I just think it is so remarkable that I can send a prayer request out to all of you, and you will pray for a complete stranger in another state, that neither one of us has ever met. It is such a touching, miraculous thing to me, God is so awesome:) So, even though I was going to use this blog for just updating purposes, I feel led to have all my friends out there praying for my Ethiopian adoption yahoo group friends and the precious babies we are waiting for. Also, here is a blog address of someone who has adopted two children from Ethiopia, the adoption agency sent us her blog entry, it was so inspiring. It gives a slight glimpse of what some of these children go through before they are adopted, and the mothers who love them enough to give them up. I still struggle with this, but know God is in control. Her blog is http://family-from-afar.blogspot.com/. I'm going to copy a prayer request from another yahoo group friend for the prayer of her baby girl for surgery on Tues. Thank you guys so much for praying! If I can do nothing else in our wait for our baby, it's to pray for other families and babies that are struggling right now and for any of you guys who need me to also! Her request is:

We brought our daughter home in July at age 7 months. As some of you know, we were able to get expedited approval of her visa by the Embassy because of several health concerns. We are SO THANKFUL this happened. Tomorrow marks four weeks since we came home. In that time, we found that more than half her stomach is in her chest cavity due to a hiatal hernia. She has severe acid reflux that is causing some significant problems. None of these were known while we were in Ethiopia. We knew she had a floppy larynx, which we suspected was the cause of her recurrent pneumonia and strider (noisy breathing). Our baby girl, Quilla Rose Tigist Belote will have surgery next Tuesday morning to put her stomach back in the right place, a procedure to reduce the acid reflux, insert a tube in her stomach, and have a procedure on her larynx. She'll be in the operating room 2-3 hours. We covet your prayers during the surgery and in the weeks of recovery that will follow. We trust that God will protect our precious little one and get her on the road to excellent health. The silver lining in terms of her health is that she has gained nearly 2 pounds in four weeks, even with all these significant issues. Praise the Lord! We are beyond blessed by our beloved Quilla. She has brought so much love and sunshine into our lives. We have such an amazing feeling that our family is now complete.