Introducing Galeta

While he will not be home for a couple of months, G-boy is now legally our son. Hallelujah!!! We have loved him for so long and it makes our hearts burst that we are legally each other's now! And therefore we can now show you a picture.

G-boy's name is Galeta and he is sweet, smart, well-adjusted, and handsome. Aren't all Soutter kids? (wink, wink).

We got to spend time with Galeta each day from Sunday through Thursday. We so enjoyed him.

On Sunday we met him at his orphanage in Gimbie which is 12 hours west of the capital. Our van pulled up outside the gate and honked the horn. Most orphanages, guest houses, homes are behind locked metal gates. Here is a picture of the gate and our van waiting.


Galeta had been waiting excitedly. He couldn't wait for the nannies to open the door of the orphanage so he jumped out the window and ran to meet us. Here is the window he jumped out of:


We were hardly out the van and there he was. We all hugged tightly for several minutes and Su and Rob cried. What an incredible moment in time. The son we had been pursuing and praying for and loving for a year was suddenly in our arms. We can only imagine what he was thinking.

Galeta held our hands and walked us inside and showed us around the orphanage. Several things stood out right away:

Galeta obviously loved his nannies very much and they loved him as well; most of them cried when it was finally time for Galeta to leave for good.

Galeta loves little kids and did an excellent job taking care of all the younger kids around the orphanage. We had such a fun time watching him gently carry the kids around or ensure they had a toy to play with.

Galeta has some well developed gross motor skills. We had a brought a ball and Galeta could catch and throw with no problem. Soon he was ready for a higher challenge and would use his hand to bat the ball back when it was thrown.


We also discovered that Galeta was excited to have new brothers and sisters. In addition to the ball, we brought Galeta a small picture book with photos of the family. Galeta turned from page to page and kissed the pictures of his new siblings. Our hearts sang.

We will post more about the next 2 days traveling back to the capital with Galeta, about our time with Galeta at the new orphanage, and about the other adventures that we were given in Ethiopia.

So come back tomorrow. . .or if you'd like our posts sent to your email, enter your info below and hit the subscribe button. An email will be sent to your email address to confirm that you do indeed want our posts sent to your email so you will want to open that email and click the button.

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More soon. Thanks for coming alongside us. We could so tell ya'll were praying for us while we were gone.

Prayer Cheat Sheet For When We Are in Ethiopia!

A girlfriend created a "prayer cheat sheet" for each day that we will be in Ethiopia. I thought I would attach it here. . it tells you what we are doing each day and some prayer points.

We have been feeling your prayers as we prepare and would sooooo appreciate prayer for us, for G-boy, and for Anna, David, Brooke, and Jonathan and for their caretakers while we are gone.

And if you missed it. . my girlfriend created the below prayer cheat sheet from this blog post here.

Thanks for coming alongside us-
Rob and Su

Please consider joining me in prayer for Rob and Su Soutter, and their 4 children as they prepare to bring the newest member of their family home from Ethiopia. This is the first of 2 trips Rob and Su will take to Ethiopia. G-boy (6 years old) will not come home with them this trip. This trip is where the court legally declares G-boy and the Soutters each others.

Date	Description	Pray For
1/20/11 - Thursday	18 hours of travel (Friday morning arrival) in Addis Ababa	Pray for safe and uneventful travel. Pray for the 4 children here at home. Pray for their caretakers.
1/22/11 - Saturday	10 hour drive to Nekemte YWAM Orphanage. Stay overnight here.	Pray Rob and Su do not get car sick on drive. Pray for restful night & energy for the next part of the journey.
1/23/11 - Sunday	2 hour drive to Gimbie YWAM Orphanage to meet G-boy for the first time. Spend day getting to know G-boy, visiting with his nannies, visiting the market, the 7th day Adventist Hospital and YWAM’s street ministry. Drive 2 hours back to Nekemte	Pray for their first meeting, for heart clicking between son and parents. Pray for wisdom, to hug or not to hug, to know what to say.
1/24/11 – Monday	Drive 10 hours back to Addis Ababa with G-boy.	Pray that G-boy is at peace, that he understands all that is happening, that he does not get car sick
1/24/11 – Monday Evening	Take G-boy to a new orphanage which will be his home until Rob and Su pick him up 8 – 12 weeks later. Rob and Su anticipate this to be the hardest part of the whole journey. How will they leave their newfound son in this place that he has never seen?	Pray for supernatural peace, for an understanding that Rob and Su will come back to take him home.
1/25/11/ - Tuesday	Visit with G-boy in his new orphanage, rest, and possibly look around Addis a little.	Pray for good fellowship between mom, dad and son.
1/26/11 - Wednesday	Court Day!! This is where G-boy will become officially our son and we will become officially his parents	Pray there will be no hiccups and they pass this day. There have been many cases that do not pass the first time thru and this delays bringing the child home, so pray that they pass this Wed. Pray that no additional paper work in needed. Pray for favor with the judge.
1/26/11 - Wednesday night	At 10:15pm, they leave to return to Raleigh. Rob and Su say, “I can't imagine how we will feel, probably excited to be done with this leg of the adoption journey, relieved to be headed home and excited to see our 4 kiddos, and heavy with the pain of leaving our newest son.”	Pray for uneventful travel. That Rob and Su are not delayed in getting home (for the sake of the caregivers, for the sake of Rob and Su and their 4 kiddos here). Pray for emotions, pray that they are able to process all that has happened, they have seen, etc.
1/27/11 – Thursday	After 24 hours of travel, they will arrive in Raleigh at 2:00 pm on Thursday, Jan 27th.	Pray over jet lag, culture shock, emotions. Pray Rob and Su are able to share with 4 kiddos all about Ethiopia and G-boy. Pray Rob and Su do not get sick upon their arrival home. Pray for 2nd trip to come soon.

Headed to Ethiopia in 12 days!

What a crazy journey adoption is. In two weeks, on January 20, we will board a plane for 18 hours of travel to the other side of the world. We will be 8 time zones from Raleigh, NC. I have posted a clock on the right hand sidebar of this blog, down at the bottom, that shows what time it is in Ethiopia right now; check it out.

The trip will be hard, tiring, uncomfortable and unfamiliar. But we can't wait to go. We will get to see Ethiopia, meet our G-boy, and go to court where he will become ours and we will become his. G-boy will legally be our son; we will legally be his parents! Wow! Here is G-boy holding our picture. Once we are legally each others, we can post a full picture of G-boy.

If all goes well at court, we will return 8-12 weeks later to bring G-boy home.

So Thursday morning, Jan 20th, we leave from Raleigh at 6:10am. After 18 hours of travel, we will arrive in Addis Ababa, the capital of Ethiopia. It will be 8am Friday when we get off the plane. That day we will rest and perhaps shop for trinkets to remind us and G-boy of his home country.

On Saturday, we will wake up bright and early and drive west 10 hours to Nekemte, which is the last "big city" on our journey to G-boy. Our adoption agency, YWAM has an orphanage in Nekemte. We will stay the night in Nekemte. Here are some pictures of Nekemte taken from our adoption agency's blog.

The next day, Sunday, we will drive 2 more hours to Gimbie. The road between Nekemte and Gimbie is bone jarringly bumpy and Rob will most definitely need his Dramamine. However, the drive is beautiful and we will see wildlife and "National Geographic" scenery. Here are some scenes on the road to Gimbie, again taken from YWAM's blog.

YWAM has an orphanage in Gimbie too and here is where we will meet G-boy. Please pray for our first meeting. Do we hug him? Will he want to hug us? Will he understand why I am crying so hard? Will he want to call us Mom and Dad? We will bring a ball and some books to hopefully help us warm up to each other. But prayers for supernatural heart clicking would be appreciated. Here is a pic of the Gimbie Widows & Orphans Home:

We will spend Sunday in Gimbie getting to know G-boy, visiting with his nannies, visiting the market, visiting the 7th Day Adventist Hospital, and seeing YWAM's street kid's ministry.

YWAM has a ministry to the street children in Gimbie, called Abdi Borii, which provides the street children with tuition for school, school supplies, hot lunches, clothes, shoes, a place to sleep and medical care through the Adventist Hospital. These are young children found living without any adult supervision on the dangerous streets of this town. The kids must promise not to beg or gamble to stay in the program.

Sunday evening we will drive back to Nekemte to spend the night and then on Monday, we will drive the 10 hours back to Addis Ababa, only this time we will have G-boy with us!! Please pray that G-boy is at peace, that he understands all that is happening, that he does not get car sick.

When we arrive in Addis Ababa we will take G-boy to a new orphanage (his new home until we return to pick him up). We anticipate this to be the hardest part of the whole journey. How will we leave our newfound son in this place that he has never seen? Pray for supernatural peace, for an understanding that we will come back. As hard as this will be, we will do what has to be done that he can become each others forever.

On Tuesday, we will visit with G-boy in his new orphanage, rest, and possibly look around Addis a little.

On Wednesday, we will go to court. This is where G-boy will become officially our son and we will become officially his parents. Pray that there will be no hiccups and we pass this day. There have been many cases that do not pass the first time thru and this only delays bringing the child home, so pray that we pass this Wed.

That Wed night at 10:15pm we leave to return to Raleigh. I can't imagine how we will feel, probably excited to be done with this leg of the adoption journey, relieved to be headed home and excited to see our 4 kiddos, and heavy with the pain of leaving our newest son.

After 24 hours of travel, we will arrive in Raleigh at 2:00 pm on Thursday, Jan 27th. We would appreciate your prayers for us, for G-boy, for the 4 kiddos here (and their caregivers!!). We have appreciated each one of you who have come alongside us in this journey.

Help My Friend Change the World (It's Easy & Free!)

My friend Lisa is a world changer. She is a big dreamer, a woman of faith and a woman of social justice. She's the kind of woman I want to hang out with. She and her husband, David have 2 biological boys and 1 adopted girl (named Caroline) from Guatemala.

Lisa is also the Executive Director (as in she dreamed of and started!) of Caroline's Promise, a small non-profit located in North Carolina that seeks to reclaim hope for orphans in the US and worldwide. Here is Lisa with a child she sponsors in Guatemala:
Caroline's Promise gave us a grant for the adoption of our Jonathan. That is how Lisa's heart and my family's hearts initially connected. That was in 2006 and in 2008, Rob and Anna went on a missions trip to Guatemala with Lisa and a Caroline's Promise team. Here is my Anna sharing with a little girl that she is indeed a princess of the King:


Casita Adonai is a small private Christian school in a difficult area of Guatemala City, an area devastated by poverty, gangs, and lack of education. Lisa and Caroline's Promise are working with the local church in Guatemala to provide a safe, loving, quality education for some of the city's most vulnerable children. Many of them are orphans, living with grandparents or other family members. The rest of them live with their single mothers who struggle to earn $1 a day. The school, Casita Adonai provides a safe haven for these families and their children. Here is a picture of the children at Casita Adonai:

Lisa dreams of building a library for these children. She believes that by offering books, children and families will learn to read, and the cycle of poverty will begin to change.

Lisa has applied for a Kidermusik Good Beginnings Grant. If Lisa receives the most votes between now and Feb 9, she will receive $1000 to build a library at Casita Adonai in Guatemala.

Will you help change the world? It's easy!

1. Every day between January 5 and February 9, visit Kindermusik

2. Search for the project by name - Lisa Holbrook

3. Click on the Vote Button. . a window will pop up confirming your vote. If a window does not pop up, try clicking on the "View Details" Page and clicking Vote there. It really is easy!! And you can click that Vote button 10 times. 10 times a day until Feb 9th!!

Caroline's Promise is also looking for sponsors for 59 of the above kids. My Anna is going to sponsor a little girl and be her "big sister". So that means there are 58 left. It is only $35 a month. If you are interested in sponsoring a child, please email Lisa at info{at}carolinespromise4u{dot}org or call her at 336-993-9046 or visit her Caroline's Promise website by clicking here.