Court Trip Tips from Jan 2011

Courts trip Tips from Jan 2011

We brought a lot of snacks and did not really need them. We were full from most of our meals..they were nice for the airplane though.

You end up taking your shoes off a lot at the orphanages and TH, so it is nice to have on socks for that. On the orphanage visit day, I didn't wear socks and I wished that I would have.

The laundry service at the guest house is awesome. 39 cents to wash a tee shirt and they use the same laundry detergent as the TH so my clothes smelled like baby Sarah’s :)

I wish I would have taken chocolate for the nannies at Kids Care and KVI

Kingdom Vision said that they needed clothes for kids ages 4 -13. They had lots of baby clothes.

They have Kids Care tee shirts when you go visit there. They are $20. We bought two because that is where our son was at.

Island Breeze was my favorite place to eat. The chicken quesadillas are yum.

Bring a blanket to spread out on the grass at the TH. Our group was big so there was not a lot of room on the porch.

The reason they want you to take the nanny gifts to the back is that the night shift nannies were getting upset that they were never given gifts. So now they have a “store” and do a lottery and every nanny gets to chose things from all the gifts.

I love the Guest House workers. They are all so sweet. Abby would take a bag of chocolate down with her every morning and pass them out to all the staff. They loved her. :)

The coffee is so good, but the creamer is boiled milk. It would have been nice to bring my own creamer ( like the individual coffee mates)

There is also hot water all the time and I brought caffeine free tea bags for evening. It was a nice touch of home.

There are no wash clothes in the Guest House, so pack some. They only last about 2 days and start to smell funny. I just threw them in with my laundry.

Take earplugs and sleep meds for sure! The dogs are crazy loud!

Wifi is so slow! We had a full guest house and that could have been part of the problem. I woke up at 3am one morning and was able to upload photos pretty quick. After midnight until about 6am is your best time to be online. If you are a Mac user download firefox. It supposedly works better than safari

We took outfits to try on Sarah Faith and snapped pictures of her every day. It was a fun thing to do with our time. We brought a lot of bubbles, balls, rocket balloons..fun toys for Micah. I didn't bring any art supplies or books and I wish I would have, He needed a little down time during the day when he got tired.

They LOVE electronics! A leapster would have been great. Micah played games on my phone and borrowed a DS one day.

Go to the spa!! A lot in our group chickened out but the massage was wonderful and was only $10! A pedicure was only $7 ..Only be aware if you do not get massages regularly, it will make you feel kinda flu- like the next day. :(

If there is anything you want or need just ask! We didn't have time to go to the coffee factory so Job took up a coffee order for us. Same with Amharic Bibles. They found them for us and we paid in advance and they dropped them off.

The airport has shops that you can buy last minute souvenirs at. They are more expensive than the market, but not by much. So if you forgot to get some things, you can always pick it up there.

Court is really no big deal. You go in a room and wait with a bunch of other people for your name to be called. The judge called our group in by 2 or 3 families at a time. You even answer the questions at the same time. Mostly yes or no and she doesn't even give you time to elaborate. The hardest part was not knowing the outcome. Did we pass? Did we not pass? What was missing? We pretty much knew nothing after court, but we received an email the very next day letting us know what was missing and when our next court date was. Apparently if you pass the judge will say,” He/She is yours.” Thats about all the knowledge you get!

Get some Cipro from you Dr before you go! we didn't need it over in ET, but I got a stomach bug the day I got home ( airplane food?) I am so glad I could start taking it right away and didn't have to go to the doctor as soon as I got home.

We took a day and went out of the city to Trees of Glory ( Children’s Hope Chest) We hired a driver with another family and spent the afternoon there. It was so nice to get out of the city and to see the work going on there. We stopped and bought a TON of bananas and Mangos for only $21! They were very thankful for fresh fruit. If you sponsor a child at TOG you can email them and they will try to make sure she is present. It is just an amazing work the director is doing there with very little. I promise you will be blessed if you go!

If you have any questions about the court trip feel free to email me!