2 years ago today & a prayer for our son

2 years ago today was the day we first met our son, Ezra.

This was one of the first pictures we received from our adoption agency in December of 2006. Ezra was about 3 months old when this picture was taken.


Our first chance to hold our son
Tearful thankfulness of the Lord's goodness to us

Back at our hotel, Ezra was fast asleep and we were staring at him wondering, 'Is he always going to sleep like this? Is he always going to be this calm? What is his personality going to be like?' (2 years later: No, he will rarely sleep like this, he is rarely calm and he has a lively personality)

Heidi holding Ezra after he had woken up from his first nap with us.

Ezra first experience with Heidi's baked french toast

Ezra loves the sprinkler

Ezra's penetrating eyes

Ezra and Olivia during Christmas time in 2008.


This is a good picture that sums up Ezra's personality on most days.

A Prayer for our son:

2 years ago today the Lord graciously blessed us and placed you 'Abera' into our family. We renamed you Ezra and kept Abera (Amharic meaning for Abera: Lightning, and/or Shining) as your middle name. We named you Ezra because it is our prayer that you be a man of God who studies the Word of God, obeys the Word of God and teaches the Word of God in your pursuit of God. Ezra in the Old Testament was blessed by a close walk with the Living God of the Universe because 'the good hand of His God was on him'. (Ezra 7:9).

Ezra, our prayer for you is that you would become a man 'who is humble, contrite of spirit, and trembles at the Word of God.' (Is. 66:2) For, God will look upon you with favor and will reveal Himself to you if you cry out to God for humility, contriteness of spirit and an awe of the Word of God. We pray that you would be a man of God who flee's the tempations of this world and a man who delights in God Himself. God has given you an electrifying personality, a winsome smile, a vigor for life unmatched by but a few (your sister rivaling you in this area :) ). May the Lord bless you, keep you, and cause His face to shine upon you. May the Spirit of God dwell within you from a young age, even as the Spirit dwelt in John the Baptist from the womb. May you be drawn to Christ and may your life be spent living for, breathing for, and dying for our Great Redeemer Jesus.

2 years ago today was the beginning of our journey together. We pray you would be a boy and soon a man 'of whom the world is not worthy' (Heb. 11:38), a man who 'risks his life for the sake of the Lord Jesus Christ' (Acts 15:26), a man 'who turns the world upside down' (Acts 17:6) because of your undying alligence to the King of Kings and Lord of Lords, our Savior Jesus. We are humbled God has made your our son and we pray we would be daily examples of treasuring Christ and living in a way that displays to you that Jesus is our highest joy, our greatest passion, our all-consuming zeal, and the purpose of why we live and die and that we would be able to look you in the eye and say, 'Ezra, follow us as we follow Christ.'

We love you, cherish you and are so thankful you are our son,

Dad and Mom

Ezra's U.S.A. readoption

Yesterday, we were down at the court house for Ezra's official US Readoption. The jist of what this means is that Ezra can now get a US birth certificate and a Social Security Card as well.

With the judge

Family who were able to join us
with the adoption attorney

Ezra and Mama

Well, here is the update I told you I was going to post several weeks ago. Ezra is growing, and continues to reach milestones each week. (That is about as detailed as I am going to go.)

We needed to take some pictures of Ezra in his Ethiopian outfit before he outgrows it, which will probably be next week.

Ezra's favorite place is in his mama's arms
He is pulling himself up to the couch and walking alongside the couch. Probably only a few weeks until he trys to walk by himself.
There have been several occassions that Ezra crys for a while before he actually falls asleep during his nap time, but this is a favorite position of his...face plastered to the mattress sheet while he is perched up on his knees and his little bottom sticking staight into the air. We kind of think he is going through a growth spurt...he has been taking 2 1/2 hour naps, twice a day, and sleeping between 12-13 hours at night.

Ezra and Ethiopia starting tomorrow!

Well, we leave bright and early tomorrow morning. We will try to post every few days, though we don't know if we'll be able to post pictures or not. The Ghion Hotel has dial-up internet service, but Hi-Speed Internet is no where to be found in Ethiopia...from what we have heard. We are excited to share our son with you all and look forward to spending a week in Ethiopia. Below are some new pictures we received when the Bade's and McConnell's were able to see, hold and play with our son.

Introducing our son...Ezra

This is the first picture of Ezra we received in December of 2006.

We received this picture in February of 2007 This picture was taken in June 2007. He looks like he's gained a few pounds now. We think he's about 10 months old.
Some friends of ours are currently in Ethiopia and promised to bring back more pictures after having seen Ezra. We'll hopefully have more to post then.

Ezra 'Abera' Greenup

Hello all, we heard from our agency today and our adoption court date was successful. Ezra Abera is now legally our child. We are on vacation, so we don't have access to post a picture, but we'll do that when we get home around the 1st of August.

Thank you for praying and Praise the Lord!

We now wait for our Embassy Date, which is when we get to travel to Ethiopia. They tell us it will be 4 - 8 weeks.