Merry Christmas!

Dear Family and Friends,

We hope this Christmas season finds you all healthy and happy as we celebrate our Savior’s birth!  This year has been one of change for us.  We haven’t changed homes, churches, or jobs but our lives have changed.  Our eyes have been opened to horrible poverty in a land far away and we will never be the same!

As some of you know, we were blessed to add our third child to our family through the miracle of adoption.  Over the last few years, we felt God calling us to care for those who have nothing and quite frankly that scared us a bit and we didn’t know exactly what that meant.  We started by sponsoring a child in Ethiopia through Compassion and we thought that was enough.  We soon felt God calling us to adopt internationally and it was narrowed to Ethiopia.

We first laid eyes on our sweet girl’s face on June 24, 2010, when we received our referral call for a sweet six-month-old baby girl.  The day started like any other but ended by being blessed with knowing whom our newest addition was.  We quickly fell in love with her sweet face and big brown eyes.  Her given name is Woynshet and we wanted to honor her birth family by keeping that as her middle name so her name is Ella Woynshet.

Brent, Leigh Ann, and Garrett made the long journey to Africa for our court date in August.  On August 3, we held our daughter for the very first time and what an AMAZING experience that was! I will never forget seeing her that sweet morning in Ethiopia.  On August 5, an Ethiopian judge officially declared her a Thomas. We returned home on August 11 and anxiously waited for our Embassy date to return to Ethiopia to pick up Ella.

Garrett quickly fell in love with her and all the children at the Transition Home and the orphanages.  All the little boys wanted to play soccer with him and he loved every minute of it.  He came home asking if we could adopt a boy who knows how to play soccer!  His eyes were opened during this trip and he has not been the same since! He has such a tender heart and is always concerned about others.  We are excited to see how God will use him.

We received an Embassy date of September 15 so Brent and I were back on a plane heading around the world to pick up our sweet girl.   While we were in Ethiopia for our Embassy appointment, we had the opportunity to meet our Compassion sponsored child, Dagmawit.  That was an experience, I will never forget as she experienced so many new things during our visit.  Ella was placed in our arms forever on September 14.  We landed in Washington, DC with our new citizen on September 18 and were reunited with our boys at the end of the church service on September 19.  It was a wonderful day and one we won’t soon forget!

That’s the most exciting part of our year!  Ella will turn one in just a few days.  She shares a birthday with Brent’s mom and we think that is pretty cool.  It will be fun to give her a cake to eat and see her open presents in the next few days. 

Ryan is five years old and in his last year of preschool.  He played soccer this year and is looking forward to playing baseball in the spring.  He is enjoying his role as big brother and loves his baby sister so much!  He loves to go to the sitter with her and they have bonded well because of the time they spend together.

Garrett is nine years old and in third grade.  He is doing very well in school and has already met his goal for Accelerated Reading.  He loves school and adores his teacher!  He played football, basketball, and baseball this year.  He tells me he is ready to play soccer next year!  He also adores his baby sister and rushes in to get her out of her crib each morning!

As for Brent and I, we are just trying to keep up with our family of 5!  He continues to work at Navajo and work on cars in his shop on his days off.  I still work full time in healthcare and love to scrapbook in my spare time. 

May God bless you and challenge you to live a changed life in the coming year!

Brent, Leigh Ann, Garrett, Ryan and Ella Thomas