Not only must one go back to the year 2000 to enter Ethiopia, as they are on the coptic calendar which is 8 years behind the US.

Much of the statistics of the time mirror the US of about 100 years ago or roughly 1906 from some things i've seen.

https://www.cia.gov/library/publications/the-world-factbook/geos/et.html

The avg. age is 18, and the life expancy is around 49 years of age.  The avg wage is close to $100, and 40% are below the poveryt level.  There is no speed limits but who has a car. For a country of 79M only 164K have access to the internet, and only 725K have a land line phone, and only 866K have a mobile phone (ok i'm a geek).

If you look at old stats in the US for the year 1906:

• The average life expectancy  was 47 years
• Only 14 percent of the homes had a bathtub.
• Only 8 percent of the homes had a telephone
• There were only 8,000 cars   and only 144 miles  of paved roads.
  
• The maximum speed limit in most cities was 10 mph.
  
• The tallest structure in the world was the Eiffel Tower!
  
• The average  worker made between $200 and $400 per year 

Not that far of from Ethiopia in some ways.

Thanks so much for the prayers.  It has taken till today to get a flight to Ethiopia and back.  That is working with at least 4 travel agencies and also trying things on the web ourselves.

Apparently at this date and with the rainy season about to start most flights are booked to Ethiopia.

Praise God we now have confirmed tickets, and Hotel!!!

We’ve finally got confirmed tickets to travel to Ethiopia  (see our blog http://ouradoption.org  if you want pics, If able will update some while gone but may be difficult to do).  

We will be traveling on the evening of 7-30 (in 8 days), and won’t be back home in Dallas until 8-13.  We’ll be in London for a couple days layover on the way, then to Addias Ababa, Ethiopia, and then back home, none of it very direct or cheap….

As another tid-bit We’ll be going back in time to the year 2000, as currently the date in Ethiopia is 11-16-2000 as of today!  They never converted to the Gregorian calendar when the rest of the world did but instead stayed on the Coptic (or Alexandar) Calendar. 

Also Ethiopia has a rich history, and one of the oldest continuous civilizations in history.  They have the oldest found human skeleton, and claim to be both the birth place of coffee and the home of the true Arc of the Covent (not the one in the  the Indiana Jones Movie).  It’s a long story but the Queen of Sheba had a son with king Solomon  (Menelik I), and legend has it the arc was sent to him before Jerusalem was over-ran and the temple destroyed.  

But more factually, Ethiopia is mentioned by it’s old name of Cush in the bible many times, and home to the Blue Nile and other rivers that are mentioned all the way back to the river Gihon  which is said to have flowed out of the garden of Eden in Genesis 2:13 & 14.    We also we all know the story in the new testament with Phillip and the eunuch from Ethiopia (Acts 8:26-40).  There are many more, but those are the most referenced ones.  Also DNA has proven there were many Ethiopians of Jewish decent giving credence to their legend of some offspring with King Solomon.

The orphanage director there claims Psalm 68:31 (which states “Let Egypt come with gifts of precious metals; Let Ethiopia bow in submission to God”  NLV)  as his  verse for bring Christianity to all of Ethiopia.  They are doing some amazing work there in that regard with numerous churchs, foster homes, orpahages, schools as part of their ministry effort.

We are extremely excited.  Now for a PIC…

Also our own churh's (FBCA) Russ Dilday who works for Buckner is in Ethiopia now and emailed us this picture taken on 7-20 of our baby girl:

Apprenlty flights are booked for a period mostly getting out of Ethipia.  We keep trying diffrent routes, and being wait-listed only to not be able to get tickets.  We are working with several travel agents and trying our own hand at kayak.com but  it's hard going.

HOwever we got a recent picuture of our precious child today, and isn't she beautiful!!!!

IT has been a long an arduous journey, but we passed court in Ethiopia 7-8-2008, and we hope to travel at the end of July to bring our little girl home.

By passing court this means that legally in Ethiopia, “Sarah Meskerem Miller” is now officially our child.

We now are free to post pictures (we were prohibited before), so I’ve included one.

We will have another home visit and likely a travel meeting  next week to setup our trip to bring her home.

We now will get a US embassy appointment in Ethiopia.  We’ll then travel there to bring her to that meeting where she’ll get a medical and start the process of obtaining a  visa and passport  to enter the US.

Typically the appointment is in about 3 weeks from court approval.  And 2 to 3 days from the embassy appointment we’ll get a visa and passport to bring her home.

We are grateful for your prayers and support.  We now ask for continued prayer in travel planning and the remaining process to go smoothly.

Here is a photo of Sarah who was born on 10-23-2007  (U.S.A calendar).

Psalm 127:3a (NAS)  Behold, ^(F)children are a gift of the LORD,

• 
  
  Now we are trying to get tickets to Ethiopia and its not easy with flights all booked but we know in Gods timing we'll be there and bring her home.
  
  It will all be worth it then as we've already been much blessed in this process.
  The path GOD lays before us isn't always easy but he uses it to grow us and as Paul said if we share in Jesus' glory shouldn't we also share in his suffering as well.
  
  We are excited now and anxious but give it all to him who is able to do all things