March 18th - Day 6

Today was a day of fun and celebration! We went shopping in the morning to buy souvenirs. For lunch we went to our agency's guest home to enjoy a traditional Ethiopian meal and coffee ceremony. It was fun to try all the new foods. The agency director said that the square piece of food at the top left corner of the plate takes six months to make. He said that we probably would not eat it if he told us about the process that it goes through. Thanks, but I would rather not know!

For the coffee ceremony, they start with green coffee beans. They roast them over an open fire and then they grind them with this rod and wooden container. The coffee smell was wonderful.

The coffee had a slight chocolate flavor and it was served with popcorn. We loved sitting around the table with our travel group sipping coffee and chatting. We tried to just soak in all the culture during our last day in Ethiopia. We are going to miss the people here and we will remember our experiences forever!

Here is one last shot of our travel group. We enjoyed spending time with these couples and their children. One of them was from the Chicago area and the other from near New York City. We left Ethiopia at 11:30pm on the 18th. We flew to Frankfurt and then to Chicago. We had a very short layover to rush through immigration and make our connecting flight to Peoria. We barely made it and we were the last three people to board our flight. At 4:00 on the 19th we were warmly welcomed home by our family and friends at the airport. It was good to see Kyler and Macy again, and were we now officially a family of five. We thank God for a wonderful and safe trip, but we thank Him mostly for our third child - Isaiah!