One Year Ago

I'll go ahead and warn you of the very personal nature of this post. On October 3, 2007, we received a call from our adoption agency that we had been "matched" with a 4 month old baby boy in Ethiopia. In adoption world, "the call" is what you spend month after month, paper after paper, check after check, and tear after tear waiting for.

As if God Himself was trying to make the story more interesting for me to retell, I actually missed THE call. I was doing some work errands and just happened to check the phone as I drove to see a missed call from the most important area code in my life at the time.

Two minutes later, our coordinator spilled all she knew about Wondosen... all 30 seconds worth. I didn't hear a word she said. I had a real live baby waiting for me zillions of miles away! I hung up and immediately called Jake who was not close by. I obviously didn't rehearse this call because all I could say (scream actually) when he answered was "We have a BABY!" He made me promise not to look at the picture until we were together. Ugh. Fine. He raced to my office and we opened the email together. Here's what we saw...

Here's Dosen at 4 months old living in Addis Ababa at Children's Welfare orphanage. Our hearts totally melted. It's strange to look back at this picture because it really doesn't look much like the happy fatty boy that runs around our house now. After 8 months together, I know this is a look of fear and distance for him. There's a real sense of awe for us, though, knowing there was a baby to the right and left of him in this photo who could've been ours. God chose Dosen to be a Stum, and this little guy turned our family upside down in every way forever.

What did we ever do without him?