Happy Birthday Boys!!

Five years ago on March 11 our boys appeared in an orphanage in Addis Ababa, Ethiopia.  Charlie has told us several times about the trip to the orphanage and what transpired in the days before.  He was about 4 or 5.  Sam probably just about a year old.

For the next 18 months, the “big house” was where my sons called home.  It’s where they slept and where they ate their meals.  It’s where they made friends and where Charlie went to school.  It’s where they both had the chicken pox.  And it’s where Sam stole his way into almost every visitor’s heart.  At least that’s what I’m assuming based on every picture I saw during their time there.  It’s most likely where Sam said his first words and it’s where Charlie learned yet another dialect of Amharic.

And it’s where they waited.

March 11, 2008.

We were still 2 months shy of starting the adoption process, but the Lord had a plan.

That day was given to the boys as their birthday.  Even though neither boy had ever celebrated a birthday.

But now March 11 means something. 

It means that we became parents.  It means that we are blessed and overwhelmed by a woman in Ethiopia who chose life for her handsome little men.  It means that on March 11^th, the Lord’s plan for our family was fulfilled as we celebrate the births of one cool and composed 10-year-old and one rambunctious and crazy 6-year-old.

I tell Charlie all the time that God knew he would be a Cook even before he was born.  March 11^th wasn’t a random day.  God knew the plan….

HAPPY BIRTHDAY, CHUCK & HAM BONE!!