and though my heart is torn i will praise you in this storm

i was sure by now,
God you would have reached down

and wiped our tears away

stepped in and saved the day

but once again, i say amen, and it's still raining

Just wanted to give an update on where we are... I will try to make this quick, but I have a feeling it might not be. You've been warned. :) First and foremost, we do not have the words to express how thankful we are for all of your prayers, words of encouragement, offers of assistance, reaching out to contacts, etc. We are completely overwhelmed by everyone back home (and in Canada, and maybe even elsewhere!) interceding for us during this trying week. God has used you all to remind us that He hasn't left us, He is in every detail, and He is holding our world in his hands. Some days, some minutes, or hours, it is hard for me to truly accept what I know to be true, but the scripture, encouragement, and prayers from others are serving as a mighty reminder of what an awesome God we serve. We know He is hearing every cry, and He has a great plan even when we can't see it. ~Psalm 34: 17-18 - When the righteous cry for help, the Lord hears and delivers them out of all their troubles. The Lord is near to the brokenhearted and saves the crushed in spirit.~

as the thunder rolls

i barely hear your whisper through the rain

"i'm with you"

and as your mercy falls

i raise my hands and praise the God who gives

and takes away

When I last left off, we were headed to the hospital the next day to find his test results. I hadn't really given much thought to "worst case scenario # 4", as it was too dreadful to think about, and our agency has never had a positive sputum test. So I figured there is no way our healthy boy could possibly be the first!!! So just to give you a good story of what the norm is here... Thursday morning the in-country staff made a call to the lab to see what the status was. The lab said the results were sent to the hospital and they could not give her any more information, we would have to contact the hospital. We arrive at the hospital at 11:15... we waited 40 minutes for someone to come down and lead us to "where we needed to go." We arrive at an office, and the nurse is asleep at her desk!! I kid you not. I said to Chase, "Oh this is going to be a good story for later!" We have been waiting over a week + 40 minutes in this hospital and you are sleeping at your desk? TIA folks, TIA. She tells us that no, the lab had not sent the results and we would need to go upstairs to talk to someone else. We get to another nurse upstairs who, after making a few phone calls, determined the results were going to be here "in 30 minutes." Of course we didn't trust that, so we told her we would go ahead and head down to the lab. 

After a 30 minute drive we arrived at the lab and they first tell us that they had already been sent to the hospital last week. Umm....what??!!! After further investigation, oh no, they weren't sent, "We will have them for you in 5 minutes." After another 30 minutes they tell us that actually, they can only release the results to the hospital, they can't tell us anything. They agreed to give the sealed results to our agency's nurse that was with us to drive directly to the hospital. They say this will take another 30 minutes. By that time it was past 2pm and we were all hungry, so we went to grab lunch while the nurse waited on the results. A little while later we get a call that oh, no, the nurse wasn't allowed to drive the results after all, but a courier is taking the results to the hospital and wait on a call from the hospital to let you know they're there.

At about 3pm we got a call from our in-country staff saying the doctor wants us to come to the hospital immediately. I had a sense that something was wrong, why all the sudden do they want us there immediately? Still, I held out hope till we walked upstairs and our agency's nurse was waiting on us. She led us to the doctor and said, "Good luck, I think it's best that I take Eliyas to play while you talk." I immediately lost it, as I knew what she meant, and thought I was surely going to throw up. It didn't take long before the doctor told us that our son has active TB. I remember sobbing so loudly and him telling me, "Madam, it's not a big deal. TB is totally treatable." Through the tears I told him it was not going to be "treatable" for us to be apart for 6 months... he then made it worse by telling us that actually, it would be 6 months of treatment + a 9 week retest. I don't remember much else of the conversation other than he was surprised by the results, as his skin test was negative and his chest x-ray was clean. But he would not budge from giving him a "Class A" classification which meant he was not clear to travel. 

We begged and pleaded and cried, but that was it... he told us a waiver was unlikely due to his age and that he would not recommend him for travel. We asked how likely it was that he was contagious and he said very unlikely, since he is a child and has absolutely no symptoms. We told him how that made no sense then, that he would not change the classification and he blamed it on the CDC. So I then asked him how we even know that these are the correct test results. His file read "Elias X"!! He showed me his picture inside his file and said that is how they know... I explained the mix-up last week with our agency being given info on "another Eliyas" and he assured me that this was not a mix-up. I kept repeating Romans 12:12 to myself as I was sitting in that chair, "be patient in tribulation, be patient in tribulation, be patient in tribulation..." 

and i'll praise You in this storm

and i will lift my hands

for You are who You are 

no matter where i am

and every tear i've cried

You hold in Your hand

You never left my side
and though my heart is torn

i will praise You in this storm

We made it back to our guest house and I spent the rest of the evening trying to keep it together. I cannot even wrap my mind around 9 months without him. How on earth can we abandon him here for 9 months? We promised him we would be together forever the day before, and that he would never sleep in an orphanage bed again. How would he ever trust us if we left him? We contacted our agency, who made contacts for us, and tried to start making contacts with congressmen and anyone else back home who might be able to help. I should make it clear that this is the US government causing this hold up. Ethiopia could care less if he travels. The "panel physician" has strict CDC guidelines to follow and cannot change his classification or recommend him for travel because he did test positive for mycobacterium tuberculosis in his culture. All of this hold up is from our government, who is partially shutdown. We were told again that evening by several people that a waiver is unlikely because his "paper age" is over 10. To top it all off, Chase had been feeling horrible since we landed Wednesday and was feeling even worse on Thursday. So unfortunately, he was pretty much out of it once we got back. I felt like I was all alone trying to fight this battle, during my first week of parenthood!  I prayed that this would all miraculously be over in the morning when we went to embassy, that they would agree it was a mistake and we would be on our way next Tuesday. That night, I had a nightmare that all this was happening, only to wake up to find out it wasn't a nightmare.

i remember when 

i stumbled in the wind

You heard my cry to You

and You raised me up again

my strength is almost gone

how can i carry on

if i can't find you

Friday morning, we set out to the hospital to beg the doctor to change his classification. He wouldn't budge so we headed over to embassy to see if we could get some answers from them. To add to the nurse that was asleep at her desk the day before, the girl at the desk at embassy that was "too busy to see us" that day (we just went anyways) was on Facebook when we arrived. Seriously? We made our way to window #2 and I only got a few sentences out before the guy asked, "Are you Kerlin family?" I said yes and he told me that they couldn't see us today. There was only one person that would be able to help us and they were out, and don't we know that embassy closes at 12 on Fridays? Conveniently, they are also closed Monday for Columbus Day, and Tuesday for some Muslim holiday. "We will see you Wednesday afternoon! Thank you, have a good day!" I told him thank you as the tears poured. The only upside to this trip was that they had the nicest bathroom in all of Ethiopia, I could have cried in there all day.

i lift my eyes unto the hills

where does my help come from?

my help comes from the Lord

the Maker of heaven and earth

We headed back to the guest house after that. Chase was feeling even worse and slept until dinner time and I let Eliyas play too many video games and watch too much TV while I spent the afternoon trying to hide tears and trying not to be too angry. I was angry. Angry at God, angry at the doctor, angry at the embassy, angry at the government, angry at Ethiopia for having such a high rate of TB ("Madam, over 50% of people in Ethiopia have TB, it's really not that big of a deal," the doctor told me.) I just about lost all hope that afternoon. I knew in my head that none of this was surprising God, but I was having a hard time believing that He hadn't forgotten us. How could this be happening?? 

Throughout the day, family and friends prayed, sent encouraging messages and scriptures, and asked for prayer on our behalf. I can tell you that just as I thought I was going to come apart at the seams, your prayers and encouragement held me together. (I keep saying I, because Chase was literally dead to the world for the entire day after we got back from embassy. That didn't help anything at all!) Friends and family all throughout the day were making contacts and trying to help find all 3 of us a fast way home! We are so grateful for those of you who did lots of legwork on our behalf! We went to bed that evening knowing that friends and family were going to be gathering at my parent's church to pray for us while we were sleeping that night. We prayed for miracles to take place and at that point, we mostly needed peace, renewed hope, and healing for Chase so he could help me through this nightmare! 

I woke up Saturday to some good news from a couple different people. One specifically is a fellow adoptive mama that we met in Ethiopia last trip. She is from Canada, not with our agency, and just happened to be picking up her beautiful daughter while we were there visiting Eliyas. Just in the last couple of weeks we have connected on Facebook and I had a message from her that she had been tracking down people throughout the night and had some very positive news from some people who have just recently had the same experience-- with a good outcome!!! She got me in touch with a mom who has been an amazing resource so far and has given me such hope that we might have a chance at a waiver. It might take a while (7 weeks for them), but I finally had hope that we might not have to leave our boy for 9 months. It wasn't till later on that evening that I realized, wow, God is in every detail. Had our paths not briefly crossed in Ethiopia a couple of months ago, she would have never been able to connect me with this contact! It was a good reminder that He hasn't left us, He's not giving up on us, and He is working out every detail. ~Philippians 4:7 - And the peace of God, which surpasses all understanding, will guard your hearts and your minds in Christ Jesus.~ Colossians 1:17 - And he is before all things, and in him all things hold together.~

Today has been a good day. I have more hope, more peace, Chase is feeling better for the most part, and Eliyas has been especially cheerful and in a good mood. To top it all off, my friend Ashley arrived in Ethiopia with her husband to pick up her handsome boy to bring him home!! We have been online friends since about the time we got E's referral, and I am so thrilled that we got to meet in our sons' home country! I am going to bed this evening with the 2 guys I love most in the world sleeping under the same roof and I know that we serve a mighty God who has this whole thing under control. ~James 1: 2-4 - Count it all joy, my brothers, when you meet trials of various kinds, for you know that the testing of your faith produces steadfastness. And let steadfastness have its full effect, that you may be perfect and complete, lacking in nothing.~

Thank you for your prayers friends, we ask you to please not stop now. We go back to embassy Wednesday morning and we are hoping and praying for a miracle!

**lyrics to Casting Crowns' "Praise You In This Storm"