day 3:

So today was Embassy Day! For those of you who don't know, the first adoption trip is dedicated to going before the Ethiopian Court. Then once all your paperwork is final the kid's all good to go, you fly back and go before the U.S Embassy in Ethiopia! Usually, court is rough with only 50% passing, but Embassy is a breeze! This was true in our case! Not a single problem and I can safely say Luke is coming home! We have jumped the last adoption hoop!

Also today we visited the KVI orphanage in Addis. Luke spent some time in this orphanage and wanted to give the majority of our donations to this particulare orphanage. He met up with some of his good friends who are still waiting on adoption. It is heartbreaking to see some of these older kids who are desperately waiting to hear they have a family. I will forever remember to keep the adoption of older kids in my prayers! Wow! Anyways, Luke had a great time talking and playing with old pals. Before long, a lively game of soccer broke out! Wow can these boys play soccer!!! It was amazing! For privacy reasons, I can't show you the pictures or videos, but I wont ever forget it! I was awestruck!

Tonight we will head to a Traditional Ethiopian Dinner. I was here on the first trip, but it will be Michael and Luke's first time! Its very interesting! The food is very unique and you enjoy dinner while watching VERY talented dancers. Man can Ethiopians dance! So fun! They even come into the audience and ask for participation.. It funny to watch chubby Americans like me try and dance along with these talented Ethiopians! Im going to try and stay out of the spot light while at the same time get Michael to dance.. We'll see!

Sorry for the lack of pictures.. Hopefully more to come!

Thank you all for your continued prayers!
 

A Few Goodbyes

Again, this post will be short...

We're loving spending this time with Luke! He is very comfortable around us and seems very excited about America. I have loved getting to spend my first one on one time with my youngest son!

Today we traveled a bit out of Addis to Luke's hometown (Nazeret). Its very rainy! We traveled there today to say goodbye to Luke's birth father Ayalew. It was a sweet goodbye. Ayalew knows that we care deeply for him. We have told him that when we bring Luke back to Ethiopia some day we will try our very hardest to locate him. He is a very sweet, God-fearing man. I pray for my sons heart through this transition. (his father is fourth from the left)

Reunited

HAPPY GOTCHA DAY EVERYBODY!!!!!

Gotcha day is what adoptive families call the day you can finally take your son/daughter with you. Its the day when you reunite!! We'll remember this day forever!

We finally made it to Addis Ababa, Ethiopia! After a very long flight we were exhausted, but nothing could keep us away from Luke! The reunion was AWESOME! I saw his little face peeking out the window before he stepped out. It was great to get to hug my son again and even better for Michael to finally get to meet Luke! Here are a few pictures to show you all of our excitement!

More to come soon....

The boy with the rabbit

Jolee and I are proud to introduce you to our new son, Luke Yohannes Vondra.  Luke is 13 years old from Addis Ababa, Ethiopia.  Luke was born to Genet and Ayalew on June 6th, 1999.  Tragically, Genet passed away when Luke was just nine or ten months old and this started a tailspin for Luke and his Dad.  Immediately, Luke's dad turned to his Mother, Luke's paternal Gramma for help and she helped to raise Luke until he was 5 years old when she got sick and passed away. Then it was back to just Luke and his Dad.  Luke's Dad is a laborer and in Ethiopia, work doesn't come easy and after three years of struggle, Luke's Dad, (now with HIV) made the painful decision to surrender Luke to the orphanage system.  It is a great story how God intervened to get Luke from the state run orphanage system into a Kingdom Vision International orphanage.  Luke has been moved from orphanage to orphanage since this time. 

Meanwhile in America, we were living our lives, and raising our 4 kids.   Jolee and I were not looking to adopt .  Our good friends, the Davis' felt convicted to adopt two handsome  boys from Ethiopia 2 years earlier and we were happy for them but didn't feel any similar convictions.  Then one day Jolee and Kerry Davis were meeting for a ladies group and Kerry was sharing about the child they were hosting for the "Summer of Hope" project at their Harvest and Journey Churches.  Jolee remembers the absolute moving of spirit when she saw the picture of the little boy that caught the rabbit.  It was a picture of Luke, holding a rabbit that he'd run down and asking to cook the rabbit for dinner. 

Jolee was completely distracted by the story of this beautiful face, and something started that we couldn't deny.  One thing lead to another, we ended up spending as much time as we could with Luke and by the time Luke was ready to go back to Ethiopia, we knew we wanted to adopt him and have him join our family.  We talked with each of our children and each child graciously accepted the idea of sharing our life with this boy.

The rest, as they say, "is history" so let me rush through the rest of this story.  By labor day, we got the call saying we would be accepted, and that we should start working on our dossier.  On December 19th, we had our dossier approved and Luke was told we wanted to adopt him.  They moved Luke from the orphanage to a transition home.  At this home, they started to educate Luke in his english and math skills to prepare him for his eventual adoption into our home and culture. 

In March, 2012, Jolee, Rebecca, Jacob and myself flew to Addis Ababa to go through the court process.  The day before we went, we received notice that our clearance document was not correct, it wasn't anything we had done, it was a social services agency in the the Adama area that had used the wrong form.  They'd have to start over and it would just take some time.  We still went to the court proceeding and spent the week with Luke at the transition home. It was a great time but it was VERY hard to leave Luke there.  After four painful months of really no answers we finally "passed court".  That document was finally approved and accepted by the court system allowing Luke to become our son.

Now was the Embassy process.  The process of submitting our request to imigrate Luke to USA.  We finally got the call on August 27, 2012, (a year after we'd said good bye to Luke and sent him back Ethiopia) that we could set dates for going back to Ethiopia to bring Luke back home to Montana.  Molly, Michael and myself were going to go back to bring Luke home, but unfortunately Molly had to go back to nursing school and so Michael and I leave Friday morning to fly to Addis Ababa, and to go through the Embassy proceeding on September 4th.  We will be flying home with Luke, God willing, on Friday, Sept 7th.   We'll update this blog from Addis (or Rebecca will from home) as often as we can.  Please keep us in your prayers.  Thanks for your interest to even read about our beautiful son, Luke!