Traveling through Frankfurt, Germany from Ethiopia to the US

If you are going to be traveling through Frankfurt, Germany on the way home to the US with your adopted Ethiopian child you will need a German visa for your child. You do not need one for yourself if you are a US citizen. But your adopted child WILL. Lots of people have questions about it so I am posting the answer we just gave to our agency about how it works. It was a bit of a pain, but worked out fine. We did not have good directions for doing this but my awesome husband did figure it out!

1. At the Wednesday (our agency has this day) US Embassy appointment they have to tell them that they need their papers NO LATER than Thursday morning BEFORE noon. You will need to tell them they have to get a German visa.
2. After the US embassy appointment you will need to go get biometric photos of you child, you just get them when they are taken it takes hardly any time to get, and they are not expensive. This can only be done at Erat Kilo photo studio, it is a Kodak studio on Erat Kilo. THE Awesome driver Terefe knows where it is too. His number is on our blog for driver recommendation, look for that post. He is awesome and drives only adoptive families.
3. Thursday pick up the US embassy papers and then take them directly to the German Embassy. You HAVE to take the kids. Stand in line and fill out the papers, give them the kids passports. They need to have the passports and they have to have the American visa stamped already. It takes a bit to fill out the papers, take something to entertain the child in a very happy and pleasant manner. (No messy treats, messy is bad PR for adoptions. Make sure your child is dressed nicely, and appropriate for the season. Rainy season wearing layers, at no time/season should the child's legs or arms be exposed if an infant and if an older child pants are the best bet for boys and a dress for girls, plus a jacket in rainy sesaon.) You will have to tell them that you need it by 10 am Friday, or it will be a full day from when it is requested. You will have to tell them when your flight is and that is why you need it that early.
4. You do not need to take the kids to pick up the visa on Friday. Then you are good to go.
5. When you land in Germany because you have an Ethiopian citizen traveling with you, you have to go through customs and have the visa checked and then go check back in to the terminal.

That is it! Not too bad if you know what you are doing and start asap!
You can not wait to get this rolling it will cost a lot in time and effort and maybe a delayed ticket/flight, and the German embassy is not that nice to deal with if you are late. They are very nice and work with you if you give them time and flight schedule. Just get it done asap. They speak English, and that is very helpful. They have selective hours so you should call them to make sure of the times that they are open, it varies. Your guest house host should be able to do this for you or get you the number. It is good to plan your return flight with this in mind.

Germany (Frankfurt) has a great play area up by the Mc Donalds. It is a life saver. There are lots of restaurants and a pharmacy.

Hope that this is helpful!

GospelGrass

We just had a great day out in Calhan at the GospelGrass Summer Festival click for the link. There were bands from all over, many large families playing together. Really really great gospel bluegrass music. We all loved it and want more. There is only one day left. Sunday they have stuff until 4 pm. So if you are in the area and have a mind to go out and enjoy some good music it is well worth the trip. On the web site are some other summer events around the area and further if you are interested in bluegrass.

Ark of the Covenant

Just heard amazing news and looked up the article. The Ark of the Covenant has long been an item of interest to many. Some believe it has been taken up to heaven, others say it is burried in Jerusalem. Still many, and even many scholars, believe it is indeed in Ethiopia, as the Ethiopians claim. Kept in seclusion and under lock and key for centuries, they are now announcing that a museum will be built in Axum which will house the Ark for all to see. This is amazing because they have not allowed anyone but the select priest to see it for centuries, only the guardian of the Ark could see it. Now, they are unveiling it. I personally would like to go see it, real or not.
Here is a link to the story if you are interested.

Family going to live in Ethiopia

A family who is on one of the groups I am with is going to live in Ethiopia. They will be working with SIM and Wycliff, both organizations are dear to us. We know several missionaries with Wycliff and SIM and we served in South America with SIM. Aser will be a construction manager with Wycliff and Kimberly will be teaching at Bingham Academy which is related to Carachipampa Christian School which Dave taught at when we lived in Bolivia. Each thing highlighted is a link and you can check out a bunch of cool stuff. They have five kids, the littlest one was adopted in Ethioipa. This is a YouTube of them and their blog if you are interested.

Talking to a friend and blog usefulness

The boys just got to have a skype conversation with their best buddy from Sele Enat. They were shy! I guess this is after all their normal response to a new event, person, situation. But, they had a good time and recognized Gabriel and were excited to see him. They did some talking, mostly Gabriel. :) They did ask if they could do this again and are excited to talk to him again.
I am so glad to be in contact with his family.

I have been encouraged to learn that my blog is coming up on google searches for Ethiopian Adoption info. In fact, my packing list has been declared the best there is. Our agency is even using it to pass out to families traveling. :) That is good confirmation for me. I had such a hard time finding anything when we needed it I thought, I will do what I can to have the resources out there for others. I am so glad it is being found and used and apprecitated.

tornados

Today we saw a tornado come out of the sky and it reportedly touched down a few times about 12-15 miles from our home. A friend of mine, who grew up in tornado country was here today. She noticed the unusual clouds. We get cross winds all the time here, but not the distinct swirling we saw today. We could see the swirling clouds above us and tuned in to the weather station to see what the deal was. We had heard tornado warning on the radio for East of Denver (Denver station), but none for us. So we turned on the tv to the newly acquired digital weather station (no cable or dish). The reporter was just saying that a tornado was sighted just about 2 miles east of the ElPaso county Elbert county line. We rushed out to the front porch and sure enough there was a funnel cloud coming down just on the other side of the trees. WOW! No news on if anything was damaged. It seemed to move out pretty quick and the reporter agreed. So, a tornado but not a big twister. Anyway, pretty cool. We are fortunate that our air is cool enough that a tornado has never set down up on the divide. It was frosty today.

We have been getting a lot of rain and the frogs are back in full force of song. Dave says they burry themselves in the mud and wait until it gets wet to come out. That is a ton of hybernating! Someone recently mentioned that this seemed odd for June weather. We got to thinking about it. It was like this Dave's first summer as a river guide (1992), it was like this the year we got married (outside at Glen Eyrie) in 1995, it was like this the year we built the house (2003), and it was like this the year we moved in (2004) and now in 2009. I guess we noted these years because of the events in our lives that were effected by the weather. There may be others. I think this is normal for June in the Rockies. :) In fact it is a bit light compared to some of those years. In 2004 we had and electrical outage every week for a couple months due to thunder and lightning. Last summer was awfully dry, so we are thankful. Just a little reminder that it is still Spring in the Rockies, even though it is summer nearly everywhere else, at least for a little longer.

I love it here.

Chickens and trees

Well this last weekend was quite busy. We were able to dig up some trees from some forest dwelling friends with some to spare. They are nice trees, bushy and healthy, we hope they live out here. There are 17 all together which puts up to about 45 trees outside of the garden area. We have planted all but 6, only one of those is a mature tree. The newer ones needing water are closer in so I can actually keep up with it. :) We also moved a huge pile of mulch and the front looks tons better now. The hedge row of New Mexican Privits is done and looks nice. Now on to fix up the beds after the winter of damage by rodents and the summer last year of neglect due to adoption! There are weeds glaore and overgrown plants. How does that happen in only one summer? Anyway, fun for me. I did one bed yesterday and today -- on to more. We do have our projects cut out for us. Dave fixed up the veg. garden beds and the girls pulled up all the rhubarb stalks to eat, we have too much and can't find enough people to give it too! If you live near, come get some asap!

Some other friends are moving and we now have their chickens! They are great. Olivia has "befriended" them and they really like her. She can pick up every one of them and they come to her. They are all named "fryer" or "rotisseree" so we can't let her get too attached. They lay about 7 eggs a day between them, some none, some many, they take turns. There are 7 chickens. Five Plymouth Rock Barred Chickens and Two Rhode Island Reds. They make such a nice sound, they are very loud and do not make the sound I thought chickens make. What do I know! They cackle and croon and cluck and whatever else they do...... It is really a nice sound. Dave made the yard for them out of some fencing from my parents and dug in some hardware cloth. The coop came with the chickens. It did not transport too well and a new one is now needed, but they like this one for now. :) We heard the coyotee pack in the Cherry Creek dry bed (headwaters are out our front door, but underground). They did not come close though, phew!

We also celebrated my daddy's birthday. It was a nice time and I am so blessed to have such a terrific dad to celebrate.

Wed. was our 14th wedding anniversary. We figured out we have known eachother 18 years. Nearly two decades. We get to go away this weekend to celebrate. It has been quite the year and we are blessed by the grace and goodness God has shown us in our lives which brings us closer to Him and to eachother. Without his strength this year would have a very different story to tell. Thanks be to God who works all things to his glory and good and blesses those who he loves and who he calls to follow him. I thank God for Dave.

The kids ended school well and we now have a 6th grader! Wowie, I don't think I ever really thought that would happen! And a 4th grader, how could she be so old already! And two preschoolers -one for one more year and the other for two more. When Phoebe goes to Jr. High Keds will go to Kindergarten. Call us crazy! We are happy for summer and time together to relax and play and do some yard work.

I counted this morning and I think we know of about 20 families in the area who have adopted from Ethiopia or are in some level of the process. I think we may have the need for a yearly get together. That is really exciting to us. We only knew of one when we started last year. Several friends out of town are also in the process and that is really fun for us to watch.

The boys have grown so much. They came to us in size 24 month and are now entering size 4! We are hoping to be finished with Giardia and Ring Worm soon. They are buggers to get rid of. The boys are speaking English and can communicate most things. The night before we got the chickens I was explaining to the boys about them. Kedus just did not understand and I got the idea that he had pictures of chicken nuggets with legs in his head. I said, coo-ka-loo's, which is what they called chickens in Ethiopia. The light went on in his eyes and he said, "Oh I like cookaloos!" He still refers to them as such. Chicken is what you eat, cookaloos are animals. Oh if he only knew. They also like eggs so much they ask if they made eggs every single day several times.

It has been raining for a few weeks now. We are about to get a big storm with heavy rainfall and damaging winds and hail. At least that is what is predicted. So, I had better finish this quick and get the computer shut off.