Adopting from Ethiopia - a double blessing

We began talking about adopting from Ethiopia in 2006. We knew we wanted a little boy, but something in me told me we should consider two children. After much discussion, Bill and I agreed that we would be open to a sibling group - we began the official process in September of 2007. It took me three months to put all of our paperwork together. We sent off our dossier on January 2nd. On August 19th of 2008 we received a referral for two beautiful children, a boy 4 years old and a girl 6 years old. His Ethiopian name is Meheretu - this means "The Lord's Mercy". Her Ethiopian name is Yenenesh - this means "You are mine". These are beautiful names that their birth parents chose for a reason - we will be keeping these names as their middle names. We want them to know that their birth parents loved them very much and those names are special. Likewise, we love them very much and want to give them a name special from us. Meheretu will be Carter Meheretu Gamble - Possibly Carter Jace Meheretu Gamble. I really like Jace for two reasons - 1st - It means the Lord is my salvation, 2nd - I like CJ as a nick name.

Yenenesh has a bit of a story with her name. It was August of 2007 - You see, before we settled on being open to two children, I had a dream. Now mind you, I generally dream about crazy things that make no sense at all, so when I have a dream that I can understand, I pay attention to it.

So picture this - An African woman is leading me into a room in an orphanage, and the dream starts up with her speaking to me mid sentence. She says "and this is your daughter, her name is Maraya and she is five years old." Well, I had never heard of that name before, so I googled it first thing in the morning - It means The Lord is my Teacher. From that moment on I knew God was telling us that we had a boy and girl waiting for us. Here is the kicker - It was one year later in Aug of 2008 that we received the referral for a four year old boy and a six year old girl - When I had the dream in Aug of 2007 - She was five years old - just like the woman in my dream told me.

Her name will be Maraya Yenenesh Gamble, Possibly Maraya Grace Yenenesh Gamble.

We were expecting to have our court sometime the end of Oct 2008 or beginning of Nov 2008, but we were so blessed - we received a phone call this week that we passed court and they asked if we could travel early. We were not scheduled to travel until 11/29, but we are now leaving 11/15!