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.

Enter your email address:

Delivered by FeedBurner

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