Ash and Mekie are coming home!!!

Dear Family & Friends,

Thank you so much for your love, prayers, and support over the last 7 months as we have been on this journey to bring home Ashenafy (Ash) and Mekdes (Mekie). We truly appreciate all the support you have provided to us, as it has been an emotional roller coaster so far!

Flight Information:

We will be leaving for Ethiopia on Saturday July, 31st @ 9:00 AM from Fort Wayne Airport and will arrive in Addis Ababa on Sunday @ 7:00 PM (Ethiopian time) which is 11:00 AM Eastern time. We will be leaving Ethiopia of Friday August 6th at 10:15 PM and arriving back into Fort Wayne @ 7:09 PM on Saturday August 7th. For those of you who wish to meet us at the airport and welcome Ash and Mekie home, you should plan to be to the airport a little before 7:00. If anything changes we will do our best to keep people updated with flight information.

Before Ash & Mekie get back we wanted to share a few thoughts with everyone about our plans for the transition to life as a family of six. Our adoption agency, social worker, and other adoptive parents have given us a lot of helpful input as we prepare to bring Ash & Mekie home, and a primary goal in the first few months they are with us is to give them as much security and stability as possible since they’ll be experiencing so much transition. When Ash and Mekie come home they will have already lost many things in their lives, including: their birth parents, friends and caregivers at the orphanage, language, familiar food, culture, and their country of birth. Our goal is to help them (as well as Garrett & Ethan) however we can with all of the adjustments, especially helping them understand that we are Mom and Dad and they can trust us to take care of them. In order to help them feel safe, we are striving to create the type of environment that will help promote security and stability during this stressful and potentially very confusing time.

We’re very excited to introduce all of you to Ash and Mekie in the near future. As excited as we are for everyone to meet the kids, please understand that after we return from Ethiopia we plan to live a very quiet, “homebody” life with very limited trips out and few visitors in for a little while. For the next few months, one of us will need to be with Ash and Mekie at all times. We also plan to avoid group gatherings and functions as we get to know them and their personalities. Then, we’ll slowly begin to add to our activities.

This doesn’t mean we don’t want you to meet them soon after we arrive: we just need to establish limits to try to foster a loving and stable environment for the kids. After we have arrived back home, we respectfully ask that you not come by to see us or call us until at least Saturday August 14th. Both kids will need vaccinations and could possibly be pretty sick with parasites or other infections. After both kids have had their initial doctor visits (and at least a week at home with us) we should have a sense of how well they’re doing and would love to set up times for people to come over to meet the kids as long as we think they’re ready for it. We will try to send as many pictures and updates through email as we can upon our return.

Thanks a lot for your understanding, and for all of your love and support throughout our adoption journey. We’re very thankful for all of you!

Love,

Derek & Wendy