Once upon a time, there was a wise man who used to go to the ocean to do his writing. He had a habit of walking on the beach before he began his work.

One day, as he was walking along the shore, he looked down the beach and saw a human figure moving like a dancer. He smiled to himself at the thought of someone who would dance to the day, and so, he walked faster to catch up.

As he got closer, he noticed that the figure was that of a young man, and that what he was doing was not dancing at all. The young man was reaching down to the shore, picking up small objects, and throwing them into the ocean.

He came closer still and called out "Good morning! May I ask what it is that you are doing?"

The young man paused, looked up, and replied "Throwing starfish into the ocean."

"I must ask, then, why are you throwing starfish into the ocean?" asked the somewhat startled wise man.

To this, the young man replied, "The sun is up and the tide is going out. If I don't throw them in, they'll die."

Upon hearing this, the wise man commented, "But, young man, do you not realize that there are miles and miles of beach and there are starfish all along every mile? You can't possibly make a difference!"

At this, the young man bent down, picked up yet another starfish, and threw it into the ocean. As it met the water, he said, "I made a difference to that one!"

adapted from The Star Thrower
by Loren Eiseley
1907 - 1977

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It is now my turn to post an update (this is Xavier). We have been charging full speed ahead since this all started and I simply have not had time to sit down and write out any of my own thoughts. As I am writing this now, Anne is writing out thank you notes. We’ve been thinking about how we are going to rearrange the house and particularly the kid’s bedrooms. Things to do: get rid of stuff (toys and clutter), find used bunk-beds, plan for multiple vaccinations, develop the perfect Ethiopian adoption packing list, and more. I don’t even want to think about the car situation.

This weekend we attended another five hours of training in Denver. We now have 14 of the 24 required hours of this training completed. We are so thankful for Amanda’s help in watching Zack and Jessie while Anne and I attended the training. They really enjoyed spending time with their big sister and her help was invaluable to us.

We cannot say enough about how much the support, encouragement and outpouring of love from friends and family has overwhelmed us. It has simply been awesome watching this happen and it truly humbles us. We are excited to say that we have close to two thirds of the total need for this adoption. We remain faithful that God will see this through.

Last week we received a wonderful surprise! When other parents travel to Ethiopia to bring home their children, they try to take pictures of waiting children to bring back with them. We were fortunate to receive some absolutely adorable pictures of our children. I want to share with you some of the comments from the kind woman who took these pictures for us, “…we first met and loved your children…She is so cute!! She is a very happy young lady…He smiled very easily and is such a little sweet heart. I cannot wait for you to bring these two wonderful kids home! They were excited to give and receive hugs and enjoyed the new toys we gave them. Here are a few pictures to make your day!” And did it ever make our day! Many tears were shed. It amazes me that even though we have not met these children, they are already in our hearts as though we have always known them.

Many people have praised what we are doing with this adoption; it is as though we are doing a great charitable deed by changing the circumstances for these children. We  appreciate everyone’s kind words and I certainly do not mean to minimize anyone’s sincerity. Yet, as we have traveled this path it has become clearer that we are the ones who are receiving so much. This adoption has profoundly impacted us in so many ways through these children. Speaking for myself, I can say this. Over the years God has used  several means to soften my heart. Never has He used something, someone so powerfully as these two children. I once read or heard somewhere that a person does not go into adoption and come out unchanged; this is so true. It is difficult to explain but perhaps I can say it like this. For thirteen years I have pursued my God. I have sought to know Him, mainly through academics and religiosity. There have been many times at which I have felt closeness with God, but nothing like this. It was when I first looked at the faces of these two children that I was overcome with awe, feeling as though I was gazing into the face of Christ Himself. How does one respond to that, other than to fall to the ground crying out, “woe is me!” I will not presume to know what God is doing but I do know that much has and will continue to change in huge ways for the Pachecos!

Bless you!

p.s. we will be posting an area on this blog that give more information on the adoption process along with our experiences, tips, insights that we are learning in the process. Stay tuned.

Tags: adoption

Yesterday we learned that our Home Study has been approved by the state! We were told, "it never happens this fast" and this wasn't the first time we've heard this! Many times paperwork has moved unusually quick. We are very encouraged at each step and even more excited!

At this point our whole packet will go to Washington DC for approval and then on to Ethiopia for translation and a court date. This is where we need your prayers. As we have said before, we hope to get in before the courts close for the rainy season. So far, they seem to be staying open longer than usual and we are hopeful that we will receive a court date before the end of July! Of course that could mean that we travel in early September, which means I should start packing immediately!

One more step this week is our appointment with United States Citizenship and Immigration Services (USCIS). We go to Denver on Thursday with more paperwork and need to get our special fingerprinting done for $80 per person! Thankfully, the charge is not per finger.
We are very grateful and humbled by the outpouring of support, both in prayer and in financial help. So far, we have raised and covered over one-third of the expenses towards this adoption. We are very encouraged by this. We have more to go, and we remain faithful that God will see this through. Please email us if you would like to receive a copy of our fund-raising letter and a picture of the children.

In case you noticed the name change on our blog today, do not be concerned! We took the names of the children off of the website because we learned that the Ethiopian government 'frowns' on their children's names used online to raise money. They also do not appreciate the photos online, that is why we mailed photos rather than posting them online. We are still anxiously waiting to bring the same two children home and they become more a part of our family every day.

Tags: adoption

When we started this website we intended to post regularly about all the exciting family/adoption news in our life. That was about three weeks ago and all we have done since is paperwork! Here are some updates on our process in adopting from Ethiopia.

The reason for the rush:

The simple answer is that we have the pictures of two adorable children on our refrigerator, in my purse, on Xavier’s desk, computer and telephone and basically always in front of us, and we want to go get them ASAP!

The other answer is that the rainy season in Ethiopia is fast approaching. This period in Ethiopia can be two to three months long and involves such heavy rain that the power is frequently out. With the power on and off much of the time the courts simply shut down. We don’t know when they will close or how long they will stay closed as it varies each year. If we can get our paperwork to Ethiopia before the courts close we have a good chance at traveling in September or October. If we don’t make it in before court closure we could wait until November or even longer. After this week the paperwork will be out of our hands and we will be praying that it moves quickly through Washington D.C and Immigration, arrives in Ethiopia to be translated and we get a court date before the courts close. We will not be in Ethiopia for the court date but that is the date that the kids could become officially part of our family! We are looking forward to that day!

Also in the last few weeks our wonderful social worker worked incredibly hard to get our home study done for us. She spent four and a half hours with us one Saturday! I don’t know how she felt but we were exhausted!! The big news is that our Home study is complete! We signed it today! Reading the fifteen pages was a little like reading a book about ourselves and a little strange. It was also kind of humorous to read another's perception of us!

Now that we are done with the paperwork we are focusing more attention on raising support. We have been overwhelmed by the kind encouragement we have received from friends and family. We are also incredibly grateful for the support that has come in through Kingdom Kids Ministry. We are truly blessed by the generosity of so many! We do not yet have a list of contributors so we cannot thank each of you personally – yet! Please know that we are extremely appreciative of your support! Now that our homestudy is complete, and the dossier is almost finished we are excited to be two really big steps closer to bringing these children home!

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• According to a 2004 survey, in the Southern region where our children came from, none of the inhabitants have access to potable water
• One in ten children in Ethiopia dies before their first birthday
• One in six children dies before their fifth birthday
• 44% of the population of Ethiopia is under 15 years old
• 60% of children in Ethiopia are stunted because of malnutrition
• The median age in Ethiopia is 17.8 years
• 1.5 million people are infected with AIDS (6th highest in the world)
• 720,000 children have been orphaned by AIDS alone, and there are 4.6 million orphans in Ethiopia
• Per capita, Ethiopia receives less aid than any country in Africa
• In the 90s the population (3%) grew faster than food production (2.2%)
• Drought struck the country from 2000-2002 (first year no crops, second year no seeds, third year no animals)
• Half the children in Ethiopia will never attend school. 88% will never attend secondary school
• Coffee prices (Ethiopia’s only major export) fell 40-60% from 1998-2002
• Ethiopia’s doctor to children ratio is 1 to 24,000
• In 1993, after 30 long years of war, Eritrea broke from Ethiopia and became an independent nation leaving Ethiopia landlocked without any major seafaring ports

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Welcome to our new blog where we intend to keep family and friends up to date with the happenings in the Pacheco household. In actuality, this blog site was put up to journal an event in our lives that will impact us, our family and our friends in a huge and wonderful way. We can't say much about it YET. Please stay tuned, subscribe to the blog and be ready.

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