Keeping Up With The Joneses

It's official, January 18 is our court date in Ethiopia! We'll only be there for a few days, but we'll get to meet Zoe, hold her and love on her for the first time. During this trip we will officially adopt her in Ethiopia. But, after spending a couple days with her, we'll then leave her with just a few pictures of us for 6-8 weeks before we can go back to get her and bring her home to Tennessee. We are over-the-moon excited about the day we will finally meet her, but also scared to death. We have no idea how she will react to us when we meet. She will probably be scared to death herself! We just pray that it will be a time to start bonding and begin the process of becoming a family. We're also praying that we'll be able to drag each other onto the plane home. It will take an act of God and probably some powerful medication to do so.
Last weekend we were able to meet Sue, the director of our agency, Celebrate Children International. It was amazing to sit down with her and hear hear heart for the kids in Ethiopia and all that she is doing to make sure they find forever families. The house we were in was filled with internationally adopted children, several from Ethiopia. It was exciting to see the smiles on their faces and how quickly they have integrated into American culture. All I could think about was our Zoe, when they waved from outside or snuck a taste from the sugar bowl as they passed by. Sue loved on all the kids and knew them by name as she does all the kids she is advocating for around the globe. I am so glad that we are working with someone who views her job as a ministry and a calling. She is kind, but tough and her work is changing lives for eternity.
It really is weird to be an adoptive family. We know that it is a special calling and not for everyone. All Christians are called to care for the widows and orphans, but that doesn't mean everybody is supposed to bring them into their homes and families. We want to be advocates for these kids around the world without making Zoe, or any other kids we might adopt one day, become little trophies on our mantle. Like I have said before, Zoe will be as special as any children in our family. Everyone thinks, "Wow, you are going to change that little girl's life," and we will, but we know that we have as much or more to learn from her than she will ever get from us. So the three of us will learn and grow together and all of our lives will be reborn.
Tomorrow is our annual "Story Sunday" at TPC and I am preparing to talk to the kids about Zoe's story and the project that we'll be doing to collect much needed items for Tori and I to take to the Ethiopian orphanages in January. Tonight I video taped myself telling the story of our adoption journey in 5 minutes for the kids at our Franklin campus. It was amazing as I sat in Zoe's room, by her giant stuffed zebra and talked about how God has provided for us and answered so many prayers in the last few months. I thought back to how God changed our hearts from adopting a little baby to an older, waiting child who might have missed her chance to be adopted. I remember looking at the many smiling faces with Sue encouraging us to think about the "sad little girl" and then realizing that was our daughter. I remember the day that we got an email with no subject that opened to the smiling face that we'd been praying for. We had no idea how long it would take to see that smile and God gave it to us before we even met her. These past few months have been the busiest and craziest of our lives. The waiting has been getting harder. Today, Tori read a children's book in Target that began with these words, "I wanted you more than you ever will know, so I sent love to follow wherever you go." Thinking about Zoe had her in tears before the last page finished with, "you are loved." The author put our feelings into words. The words we wish Zoe could hear today and everyday. They are the words that the Lord has spoken to us throughout our lives, "Wherever you are my love will find you," and now this is the cry of our hearts for Zoe.
As the days get closer to meeting her, the days without her pass. We think of Thanksgiving with family minus Zoe, a trip to Disney World without her, Christmas morning with her far away and ringing in a new year knowing she is there and we are here. Life as we know it is about to change forever. I don't want to sound like "Debbie-Downer" but I would rate this journey higher on the sad/difficult chart than the joyful/exciting one. I know that the days of joy will come when we hold her little body tight, kiss her sweet little cheeks, kick the soccer ball in our back yard and read stories at night in bed. But for now there is no little body, no little cheeks, no one to kick the ball back or listen to stories. It's hard to know that, most likely, no one is doing these things with her now and these are days we'll never get back. I also know that God still has much to do to prepare us and much more to provide for us to bring her home. So, we continue to do the best at the calling He has placed on our lives for now. We minister to and love on those around us today and we pray for the "sad little girl" in Ethiopia. We pray for warm nights, a full belly, health, love, comfort, security and lots of smiles. The day we meet cannot come soon enough, but it will come. The day will come when our sad tears will turn to tears of joy as we wrap our arms around the little girl that the Lord created to be ours.
Taking the time to read this blog and pray with us means so much. We're grateful to those of you who have joined us in the journey as we bring Zoe home. We can't wait for you to see her smiling face and love her like you have loved us.

It is weird to adopt. Tori isn't pregnant, like several of our friends, but we are about to be parents like they are. We have all the same fears and expectations of what it will be like to have a child, but we don't have any part of her yet. She isn't growing before our eyes. We can't feel her move. We have a few images of her and that's all. It's just weird. I had a friend whose wife went to the hospital today because of some concerns with her pregnancy and we have another friend who got to hear her baby's heartbeat the other day. As scary and worrisome as this time is for them, they have the opportunity to check on their kids who aren't here yet. When something doesn't seem right, they have medical professionals check their babies. If they need to, they can change their diets to help their children receive the proper nutrition, they can wrap up in a blanket if it is cold or take medicine if they're sick. We know that Zoe isn't getting everything she needs, but we can't do anything about it. We recently learned that it probably isn't hot in Ethiopia at night and now Tori goes to sleep concerned that Zoe isn't warm or cozy. But we can't help her, snuggle her or tuck her in tight. We just have to wait, fill out some more paperwork, look at her picture and dream of the day she will be with us. Everyday that we wait, we know that it's one more day of her life that we miss out on. There are millions of firsts that we will know absolutely nothing about. We don't know her first word, we missed out on her first step, we never saw her first smile, we didn't give her first hug, we didn't witness her first breath. No matter how many firsts we will be blessed to have with her, the first years of her life have been absent from ours. 

The last couple of weeks have been pretty crazy around the Jones house. We are overwhelmed by the many blessings in our lives, but man, even a life full of great blessings is busy and stressful!
Last week, one particular day was a little extra overwhelming and less than perfect. Then, we got home and Tori checked the mail. There was a small package from Celebrate Children with a DVD of our little girl. Instantly we forgot about everything going on and went straight to the TV and watched the brief video. It was surreal to see her like that. The first part of the video was actually a little bit hard to watch. Everyone was trying really hard to get our "sad little girl" to smile. They were snapping in her face, pulling her by the arm, poking at her cheeks and flashing pictures of her. They wanted her to smile for prospective parents, but they were simply freaking her out! She was so very scared of what all was going on around her. It was breaking our hearts to watch. Then, they moved to another part of the room and she played a hand slapping game with one of the translators. It was adorable to watch her play. She was so into it. Tori says she played that game like it was her job. She was going to hit that guy's hand no matter how fast he moved it away! She would hit his hand extra-hard whenever she got the chance. She even tried to trick the guy, so we know there's a little trouble in her. This is when we got to see the first smile that we had only seen in pictures. It was so fun that we watched it immediately again.
I know that Tori goes to bed every night thinking about Zoe, how she is being treated  and did she get enough food to eat today. For me, watching this video connected me with Zoe in a whole new way. She has become more than an idea, more than a picture and more than a child that will one day be ours. As we watched that video we saw our little girl in an orphanage being taken care of by strangers. Zoe is no longer a stranger to me. We see her and know she is ours. The rooms that we have prepared for her seem a little bit lonely now. They sit empty and lifeless. We long for the day that she will play in her new playroom and sleep in her new bedroom.
Our first home study visit is in the morning. Tori has been working hard all night to make sure our paperwork is all signed, notarized, filed and ready to go. Of course I've been sick all day and doing what little I can to help. Tori has promised to prop me up like "Weekend at Bernies" or whatever it takes to get us through this appointment in the morning, without canceling. Hopefully the social worker will see through the spaced out Tylenol Cold fog I will be in. We're really ready to get this interview over. I am sure that it will work out fine. We have a room setup, a couple of new fire extinguishers, our medicine is up high and I can't plug anything in easily anymore.
As the days pass on we get more excited, but it also gets harder. We know this little girl is ours and it is more and more real everyday that she is not with us. The home study is another milestone and there will be more along the way. It is weird that just a few months ago we felt whole. Now there is an empty place wherever we go. We can't wait to experience life with our little Zoe. We can't wait for her to see Thomas the Train with her cousins or watch her receive hugs and kisses from grandparents. That day is not terribly far away. Until then, we will continue to pray for her every moment of everyday. Until then, we will continue to prepare a magical place for her to sleep and play. Until we can hold her in our arms, we will continue to love her from a distance.

For the last few days we have been working hard to refinish furniture, hang curtains (without saying one bad word) and find special items for our little girl's bedroom and playroom. We have been transforming our office into a playroom and guest room into her bedroom.It has truly been a labor of love. We've had so much fun searching out things at Goodwill, looking through Hobby Lobby and wandering around Lowes for hours asking for help from every single employee at least twice. We've found lots of great stuff and it is so cool to put our personal stamp on it all. It turns out that the dressing table we got from Goodwill was actually donated by a friend at work who recognized it from a picture on my cell phone! The amount of pink in our house has increased 100-fold and I'm sure it will only go up from here. It is really fun for us to think about what she will do, how she will play and even what she will be when she grows up. We've been dreaming and talking far into the future about a precious little one who we have yet to meet. During this time, we have been looking at pictures and reading about a sweet, little 3 year-old girl named Tesfanesh and today we officially committed to her! They call her the "sad little girl" because no one could get her to smile for the camera. We will call her Zoe Renae: A Life Reborn, which is our prayer for her. We pray that joining our family will be a rebirth and the days of the sad little girl will be no more. We pray for and dream of days filled with smiles and laughter. We have seen nearly 100 pictures of her and only 1 with a smile on her face. She is VERY small and extremely shy, for now. Her mother is still alive, works at a bar, doesn't know who her father is and can no longer care for this adorable child. In her most recent pictures, they have her dressed in boy clothes...aReebok basketball jersey and khaki shorts. I told Tori that we will look back on this with her and either say, "see you were born an athlete," or "can you believe you ever wore sports apparel?" A few people have seen her picture and say she looks like me. This might be my only hope, since my nieces and nephew look just like Tori's dad.

We have officially started the process of adopting a child from Ethiopia. Tori and I both knew that this is something that was in God's plan for our lives. I knew it was in her heart since the day I met her and I know she prayed that it would be in mine. It is truly amazing to think that in a few months I will be a father. We've been talking about our "Zoe" for a year now. We haven't met her, we don't know anything about her. All we know is that Zoe means life and we feel called to bring life to this child who has no hope of life under her current circumstances. We have prayerfully considered this huge undertaking and believe that there is no way we CAN'T do it. With great joy and anticipation we are moving forward with the adoption of a young Ethiopian girl.

Thank you so much to everyone for all of the prayers and encouragement to dad and our family. We are overwhelmed by all the love that is being shown to us. The last few days have been wild. We are all still processing that there really is a light at the end of this tunnel. We feel so blessed that dad has been healed. In the words of my sister, Hope "only God". We are grateful to his wonderful doctor and nurses, but we are most grateful to the Lord- the great healer. Thank you to all who are celebrating with us.

About a month after Tori and I got married she decided she wanted a puppy. So I bought her a book that seemingly described the situation. It was called “Pigeon Wants a Puppy.” In this book, the pigeon really, really wants a puppy. It turns out the puppy was more than the pigeon had bargained for and she quickly moves on to wanting something new. Our story is quite similar, but with a twist, of course.

Tori only wanted a cute little puppy that could fit in her purse and peek out occasionally to sweetly prance around before slipping back into her bag to nap while Tori continued with her day. So she asked if we could get a little puppy like that and I said absolutely not. Days later we were searching the Internet and newspapers for what dog would be perfect for our new family. After a few hours we came across a breed that was described as small, non-shedding, hypoallergenic and a great indoor dog. We thought, this must be it; we should get a miniature Schnauzer. We looked at information online and decided we wanted a solid black male without clipped ears. We talked to a genuinely kind couple in Murfreesboro and were on our way to their house a few hours later. Of course, before we got out of town we stopped at Target and deliberated over which baby blanket he would need to be wrapped in as we drove him to his new home.

We pulled into their driveway and as we walked into their backyard, one of their two little boy puppies ran directly to Tori. We looked at both, but we were hooked by the little runt that chose Tori. We talked with the breeders for a few minutes and then headed home with our tiny, little, black fur-ball. He was adorable and we decided to name him Zeke. Zeke loved the soft green blanket with a tough dog sewn onto it that we had picked out for him.

We went directly to introduce him to his new grandparents. The first house we came to was Tori’s mom and dad. Patti was honest, saying that she’d rather have another human grandchild, but Rick was smitten. We spent some time with them and Zeke peed on the carpet, which is something that has become sort of a tradition for him. Then we took him on to my parents’ house. This is a house that is traditionally a pet-free zone.

On the way we stopped at a pet store to get a bed, some food, a black Harley Davidson collar with silver spikes, a leash, an id tag, a bag of treats and some clothes, you know, the necessities. The people were very helpful, almost too helpful, but we got almost everything we thought we would need and we headed out. Then PANIC. Tori felt a small tick on our precious new Zeke. I tried to use the tweezers on my pocketknife, but we were hurting him and couldn’t get it out. I ran back inside and quickly found special tweezers and we got him taken care of quickly. Whew, crisis #1 was over and we were ready to go. We should have seen the sign of what was to come with this cute little black runt. Anyway we arrived at my parents and they fell in love with him. Dad even wanted to hold him, which was totally out of character.

We took him home to our house, played a little bit and put him in his new cage. He cried a little but went to sleep very fast. The next morning I took him to church and introduced him to a few hundred of my closest kid friends. We could not believe how calm and good he was. Everyone was falling in love with him. Soon after we had VBS and I decided to bring him to meet all the kids and get him socialized. I took him on stage and let 800 kids pet him. Many thought he was a stuffed animal because he barely moved. This was so fun and exciting for us for a few days. During the day we left him in the volunteer room with our friend Shelley and one day she came to get me saying that Zeke had an accident in the bag Tori had been carrying him in. The smell was really bad to say the least. I was about to go on stage, so I had to get Tori to take care of him.

When I finished my responsibilities I called Tori and she was in tears. She was at the vet and the diagnosis was possibly Parvo, which my grandparents dog had just died from and it is rare that any survive. The tests came back negative, but we monitored him throughout the evening. He was barely breathing and Tori’s calls to the vet went from hourly to every 5 minutes, so she had us bring him in around midnight. I held him while she put in an I.V. and we left him to be treated for Parvo. He survived! But, this was the first of many trips to the vet. The staff talked to Zeke and us like we were old friends. I believe we were the reason for some of the upgrades we began to see around the office.

After a few months we got used to cleaning up diarrhea and feeding Zeke pills wrapped in cheese. Amy and Cissy weren’t used to it when it happened in our cabin at children’s camp, but we all moved on. Zeke really became part of our family and Tori bonded with him really strongly while he was sick. As the days have gone by he has really grown. He actually got much larger than any cute purse can hold. He also became WILD. Very little of what we read about him before we got him was true to who he is. In fact, some days we almost wish for the Parvo days. Zeke is a crazy, wild dog. He eats only wheat and gluten free food. He is highly intelligent, which makes for much trouble. He wakes up early and goes out often. A puppy is a lot of work. Tori takes care of him in the morning and I play with him at night. My family took him in as a grandchild/nephew and they keep him when we go out of town…and pamper him. Mom sews up his over-chewed toys, dad plays chase games with him and Janice bathes him everyday. He is kind of the Jones family dog as everyone takes care of him. Sophie loves to look at him and she wants to play with him, but he is still a little overwhelming for her. Will really likes the idea of him, but he is just the right size for Zeke to knock over and make a chew toy out of, so they don’t play very much. Hope takes him for walks on bedazzled leashes and talks about how wonderful he is. He is part of the family for better or for worse.

Pigeon wanted a puppy and she got it. It was simple for the storybook character as she got overwhelmed and could easily look to something new. We found out that in real life you cannot simply turn the page and move on to something the next bigger and better thing. The puppy, who is far beyond what we had anticipated, was more than just a picture on a page. We fell in love with the little guy. Zeke is pure trouble, but he is our trouble and we couldn’t imagine our story without him.

We got "the call" and arrived in Georgia 2 days earlier than we planned for sweet Lillie's arrival. I am over the moon for her, but strangely her birth was not the most excitement my life saw these past couple of days.