We are very hopeful that this week we will hear that our case has been submitted to Embassy. Two families that we traveled with, there cases were submitted to Embassy this past week. Our American World Adoption agent told us that our case would most likely be submitted Wednesday (April 10), which would mean we would most likely travel two to three weeks following our submission.

We are overwhelmed by all of those who have prayed and supported us in so many ways.

We will keep you posted, as soon as we hear about our submission to Embassy we will let you know.

Sam & Diane

We are so thankful for the donations that continue to come in!

Last night we shared our pictures and stories of our trip to Ethiopia with our church family. It isn't very fun seeing yourself in pictures but it was so great to share pictures of Bereket with our church family.

Update - on Friday we received word from a family in Ethiopia that our son and other children whose families have passed court were loaded in a van and taken to the Embassy for visa pictures. That means they are one step closer to coming home.

Thank you for praying with us and may you know the Victory of Jesus this Easter!

Sam & Diane

 http:/bennett.give5.us/

God has blessed us in so many ways and we are so thankful for everyone who has followed our journey so far.

Please take a couple of minutes to visit our link: http:/bennett.give5.us/
Please pass it on to as many people as you can.

We appreciate all the love and prayers of those who followed our journey.

Sunday night 5:p.m. at the First Church of God we will show some of our slides and share about our trip, we would love for you to share this time with us.

Blessings, Sam & Diane

Praise Jesus, we made it home!!!

We boarded our plane in Washington DC only to find weather in Chicago gave us an hour and half delay, which means we sat on the plane for that 1 hour and half before we took off. I would rather be safe than sorry.

We landed in Chicago, retrieved our luggage, found our shuttle and headed home.
We arrived back in Nappanee around 9:35 p.m. Monday evening with a warm welcome from our kids.

We shared a few experiences with them before a hot shower and a warm bed.

Thank you so much for all your love and prayers.
This concludes our first adventure to Ethiopia.

Many of you are asking, when will we be able to bring Bereket home.

We have been told our paper work should be submitted to the US Embassy in Nairobi Kenya a week after our court date, so please pray for expediency.

We have been told this process will take between 4 & 8 weeks.
As soon as we hear something we will let you know plans for our next adventure to Ethiopia.

Blessings, Sam & Diane

                            Playing a game of Checkers, I think Bereket won! 

Sunday afternoon was very difficult telling our son good-bye and that we would be back as soon as we can to bring him home.
We are praying the U.S. Embassy will work quickly for us and the other families who have gained legal custody of their children this past week.

We ate dinner at the guest house and then left for the airport.

The airport in Ethiopia is one INTERESTING experience, especially when you don't speak the language and English is hard to come by.

We can say we have been to Rome, well at least for an hour. Our plane landed in Rome to refuel at 3:00 a.m., I am very thankful for that.

We finally made it to Washington DC, 17 hours later on one plane, Eeeh!
All in all the ride went pretty well.

It took us almost two hours to get through customs, re-checking and security.

We are now waiting for our flight to Chicago.
At this point, we can't wait to get home.

Thank you again for your prayers and our safe & healthy travel so far.

Sam