Leaving on a jet plane!

This is incredible; in less than 12 hours we will be heading to Addis Ababa to go get our beautiful daughter, Gracie Ayantu! This entire journey has been lead by God and we are thrilled to be following His plan for our family. Please pray for safe travels and health along the way. We cannot wait for Gracie to come home and meet her entire FAMILY!!!! Thank you all again for the love and support.
With lots of love,
Mat and Stacey

Test

This is a TEST to see how this can work from Ethiopia!

Our time has come!

Oh dear ones, it has been awhile since I have posted because SO much has been happening! We passed court last Thursday! Thank you Jesus and thank you to all who covered us in prayer. Now, today, we got "the call" embassy date has been assigned and it is May 6th!!!! Oh my word, we were not expecting it so soon, but are grateful and blessed beyond belief to bring Gracie home! We made our plane reservations today and are leaving next Friday, May 1st. Mat and I will spend our anniversary in Dubai! (Saturday May 2nd) and then be in Addis Ababa, Sunday morning, May 3rd. We will be holding our beautiful daughter in just 12 short days! We are truly praising God for his goodness and this journey He has brought us on. There has been nothing we have ever done in our lives that has been this meaningful and joyous. (Well, the boys are pretty incredible too! LOL!) Please continue to pray over our travel and the travels of the other 2 families who are going at the same time. We are also asking you to pray for Gracie and that our faces will be put into her mind to let her know that we are on our way!

Tomorrow is THE BIG DAY!

Oh my goodness, it is currently about 4 am in Ethiopia. The courts will start hearing cases in approximately 5 hours! Here is our prayer:

Lord, you are so good, all the time! We know you can move mountains. Please help the judges have wisdom and open hearts to show favor in our case for our beautiful baby girl. Please also allow them to show favor for the other 2 IAN families; The Gonifas' and The Washingtons. Lord, this entire journey has been guided by You, please allow us to bring these babies home as soon as we are able. They need to be with their families Lord. We praise you each day for all the blessings you have given us. In your Awesome name we pray, Amen!

We cannot wait to share our baby girl with the whole world!
Love and Blessings,
Mat and Stacey

Exactly 7 days!

Well we are counting down. Only 7 more days until Gracie's court date! Many people have asked us if we have to be there for court and NO, we don't go for court. What happens is that our representative in Ethiopia goes to court and accepts her on our behalf; presents all the paperwork and waits for the courts ruling. Once the court gives their ruling (which we are praying is favorable and no paperwork happens to be missing) then we will be assigned our embassy date and get our travel dates. The embassy date is a day we need to be present. We take an "oath" to love and take care of her! I think we will be screaming, "Of course, of course...she is our daughter!" If all goes well, which we are praying hard, we will hopefully be traveling May 15th.
We would fly from Denver to Houston to Dubai. Then we will stay the night in Dubai at the airport and then we leave in the morning to head to Addis. By Sunday afternoon, we should be holding our baby girl in our arms! We are looking forward to this day! Thank you Jesus, for making all of this possible. He is so good, all the time! Friends, we are asking for HUGE prayer for this next week. We need God to place wisdom in the hearts and minds of the judges to look favorably on our case and let Gracie come home as soon as possible.
With much love,
Mat and Stacey

Praise this day!

Our court date was moved UP!!!! That means we no longer have court on April 29th, but now it is April 16th. That is EXACTLY 3 months from the day of referral! How good is our God?
Hope everyone is having a wonderful day.

Our hearts are full today!

Today is a great day! At first I was sad, as today is Ms. Gracie's 6 month birthday and we were hoping to be holding her in our arms by now. As we all know, that was not God's timing for us. Last week I found the most beautiful dress at my friends children's consignment boutique, that I had to buy for Gracie's 1 year birthday! (If you are here in Colorado, you should check out Cailin's boutique "Couture Kids Consignment" in downtown Littleton) After a long day, we received an incredible email. One of the families with our adoption agency just returned from Ethiopia and she sent us pictures of Gracie...my how she is changing, even in this short amount of time. Let me tell you, she looks very healthy and peaceful. I cannot wait to hold her in my arms. Mat is already smitten with her and she will have daddy wrapped around her finger completely.
Life here is busy, baseball for Justin and Cameron has already started. Tomorrow is Zach's opening night for the middle school musical. He has the lead. We are so proud of him and all he has accomplished this year. Having Asperger's does not stop Zach...he amazes us.
Tyler will be starting music and gymnastics next week. I love being busy, especially now as we are still waiting for April 29th!
God is so good to us and each day we count our blessings.
Thank you for supporting us and loving us.
Our hearts are full; full of love, full of kindness, full of compassion and the never ending grace of God.
With love,
Mat and Stacey