Laughner's Journey to Ethiopia

Thank you so much for all the feed back. We need to change the continents a little. We are looking at a black outline with the grey t-shirt showing through. The black rectangle would also show up. We were hoping to get this done this week. However the death of Tom's dad has slowed things down. We will let you know when we get our final image to print. Hopefully we can have the design on here later this week.

I am even more excited to say that there were more referrals yesterday. The total for the week is, 9 children were matched with their forever families. The children ranged in age from 1 month to 9 years old. Congratulations to all these children and their new families. Lets pray for more referrals and quick court dates and travel. Another good thing is that America World partnered with another orphanage this week. This should help to keep wait times down as the program grows. Yeah!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!

I am excited to say that 3 families from America World received referrals yesterday. There was a referral for a baby girl and 2 small boys. Yeah. Please pray for quick court dates and safe travels. Congratulations families.

We are considering making t-shirts as a fundraiser to help with the cost of travel to Ethiopia to pick up our little one. We are wanting to take along our two oldest girls. We feel that it would be a good experience for them. We plan on leaving the two younger boys with Grandma and Grandpa. This is the graphic that Tom created for our t-shirt. What do you think? Should we put it on a gray shirt or a different color? Would you be interested in this shirt? Please click on leave comment and leave us feed back. Thanks for your help and support during this adoption process.

Welcome home to the Steiger Family. They made it it back from Ethiopia yesterday. There are are court dates scheduled for April 11th for some other families with referrals. Let's keep them in our prayers. Once they have a successful court date, they can schedule their trip to Ethiopia to pick up their little ones. We pray for lots of referrals this week. We pray for all of the people who are working so hard for our adoptions. Happy Easter and Happy Spring.

I just wanted to share with you, that there are 3 families in Ethiopia, this week picking up their children. One family is the Steiger's from New Hampshire. You can follow there trip at http://www.thesteigerclan.blogspot.com/ This is a family that we are going to get to meet this spring. We are going to meet at Yankee Candle for some fun and then dinner. Please keep this family in your prayers.

The Laughner Family We are Tom and Lori Laughner. We live in Belchertown, MA with our four children and dog. We moved here about 19 months ago from IN. We attend Dwight Chapel Church. We are the 5th and 6th grade leaders for Pioneer Club. I enjoy reading, (especially Karen Kingsbury books), scrapbooking, cooking, baking, and talking to friends. Tom is the director of educational technologies at Smith College. He enjoys reading, working around the house and the yard, and following sports. Our children: Sara is a freshman in high school, she played JV volleyball, and freshman basketball. She is active with the youth group and loves babysitting. Allison is in fifth grade. She plays piano, the clarinet, and basketball. She is practicing for piano parts in the "School House Rock Jr" play. Michael is in second grade. He plays guitar, basketball, soccer, baseball, and flag football. Benjamin will be five in 11 days. I am home schooling him for preschool. He is a real reader and enjo...

We are currently waiting for a referral. Tomorrow will be three months of waiting. We just heard from our adoption agency that the wait time for boy referrals is 5-7 months, and girls 7-9 months. We are hoping to get a referral between May and July. We are praying for God's perfect time. We are very excited for things to happen. America World our adoption agency has scheduled a conference call for tomorrow from 2-4. Hopefully this will give us a better understanding of how things are going to work. There are a lot of new families switching over from El Selvador to the Ethipia program. We are excited about the growth of the ET. adoption program. Please continue to pray for our adoption.

Did you know in Ethiopia: One in ten children die before their first birthday One in six children die before their fifth birthday 44% of the population of Ethiopia is under 15 years old 60% of children in Ethiopia are stunted because of malnutrition The median age in Ethiopia is 18 years 1.5 million people are infected with AIDS (6th highest in the world) 720,000 children have been orphaned by AIDS alone Per capita, Ethiopia receives less aid than any country in Africa In the 90s the population (3%) grew faster than food production (2.2%) Drought struck the country from 2000-2002 (first year no crops, second year no seeds, third year no animals) Half the children in Ethiopia will never attend school. 88% will never attend secondary school. Coffee prices (Ethiopia’s only major export) fell 40-60% from 1998-2002. Ethiopia’s doctor to children ratio is 1 to 24,000. In 1993, after 30 long years of war, Eritrea broke from Ethiopia and became an independent nation leaving Ethiopia landlocke...