Randy’s sister Julie & Cindy, Grammy and MacKenzie, traveled to Ethiopia to bring newly-adopted Ermias home.  Ever the adventurer, Julie set her mind to tracking down Daniel’s and David’s older sister Tigist.  Despite having virtually no shared language or contact information other than “somewhere in or near Adama,” they set out.  Naturally, they had no problem locating her and arranging to meet her at a hotel with WiFi.  Those who know Julie understand.

It was time to introduce Tigist to Skype and to give her a first-hand visual look at how her brothers are doing!  What an amazing time we had (although it was about 2:00 in the morning our time on a school day).  The only thing that could have made it better would be if the boys could communicate in Amharic which, unfortunately, they don’t remember.  But with Julie’s host as a translator, all the messages got through just fine.  There were plenty of tears on both continents as we visited.  Tigist had never heard of Skype and was probably wondering how we fit her brothers into that little thing called an iPad.

We also got to see Tigist’s son Naol.  What an adorable little boy!   Tigist is doing well, and showed our family to her home.  There, they met her husband and brother (yes, that makes him Daniel’s & David’s half-brother also).  Additionally, Julie was able to take pictures of some of Tigist’s pictures.  So we now have baby pictures!!!  And pictures of the boys’ mother and father.  This visit was such a blessing to all of us; we can’t thank you enough, Julie (and the rest of the traveling crew).

We posted a few of the pictures.  Click on the one shown and take your time enjoying these pictures.  We still look at them often.